Jeff Ostrowski

In California, a few fortunate tenants are landing affordable apartments near transit stops. In Massachusetts, a move is afoot to remove limits on residential lot sizes. And in Florida, the Live Local act is slowly spurring more development.

Amid a nationwide shortage of housing, states are trying various strategies to circumvent NIMBYism and incentivize development.

Private train service Brightline has fallen far short of its projections in Florida to ferry 6.6 million passengers a year between Miami and Orlando, a level of ridership that would have generated $697 million in annual revenue.

Instead, in 2025, its second full year of service to Central Florida, Brightline carried just 3.1 million passengers and took in $214 million, according to a bond filing.

Car prices keep soaring — the average price of a new vehicle topped $50,000 for the first time last year, and the share of Americans taking on $1,000 monthly car payments passed 1 in 5, also a record.

If you’re considering a new car loan while also hoping to buy a home, you might want to think again: A hefty car payment can hinder your ability to qualify for a mortgage.
“Higher car payments eat directly into the residual income available for a mortgage payment,” says Anthony O. Kellum, CEO of Kellum Mortgage.

President Donald Trump offered two new proposals this week aimed at the stubbornly complex issue of home affordability.

Trump on Wednesday said he would move to ban institutional buyers from the housing market. Then on Thursday, he proposed a mortgage bond program aimed at lowering mortgage rates.

Will either achieve their targets? Experts are skeptical. Two previous proposals from the Trump administration — opening federal lands to housing development and introducing 50-year mortgages — mostly brought shrugs and, so far, have yet to yield results.

Mortgage rates finally may fall below 6% in 2026. A couple caveats: Lower mortgage rates usually follow bad economic news.

For years, Americans have heard this mantra: There isn’t enough housing in the United States. The ongoing shortage explains why affordability is such a challenge, and why so many Americans are spending their 30s as renters rather than homeowners.

As the housing market cools, a new narrative is emerging. Home prices now are falling in half of the nation’s 20 largest metro areas, according to the most recent Case-Shiller housing index. Builders are so desperate to sell new homes in Texas and Florida that they’re subsidizing mortgage rates as low as 0.99%.

Fast-fashion mogul Amancio Ortega built his fortune by selling bargain-priced shirts, jeans and dresses. Now, the Spanish billionaire is paying a premium for some of the Miami area’s most prominent properties.

His latest big-ticket deal came this fall. Ortega’s family office, Pontegadea, paid $274.4 million in October for the 1111 Brickell tower in Miami.

As they struggle to persuade Americans to buy new homes, homebuilders have leaned hard on a new tactic: Builders’ mortgage arms are wooing consumers with cut-rate home loans.
The average mortgage rate for new construction buyers was 5.27% during the third quarter of 2025, compared to 6.26% for buyers of existing homes, Realtor.com reported today.

More grim news: Age of first-time homebuyers hits another all-time high
Jeff Ostrowski
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The median age of first-time homebuyers has risen to 40 — the highest it has ever been, according to new data from the National Association of Realtors.
It’s not as though first-time homebuyers needed any more bad news, but that’s what they got with this dreary statistic, which tops last year’s ...

After a pandemic-era surge of money and people, South Florida’s real estate market is taking a bit of a breather, according to real estate executives who spoke Thursday at Commercial Observer’s South Florida Development & Capital Leadership Forum.

In one example, Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development, said units at his newest luxury condo tower are moving, if a bit sluggishly. But closings have at least been brisk enough that Dezer said he’s about to close on a $630 million construction loan.

Buying a home is an exhilarating and exhausting process, one that tests the wits and resolve of even experienced buyers. And some of the very people you turn to for guidance might not always have your best interests in mind.

Some of the industry’s sales tactics can make it unnecessarily difficult for you to shop around, or to claim down payment assistance packages designed to encourage homeownership.

Home prices remain near record highs. Mortgage rates have retreated but remain well above their pandemic lows. Add it up, and homebuyers are feeling discouraged.

With housing affordability squeezing buyers, one in six (16 percent) of aspiring homebuyers have given up on purchasing a home in the past five years because they could not find anything they liked or could afford, according to a new Bankrate survey. Nearly 3 in 10 aspiring homeowners said the biggest deterrent was home prices.

Friday’s tepid jobs report means mortgage rates might finally be poised to fall. The U.S. economy created few jobs in August, the Labor Department reported, news that could set the stage for both a rate cut by the Federal Reserve and a downturn in mortgage rates.

“Mortgage rates dropped to new 2025 lows today after a weaker-than expected August jobs report pushed the 10-year Treasury yield — the key benchmark for mortgage pricing — to its lowest level since April,” says Rocket's Bill Banfield.

The pandemic ushered in one of the most unbalanced housing markets in recent memory: Sellers called all the shots, and buyers made all the concessions. Now, for the first time in years, homebuyers have regained some leverage — and, in some places, especially formerly hot markets like Texas and Florida, they even have the upper hand.

“There’s still far more homes for sale than there are buyers,” says Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “This summer is a buyer’s market."

Mortgage rates are at their lowest levels of the year, with the average cost of a 30-year mortgage retreating to 6.63 percent as of Aug. 6, according to Bankrate’s national survey of lenders.

Yet, today’s rates still feel high, especially for the many Americans who long for the days of sub-4 percent mortgages. If you’re hoping to score the best possible rate right now, here are some possibilities.