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The War Has Changed the Housing Market | April 2026 Update

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The Iran War is already changing the housing market. Home sales have slowed, mortgage rates jumped back up, a reversal in crucial housing affordability is well underway—and we’re not done yet. Oil prices are causing interest rates to fly upward, and guess what? Gas prices might not go down for another year. Is this the nail in the coffin for the return to a healthy housing market? We’re getting into it all in April 2025’s housing market update.  The implications of the Iran War are massive, and we’re feeling it right now. Homebuyers got a glimpse of hope when rates fell below 6% a couple of months ago. Now, we’re back up to the mid-6s. But with less competition in the market, buyers have greater opportunities. Real estate investors, especially those with cash on hand, may have even more time to take advantage. Dave shares the five things investors must do to get a good deal in this market. But will the housing market crash? Your favorite influencer on TikTok is telling you yes, but what does Dave say? If you want proof that a housing crash will/won’t happen, Dave is showing you exactly what’s happening in the market today and whether it could lead to a home price crash, real estate selloff, or something different altogether.  In This Episode We Cover The massive consequences of the Iran War on the U.S. housing market  Why mortgage rates cannot fall back down with the state of today’s economy  Even more buyer power? Why you should be aggressively negotiating in today’s market Five things investors must do to protect themselves against buying bad deals Think real estate is an inflation hedge? Think again. Will the real estate market crash? Signs that the crash bros are wrong (again)  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1266. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The War Has Changed the Housing Market | April 2026 Update

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

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BiggerPockets Real Estate PodcastThe War Has Changed the Housing Market | April 2026 Update. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

How is the war in Iran affecting the housing market? I've been saying for years that a Black Swan event can always dramatically shift real estate dynamics. Well, here it is. And the last month, the war has reshaped the trajectory of mortgage rates, inflation, consumer sentiment, and more. And of course, all of these factors will impact home values, and spoil alert, the impact is probably not good. But that doesn't mean you can't invest right now. In fact, some of the best times to build your portfolio are when all the headlines about housing are negative. You just need to adjust your buy box for a changing market. You're probably going to see better properties become available. Sellers will even be more willing to negotiate, and other buyers are probably going to be scared off. And in today's April 26 housing market update, I'll explain how you should be shifting your strategy to take advantage of these shifting market conditions. Hey, what's going on, everyone?

It's Dave Meyer, Chief Investment Officer at Picker Pockets, Housing Market Analyst, Real Estate Investor of 16 years now. Today in the show, we're going to talk a little bit more about current events than we normally do. And we're going to specifically be focusing on how the war in Iran is impacting the housing market. So let me just get to the point. The war in Iran is likely going to have negative implications for the housing market. Now, I'm not saying a crash, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But if you look at what has happened in just the last month, I think we are going to see slower home sales. We're going to see mortgage rates up. We've already seen them go up a half a point. And I think they're going to stay elevated. And I think we're probably likely going to see reverses in affordability and reverses in demand. Now, that does not mean that there's a disaster. And actually, as we're going to talk about towards the end of this episode that could spell really good buying opportunities for real estate investors. But I think we need to actually just break down how this works

because that's going to help you understand where the opportunities lie and where the risks lie in this housing market because there are going to be both. In short, the war is going to push up inflation. And actually, as of today, April 10th, when we're recording this, we just saw the first inflation print since the war started. And it wasn't a good one. It was ugly. We saw the CPI, the consumer price index go up from 2.4% to 3.3% in just a single month. I do believe that inflation is going to stay higher than it was before the war for the foreseeable future. I'll explain that in a minute. But let's just talk about why inflation hurts and why I think it's so important to the housing market. First and foremost, it impacts consumer spending, right? If people are getting stretched by paying more at the gas pump, they've less money to spend other places. The second thing is input cost for housing and other goods, right? We've already seen in the last year the price of construction on the average price home has gone up between $10,000 and $17,000 per home,

depending on who you ask. That's probably going to go up more in the near future because oil prices are up. That means it's not just gas, right? When oil prices go up, you also see everything that goes on a ship go up, right? They use diesel. That's oil. So if you are importing appliances from China, you are importing timber, copper, aluminum, whatever it is, those prices are likely to go up with oil prices as well. That's going to make input costs for housing go up as well. Construction becomes more expensive. But the really big one, the big thing that inflation impacts more than anything when it comes to the housing market is mortgage rates. And this is why over just the last month, we have seen mortgage rates after dipping so briefly, we got it. We touched it. We touched 5.99 for the average mortgage rate at some point in February. Now they're back up to about 6.3, 6.5. They're hovering in that range the last couple of days

because even before this inflation print came out on April 10th, everyone knew inflation was going up. You could see it in the oil prices, right? Oil is such a big part of the economy that seeing that gas prices went up more than 50% since before the war started, of course, inflation was going to go up. So that's why mortgage rates have gone up. Now before we go on, I just want to be clear that when I say inflation is high and getting higher, and I think it's going to stay bad for a while, I'm not talking 9%. We're not talking about COVID 2022 levels where they were printing money and there was supply shock and there was all that going on. Right now, I'm saying we were getting close to the Fed's target of 2%. We're moving in the wrong direction. Could inflation stay in the three to 5% range for the next year? I think so. I think that is unfortunately something that we are going to have to contend with. So yeah, inflation is not looking great. And I just want to call out, we've only had one print for the consumer price index, which is the one that makes most of the media. And that was not good.

But if you look at other measures of inflation, they're also not good and maybe even arguably worse. If you look at the PCE, which is actually what the Fed looks at, we've actually seen three consecutive months of much higher inflation. That was even before the war. We were saying 0.4% monthly growth, three months in a row right now. If you annualize that, that means that measure could get up to 4.8%. Even just staying the way it is right now. This is why I'm saying could inflation go back to three to 5%? Yeah, I mean, there's evidence of that. And this just sucks, right? It sucks for everyone in America, for you, for me, for everyone. But specifically, when we talk about the housing market, it's going to keep mortgage rates higher. That is the unfortunate news for anyone who's working in the housing industry. Because we talk about this a lot, but let's just review how mortgage rates actually work. It is not the Fed. It is not the federal funds, right? That is one factor in mortgage rates.

But the real thing, the closest correlation to mortgage rates are yields on 10-year US treasuries. Treasuries are bonds. It's basically how the US government funds all of the debt that we have. 39 trillion dollars in debt that is funded by issuing bonds, treasuries, right? And the yield is basically the interest rate that the government pays investors, people who lend money to the US government. And this number, bond yields, they fluctuate a lot, based on all sorts of complicated economic activity. But inflation is one of, if not the biggest variable in bond yields. I'm not going to get into all the details today, but what you need to know is that mortgage rates and bond yields super highly correlated. And when inflation goes up, bond yields go up. This is just one of the ways that the economy works. And as long as we have higher inflation, we're going to have upward pressure on mortgage rates. This is why they've gone from 6 to 6.3, 6.5

over the last couple of weeks. And it's why I personally think that we're not getting back towards 6, at least in the next couple of weeks, and maybe for months or more. And I should mention, I am not the only one who sees this. We actually do this survey at bigger pockets. It's called the bigger pockets investor polls. We're just basically take the temperature of residential, retail, real estate investors, people like you and me, and what people are thinking. And the amount of people who are expecting lower mortgage rates has basically just plummeted in Q1. So in the first couple of months, when we did this survey, I think it was back in January, about 30% of people were saying that lower mortgage rates were going to be a big opportunity this year. That's dropped to about 12%. When we did the polls last time, the median, what most bigger pockets community members were expecting were mortgage rates to be somewhere between 5.5 and 5.99%. Now that has gone up to 6 to 6.5% with a huge surge in people actually expecting them

to go up even higher, about 27%. Think that this is gonna go higher up to 6.5, maybe even up to 7%. So people not particularly excited about where mortgage rates are going. So that's my read of the situation. Inflation is up, probably gonna stay elevated. Again, not 20, 22 levels, but elevated from where we have been the last couple of years. I think mortgage rates are gonna stay high. And this is going to impact the housing market. How it's going to impact the housing market is something we gotta get into, but first we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. As a host, the last thing I wanna do or have time for is play accountant and banker. But that's what I was doing. Every weekend, flipping between a bunch of apps, bank statements and receipts, trying to sort it all out by property and figure out if I was actually making money. Then I found base lane and it takes all of that off my plate. It's bigger pockets official banking platform that automatically sorts my transactions, matches receipts,

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Visit rentready.com slash bigger pockets. That's rent, R-E-D-I.com slash bigger pockets. And use code BP 2025 to get rent ready's six month plan for a dollar. Managing properties can feel like a full on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties and maybe a few HOAs all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off. And suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card or check,

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get a quote in minutes at biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance. Steadily, landlord insurance designed for the modern investor. There are two kinds of real estate investors, those who have reviewed their insurance and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC held properties. These gap surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash B-P-Pod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P-Pod. Welcome back to the biggerpockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer, talking about the realities of how the war in Iran is likely to impact the housing market. We've already talked about the stuff that we know. Inflation has gone up. I personally think it's likely to stay elevated

for the foreseeable future. Again, not 2022 levels, but higher than where we were. And I think mortgage rates are gonna stay in the mid-sixes that could even go up from here depending on what happens next. But even knowing what we know now about inflation, about mortgage rates, about recent trends in the housing market in general, we can start to project what is likely to happen in the housing market. And the main thing I think that we are going to see is a slower housing market. Now, if you're thinking, man, the housing market is already really slow. Yeah, it is. We had one of the slowest prints ever on record in January, 3.9 million annualized existing home sales. That is super low. It could go slower. Now, there's this whole thing about seasonally adjusting it. But I just, I think we are going to see a really reluctant market. When there are times of uncertainty, and although I feel like I've said this every year

for the last six years that uncertainty is high, man, uncertainty is really high right now. We don't know what's going to happen with the war. We don't know what's gonna happen with AI. We don't know what's happening with all of these other things in the economy. And I think that is going to slow down buyer behavior in the housing market. You see this data across the board, like people just don't make these kinds of decisions. But specifically, residential real estate investors are not feeling very good about it. In our survey that we did in April, bigger pockets members. We asked what impact do you expect the Iran war to have on the real estate market in the next three months? And basically, no one, less than 5% of people combined said positive or very positive, about 30% were neutral. Over 50% said it's gonna have a negative impact and 15% said a very negative impact. So just saying investors tend to be on the more optimistic side of housing market participants, and they're all pretty negative. So you gotta imagine how home buyers are feeling

in this market as well. And this isn't just psychological. The psychological part is important. But affordability is gonna get lower, right? We started to see nine months in a row up until February. We saw improved affordability because mortgage rates were starting to come down. Prices were flattening out, but we're probably gonna reverse those gains, right? Because mortgage payments are now going up. And if you combine uncertainty with less affordability, how do you get more demand? Like where the home buyer is gonna come from in that market where people are uncertain, they're worried, and things are more expensive. It's just, I just can't see it. I think we're not going to see a lot of demand. Now, again, I am not saying there is going to be a crash. And in fact, back in October when I made my predictions, I already thought prices were going down this year. Just as a reminder, I said, I think we'll get national home prices somewhere between negative 4% and plus 2%. And I still think that range is probably close to right,

maybe towards the lower end of that. Like if you ask me today, I don't think we're seeing positive home price growth. I'd say maybe negative two, maybe negative 3%, something like that. And that's not that different from what I was projecting six months ago, even though the war is happening. And I know that this sounds scary, right? No one in this industry likes to see home prices go down, but I do want to call out. It has pros and cons. There are trade-offs to this kinds of market. And as a savvy investor, there are things that actually benefit you about this kind of market. The cons we know, right? Appreciation is going to be slow, right? If you have an existing portfolio, some of your properties could and likely will go down in potential value, but let's just call out that that's potential value, right? We're talking about a paper loss. If you don't sell it, you don't actually lose anything. Most people, if you own your portfolio for a while, the values of their properties have gone crazy.

So it's not like you're actually losing money, you might have just made a little bit less money if you know what I mean, right? So those are the obvious downsides of this. But the pros are there too, because this does mean that there will be better deals, right? Because even if supply comes down a little bit, there are going to be more motivated sellers in this kind of market. I feel very confident about that. There is going to be less competition in this market, right? And so even if inventory's not skyrocketing, the number of properties that are going to sit on the market for a long time, they're going to go up. I feel very strongly that days on market are going to go up. You're going to have less competition. And that means that if you are a savvy investor and you adapt to these market conditions, you're going to find better deals than have been available in several years. Like that is really good news if you were trying to build a portfolio. So don't mistake what I'm saying about the housing market and to mean that you shouldn't be buying. You can buy in any market.

But it does mean you need to be careful. You need to follow the advice. I've honestly been giving for at least two years now on the show about investing in a correction. And just as a reminder, what you got to do to buy in this kind of market is number one, buy under market cops. If prices are going to go down 2, 3, 5% this year, maybe not, but if you're worried about that, you have to buy something 7, 8, 10% under market cops. And you actually can do that because you have negotiating leverage because there's going to be motivated sellers, because things are going to be sitting on the market longer. Now, it doesn't mean everyone's going to accept your deals, but if you're patient about this and diligent about it, you will be able to do that. So that's rule number one. Rule number two, don't buy anything that doesn't cash low. Just don't. In this kind of market, you need to be defensive. Cash low is a defensive mechanism. You absolutely should be doing that. Number three, get fixed right debt. I know it's higher. Mortgage rates are higher. They could go up more.

We don't know. We just saw that literally everyone other than me and some other people. But most people have been saying, mortgage rates are going to go down. Mortgage rates are going to go down, but trying to tell you that that might not happen and look what happened, right? Mortgage rates have gone back up. Thankfully, they're not at 8% again, but it just proves that no one really knows what's going to happen with mortgage rate. Fixed rate debt on a property that cash flows that you buy under market comps, that works in any market. Other two things to think about, protecting against downside, right? You don't want to buy anything super risky in this market by a great asset in a great location. That is really important right now. Don't buy in the edge of town. Don't buy something that isn't going to have high rental demand, even if it has some upside, protect against your downside. First, then you focus on upsides. Once you've found a deal that you feel is rock solid and is not going to be risky in this kind of market, then you look for the upsides that we always talk about in the upside era. This is stuff like zoning upside, rent growth potential, being in the path of progress,

doing value at, those things all work. So even though I really believe that some of the dynamics of the housing market are going to change by what's going on with the war in Iran and rising inflation, the formula for what you should be doing right now hasn't changed. That is still the formula for what works. And if you're nervous about the housing market, all you got to do to keep buying is adjust your own expectations how much undermarket comps you're willing to buy. If you're worried about what's going on, maybe you only buy something 10% undermarket comps or 15% undermarket comps. Means you're going to have to do a lot more outreach, probably going to have to make more offers, but if that's what makes you comfortable, fine, do it. You'll be able to get good deals, you'll get cash flow and you'll enjoy the many other benefits like amortization and tax benefits, all that that you get from real estate, but you can protect yourself against the one risk that is really out there, which is prices going down modestly in the next year.

Now I know people are probably thinking to themselves and asking the question, doesn't inflation push up housing prices, right? You've probably heard this, isn't real estate a great inflation hedge? There is actually truth to that. If you measure this like a nerd like I do, the correlation between housing prices inflation is really high, but there is actually a lot of nuance to this. It is not as simple as saying, when there is inflation, housing prices go up, right? We've seen inflation above the Fed target for the last couple of years, real home prices are down for the last couple of years. And that is because there's actually two different types of inflation. There's something called demand poll and there's something called supply push. And what happens with the housing market really depends on the type of inflation that there is. So demand poll is kind of the inflation that most people are used to. It's basically when the market runs too high, right? People describe this forum as inflation

as too much money chasing too few goods. This is an example of what happened during COVID, right? People were flush with cash. They were getting stimulus checks. We were printing tons of money. And what happens when you print more money is people have money to spend. And they want to go and spend it. But if there is not a proportionate increase in the amount of stuff to buy, prices go up, right? I think cars were a really good example of this during COVID, used cars. People had a ton of money. They were going out and buying stuff. But there weren't all of a sudden more used cars to go by so people bit up the prices of that. This is what happened in the housing market during COVID, right? People had a lot of money. Mortgage rates were low. That increases demand. This is why it's called demand poll and the demand polls prices up. Now there's another kind of inflation called supply push inflation. And this comes when the input cost to build and make stuff goes up. And unlike demand poll, which is associated with a hot market,

supply push is associated with a slower market, right? This is when the cost to make a car, the cost to build the house, the cost to ship things from one country to another goes up. And because the producers and the infrastructure is more expensive, that stuff gets passed along to consumers. But it's not because there's more demand. And so this kind of inflation is often associated with slower economy, maybe even a recession, and slower real estate prices. And this is what we're at risk of today. I want to be clear that when we look at the two types of inflation and the inflation we're seeing right now, we are seeing supply push inflation. Between tariffs, between the war of Iran, it is getting more expensive to make stuff. And that is getting passed on to US consumers, which slows down demand. Not just for cars, it slows down demand for everything, including housing, right? If people can't afford housing,

it's at a 40 year low, right? If they're already stretched for affordability in the housing market, and then other things in the economy start to get more expensive. They're not going to all of a sudden bid up the price of housing, right? That's why this kind of inflation is not associated with real estate prices going up. Now one more thing I just want to mention because I'm not trying to scare you all. I just want to be real with you about what I see in the market. You know, my job here is not to ra ra everything about the housing market. I want to explain to you what is happening, how to navigate risks, how to spot opportunities. There is a risk of what is called stagflation that is going on right now. Now people throw out that word a lot. I think it's a lot of people who want to generate fear and clicks, and they use this word stagflation because it's scary. And stagflation is scary. It's not good. What it is to the definition is when you have a combination of inflation and a recession at the same time. Now, hopefully you can see why that's bad

because it means that people might be losing their jobs, their incomes might be going down. And at the same time, prices are going up. That's a nightmare for an economy. And I'm, you know, there are degrees of stagflation, right? We saw this in the 70s in the United States and it got really bad. And I'm not saying we're at risk of really bad stagflation, but is there a chance that inflation goes up at the same time unemployment is going up? Yeah, we're seeing that. Like, you know, we had one good print in March, but unemployment is going up. Actually, last month, personal incomes went down 1%, right? At the same time, we just saw three different measures of inflation all go up. So this is something that we all need to keep an eye on because stagflation has really bad impacts on the entire economy and could really damage the housing market. So we're not very yet, but it's something that we're going to talk about in these updates every single month going forward because if it gets worse, then we need to start talking about how to prepare

and protect yourself against that risk because that can be dangerous. But for now, what we're likely seeing is increasing inflation, higher mortgage rates, a slower housing market. And for me, the formula for what you should be buying hasn't really changed. Now, we do have to take a quick break, but after the break, I want to talk about a crash. We talk about this every month because everyone in the media is talking about a housing market crash, but I want to address this head on. Will the war in Iran create a crash? We're going to go through the data, step-by-step and actually see what the risks are and we'll also talk about some opportunities that are emerging in the market. Stay with us. We'll be right back. People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they picked the wrong market. Rent to retirement flips that model. They help investors by turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below market value in top rental markets across the country.

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That's h-o-s-t-financial.com, and see what you qualify for. Welcome back to The Baker Pockets Podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. This is our April, 2026 housing market update. So far on the show, we've talked about the war in Iran, how it's pushing up inflation, taking mortgage rates up with it, and what that could mean for the housing market. And I've said this probably will put downward pressure on housing prices, it will probably put downward pressure on transaction volume, but will it turn into a crash? I've alluded to this, but I want to just share with you some evidence right now. No, I do not think it will turn into a crash, at least as of now. I'll give it to you straight. The war isn't good for real estate, but there are many structural reasons a crash remains unlikely. I talked about it a little bit before, but the floor of replacement cost, inflation pushing up the cost to replace a home, puts a floor on how far home prices are likely to fall. Number two, people have massive homeowner equity.

It's at an all time high. People are not at risk of being underwater, of short sales, of any sort of foreclosure crisis. I know people love to say that foreclosures are spiking and going through the roof. That is not true. If you compare delinquency rates, if you compare foreclosure rates now to before the pandemic, they are lower. Yes, they've gone up from the artificially low era of COVID, but they are lower. So that is an important thing to remember. I say this every month on the show and we do this risk report. But if there was going to be a housing market crash, we would see it in the delinquency data, right? We would see spiking inventory. We would see spiking new listings, right? Supply would be going up. We would say spiking days on market and at the same time we would see rising delinquencies. Those are the things we know predict a housing market crash. So let's just look at them, right? Let's look at inventory. People love to say inventory is going crazy.

That's why the housing market is going to crash. How much is inventory up year over year, do you think? From last year to this year, according to Redfin, it is down. It's down 2% year over year, right? So yes, it is up above where it was during COVID, yes, but it is not going crazy. This is what happens in a housing market correction. Demand goes down, talked about that before, right? Supply follows. That is what normally happens because if there are no buyers, sellers aren't eager to list their home for sale. And when you see both demand and supply go down at the same time, what happens? Prices, they can move a little bit but they stay relatively flat like they have. But transaction volume is what goes down volume of transactions. How many homes are selling and trading goes down? Again, that's what we have seen and that's what I think will probably accelerate. Do you think home prices are going to go down a little bit? But main impact of this is I think we're going to have very low transaction volume.

Now could this change, could inventory be spiking soon? Sure, but we would probably see that in new listing data. This inventory is how many homes are for sale at any given point. New listings are how many people decide to sell their home that month? That is up year over year, 2%, hardly a crash situation, right? Everyone's out there screaming all these crash bros screaming. Oh my God, new listings are up, inventories up. Not really. It's basically the same as last year. Inventory down 2%, new listings up 2%. It's basically flat. Basically nothing has happened there. So this is one of the reasons why I don't think we are going to see a crash on top of that delinquency rates still below 4%. They went down from February to March. They're still up before where they were over COVID just like a lot of these things because they were artificially low. But when you look at the big picture, is the housing market going to crash? It remains unlikely. Now, if we start to see stagflation,

we'll have to talk about that. But I still don't even think there's a high chance of the housing market crash if stagflation picks up. But if we see unemployment go to 8%, sure, there is a risk of a crash, right? But we're at 4.3% right now. And these things move slowly. Like it's not likely we're going to go from 4.3% to 7% in the next couple of months. If we start to see, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10% unemployment, sure, there is risk of a housing market crash. But we are not there. There is no evidence that that's happening. Unemployment actually fell last month. I think everyone is afraid of AI myself included. But we just haven't really seen unemployment spike in the way that a lot of people have predicted. And so as of right now, the risk of a crash remains relatively low. I think the slow, frustrating, annoying market that we've been in for a while is just what's going to be here for the foreseeable future. So that's my prediction. And what that means is the upside playbook

that we've talked about, what you got to do in this great stall is still true. Follow the principles that we've been talking about by. Make sure you cashflow, buy under market cops. Generally speaking, be risk off. Don't take a ton of risk if you don't have to in this kind of market. But find upsides and negotiate because buying opportunities are there. We are entering a buyer's market, you know, in a correction you go into a buyer's market. That means you have the power. Don't go buy anything. There's a lot of trash out there. There's absolute junk. I get sent it every day. A lot of it is junk. But the good deals are starting to come. I actually think cashflow is going to start getting better because if prices go down a little bit, but rents don't go down, which is normally what happens during a housing correction, cashflow prospects are going to get a little better. Not all of a sudden it's going to be amazing. Don't get me wrong. But it is going to get better. The other thing I want to call out is everything that I have said in the show so far is a national basis. I've been talking about the national housing market.

You got to pay very close attention what's going on in your local market. I know not everyone's going to do this, but I implore you, please, if you're going to go out and buy, do yourself a favor. Go on Redfin, go on Zillow, look up what inventory are in your current market. Look up what new listings are in your current market and look up what days on market are. Just Google Redfin data center. That's all you need to do. It's a free tool. It's super easy to use. Go look this up for yourself. Because if inventory and new listings are up, if days on market are up in your area, means prices are probably going to go down a little bit. But that also means they're going to be more motivated sellers and your ability to negotiate is up. So if you're in that kind of market, that's where you have to be very disciplined. You have to say, hey, this property is on the market for 400 grand. I can only pay 330 for it. Make that offer. Nine out of 10 people are going to reject that. But one of them might call you three or four months from now and say, you know what, you're right. 330 is the best that I can get.

And they might sell it to you. That's what you got to do in a correcting market. Now, some markets, if you're in the Northeast, if you're in the Midwest, go check those inventory numbers. Go check the days on market numbers. If in your market, inventory is still low, new listings are still low. You're not going to be able to do that. Prices might still go up this year, 1%, 2%, 3%. I don't think we're seeing any double-digit increases anywhere in the US this year, maybe 5% in the top performing markets, but they're going to be slow. But because there are going to be buyers in those markets, I mean, you could still try, but you're going to have to be a little bit more realistic. Maybe you offer 380 instead of 400. Maybe you pay asking price. Sometimes you're just going to pay asking price. If the numbers still work, if you underwrite your deals to the same principles that I just still talked about, there's no reason you shouldn't buy. If you follow the advice that Henry and I give you all every single week on the show, you can still buy. The point is, the market's going to be slow. Use that to your advantage.

Be aggressive about negotiating. Well, at the same time, be aware, be cognizant of the risks that the new emerging reality of the housing market present to us. Mitigate those risks, because you can. That's the whole point of the show. Identifying the risks as we have today are the first step in mitigating the risks. You can still invest if you mitigate the risks and understanding the unfortunate reality. I don't like this stuff, but the unfortunate reality is that with mortgage rates going up, with inflation going up, the market's going to be slow. Appreciation's going to be slow. And so if you acknowledge that, if you understand that, if you mitigate those risks, and at the same time, you take the leverage that the market is giving you in negotiations, that means you can go out and find good deals. Maybe the best deals, maybe some of the best inventory for sale that we've seen in several years. So that's the lesson today. Understand the risk, but take advantage of the opportunity. That's the message for April, 2026.

And that is our episode for today. Thank you all so much for watching this episode of The Bigger Pockets Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to The Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer, the show is produced by E&K. Copywriting is by Calico Content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast. Hey, sweetie, your mother showed me this carbon thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try.

Wish me luck. Me again, I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. OK, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car's gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these may apply.

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