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Pelosi Made 178% While Your 401(k) Crashed

Nancy Pelosi: Up 178% on TEM options
Marjorie Taylor Greene: Up 134% on PLTR
Cleo Fields: Up 138% on IREN

Meanwhile, retail investors got crushed on CNBC's "expert" picks.

The uncomfortable truth: Politicians don't just make laws. They make fortunes.

AltIndex reports every single Congress filing without fail and updates their data constantly.

Then their AI factors those Congress trades into the AI stock ratings on the AltIndex app.

We’ve partnered with AltIndex to get our readers free access to their app for a limited time.

Congress filed 7,810 new stock buys this year as of July.

Don’t miss out on direct access to their playbooks!

Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing involves risk including possible loss of principal.

2026: A Return of Confidence, Not Cheap Money

If home prices are likely to find modest upward momentum in 2026, the real engine will be a shift in mortgage rates that unlocks pent-up demand — and with that, a meaningful improvement in home sales.

Here’s what the data (and trends) point to — and what it means for investors.

The Current Sales Picture (Late 2025)

Home sales have been weak. For example:

  • Existing-home sales in October 2025 fell another 1.3% year-over-year, continuing a downtrend that began in 2022.

  • Sales are running well below long-term averages, largely because many buyers are frozen by high financing costs.

Those numbers are real evidence that demand isn’t disappearing — it’s just waiting.

Rates: The Brake That’s About to Ease

The biggest constraint on buyers in 2024-25 has been rates. Even if you look at widely followed benchmarks:

  • The 30-year fixed mortgage peaked in the 7%+ range throughout much of 2025 — not catastrophic, but high compared with the sub-4% environment of the 2010s.

Here’s the twist:

  • Leading economists and mortgage analytics firms in late 2025 were forecasting modest downward drift in rates for 2026, possibly into the mid-5s to low-6s.

Even if rates don’t return to 4%, a move from ~7% → ~5.75% or ~6.0% changes buyer psychology profoundly.

Why?

  1. It lowers monthly payments for the same home price

  2. It improves buyer confidence

  3. It brings more households back into the market

This is not cheap money — it’s reasonable money.

Home Sales: Where We’re Going

Here’s the prediction grounded in trends + plausible rate shifts:

Home sales in 2026 should improve meaningfully year-over-year, even if they don’t return to boom levels.

Why?

  • Buyers sidelined by high financing costs re-enter when payments make sense

  • Move-up buyers — who were stuck between selling low and buying high — finally bite

  • First-time buyers reappear because payments + rates align with incomes

A realistic range for 2026 might look like:

  • Existing-home sales up ~8–12% nationally compared with 2025

  • New-home sales up even more, as builders who hedged heavily during uncertainty begin to see traffic

This isn’t “boom” — it’s corrective demand that was delayed, not lost.

Real Examples (Numbers Speak)

To illustrate:

👉 If the median existing-home price in late 2025 is ~$410,000 and a 7.0% mortgage costs ~$2,730/mo principal & interest…

…then at 5.75%, the same payment buys ~$55,000 more home.

That’s enough to shift many buyers from priced out to active in the market — not a small effect.

Don’t Expect a V-Shaped Recovery

Improvement in sales isn’t instantaneous.

  • Spring buying season still matters

  • Affordability will remain a constraint in higher-insurance / higher-tax markets

  • Inventory growth is gradual, not explosive

But aggregated across the year, more transactions will happen — and that’s the core story.

Investor Takeaway

2026 will feel like:

“Conditions finally workable—no boom, just activity.”

That means:

✔ More buyers return

✔ Listings turn into contracts faster

✔ Investors can sell or refinance with fewer rate fears

And the biggest lever?

Rate movement — even modest — proves demand was deferred, not destroyed.

Personal Note from Roger:

I rarely open my calendar for one-on-one sessions.
As we head into year-end, I’m opening 10 private strategy calls for real estate professionals and small business owners who want clarity going into 2026.

Click here for more information and to schedule a call.

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