Matt Carrell

MONDAY MORNING MARKET UPDATE: 3.23.2026 That's What It's All A-BOUT! Story: vid.us/kcf0em The Hokey Pokey is a fun game, it's silly, and EVERYONE can play.  Like the Hokey Pokey, everyone is playing this game in the Middle East, however it's not that fun and we're unfortunately unwilling participants. ​The fallout from energy prices may be sustained beyond the conflict.  Of course all of this impacts what you and I really care about - interest rates. ​As much as I'd like to offer an opinion on the matter, the state of rates is just far too unknown to predict the next 3-6 months.  For now, if you're under contract or if you have a refinance that makes sense financially, go for it.  Lock rate and don't play the market.  That's what it's all a-bout!!

@Amy_Siskind TACO Tuesday 🌮

What happens in 48 hours when they don’t reopen the strait?

@EpsilonTheory “Which is bet…which…which is better?” “Your ass and my face?? Wait, no!! My face and your ass?! DAMMIT, no wait…”

This Bessent performance on Meet the Press is a disaster. My god.

@atrupar It's 27-D chess now, you imbeciles! 🤡

Bessent: "Sometimes you have to escalate to deescalate"

@zerohedge He's already launching a few trials to see which candidate polls well for bus tossing...

*TRUMP: WE WANT TO TALK TO IRAN, THERE IS NOBODY TO TALK TO

@DiMartinoBooth Housing is not macro. It's local. Different markets have different supply/demand constraints, different demographics, different availability to build. Quit trying to apply a uniform take on a very segmented market.

Repeat after me: There is NO housing shortage. There IS a yawning housing DISCONNECT between Boomers (avg # children=3.2) & Millennials (avg # children=2.0) & Gen Z (TBD but much lower). WHO will buy Boomers’ homes as they die? Multigenerational HH formation to keep rising.

@SacAppraiser It's quite literally the ONLY thing you can control. Love it.

A reminder for my real estate friends. Stay focused. Be yourself. Have a plan. Work the plan. Run toward the challenge of this market. Don’t obsess over prices and rates. Find the people who have incentive to participate in today’s market. Bottom line.

@unusual_whales JFC, these nonsense headlines are so exhausting 🙄

"California housing crash fears as buying rates plummet below Great Recession level," per NYP

If you checked your favorite browser this week you would have heard a cacophony (thanks, word of the day) of pearl clutchers shouting that the sky is falling and that housing is headed for the abyss.  Lions & Tigers & Bears!!! ​New home sales for January were released - and it wasn't pretty, my pretties. ​But let's not get too wound up just yet... New homes and new home sales behave more like a commodity than do existing homes.  Why?  And why does that matter?  Well, builders can adjust supply and pricing quickly.  Existing homes are unique, homeowner-controlled assets with limited supply, so they’re less commodity-like and more driven by individual circumstances.  Further, I don't have the data on this, but a home seller of an existing home almost always turns into a home buyer.  Not the same with new builds. So here's the point - first of all, the data released this week of new home sales in January is absolutely a real thing.  It was pretty lousy.  New home sales were down about 17% from the previous month's sales.  No doubt about it, that's poor. ​But let's unpack it a little bit...the commodity nature of big builders selling homes is a real thing.  Specifically, these builders often have metrics to meet for their shareholders and for stock performance.  As a result, they'll often push to close as much as they can at year-end. We'll have to wait and see how the remainder of the year unwinds before sending in the flying monkeys...

FRIDAY RATE UPDATE: 3.20.2026 Fed Mixes Things UP, Lions & Tigers & Bears Story: vid.us/kpudac In their meeting this week, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at 3.5%-3.75%, citing elevated, "uncertain" inflation and geopolitical risks. Policymakers raised their 2026 inflation and GDP growth forecasts while signaling potential for only one rate cut this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell emphasized a cautious approach, as one would expect if INFLATION was carrying a person away. ​It will be interesting to see how the transition of the Fed Chair out, and new Fed Chair in might go, given the global turmoil we find ourselves in.  The interesting part about this weeks FOMC is that there have been calls for a possible rate HIKE! ​Inflation from a rallying crude oil market which impacts the cost of ALL things is the main concern.  However, our lagging labor market is providing a counter balance of sorts which kind of cancels out the inflation portion of the Fed's dual mandate.  For a refresher, they control interest rates with the dual mandate of maintaining healthy employment levels while keeping a lid on inflation. ​For now, no worries about rates being carried away.

@SacAppraiser Sacramento market has a better understanding of value than does the Bay area market.

Different vibes in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Properties in the Bay Area are often priced strategically low. More on my blog. What stands out to you here?

Hannes Bieger dropping absolute synth fire with 'Black Hole' in this mesmerizing analog studio session—warm Moog-style tones, hypnotic grooves, and pure retro electronic magic! 🎹🌀 Really awesome indeed!

@mortgagesinDC I’ve thought it’s 93/7 for some time - only as transactions become more hard to come by will we really see those 93’s in full form. What a terrible experience for everyone in that story!

These are the agents that give the industry a horrible name For the buyers agent to allow their buyer to write an offer AND for the selling agent to accept an offer without an approval letter is…INSANE Borderline negligent

By the end of this story you too will say these agents should lose their license…story time! Majority of today has been spent helping another advisor find a strategy for a buyer who they were introduced to today

@dampedspring @APompliano Gotta give it up for one thing, he knows his audience.

@APompliano Impressive commitment to looking like an idiot

Inflation continues to sit at 1.5% after the recent rise over the last month.

@jimstewartson He's definitely throwing up a few trial balloons to see who might be a good candidate to bus toss for this one.

Donald Trump told the story of how he decided on the war, which was that stock prices were so high he could afford to attack Iran. To get advice on the decision he asked Susie Wiles. Now you know why they had no clue the Strait of Hormuz would shut down. Try to read it. “We're doing great. I went to Susie my beautiful Susie Wiles. There's nobody like Susie. I went to Susie. Right? And everybody's with her and she's a great woman really she's a great woman. But I went to Susie. I always go to Susie. I said Susie do you mind if I take a little excursion here? Do you mind if I you know we're hitting all these records, right? Most more people are working in the United States today than ever before as I can name this I don't want to bore you Because this is all about Ireland but you're a big part of it because you're a big part of this country but I said do you mind if I take a little excursion my chief of staff because I want to do this. I have Marco here. We have a lot of our great people JD is here. They're all here and I say let's let's do this. We're gonna do it right should have been done by many presidents should have been done Long before 47 years. It's 40 years of living in terror You know, they're they're called the bully of the Middle East But they're really the bully of the world because he used oil to bribe right? He used oil to bribe and to you know gain power. I don't know what they gained. What are they gained? What the hell? How are they doing? Not so good. They're all gone now. Every one of them. They're all gone. We don't even know who to our biggest problem. We don't know who to deal with over here. I can call the speaker of the house He's so powerful. I can call him. I can make a deal maybe I can even call your Democrat counterpart this guy. I said to Kelly. What do you think of your counterpart? He said he's a great guy. This is Republican Democrat. I never thought I was gonna hear that about you. Let me shake your hand. When Kelly when Kelly tells me that I said that's the way it used to be You know, that's the way it not so long ago and maybe someday that's the way it'll be again. It's really great. But I said you mind of I take a little excursion Because we have to do something and it'll be a short term excursion? But we have all these great things going and we had to say you know, we could have. What could have gone up up? It was only going in one direction. But I think now it's gonna go much higher than it would have gone had we not taken this little journey. And so I appreciate all of the people that have worked with us I was not an easy decision to make we have a country that was hotter than any country anywhere in the world and Doing great in every way and I say oh, we have to put out this this cancer. It's a cancer We had to take that operation and we did and it was very successful and continues frankly as somebody said very they could leave today. And it would take ten years to rebuild the damage has been done. But I think we have to make it a little bit more permanent because no other president has to go through this and we shouldn't have any other President having to go through this kind of a thing and If they didn't want to do it if for some reason they didn't want to do it. Would have the same problem. We don't ever want to have that problem again Not with lunatics. We can't have lunatics controlling nuclear weaponry. So I just want to thank everybody.”

Shooting a million because you putted poorly and shooting a million because you couldn’t find the center of the club face leave you feeling so distinctly different as you walk off the course.

@J_Koenig21 That tracks with national data. Real estate is local, but an uptick isn't too surprising.

@MatthewCarrell Yes, but we cast a wide net. Seeing an uptick in foreclosures

I’m set to go on 10 in person appointments this week. Two of those I hit today. Seeing a rise in foreclosures across the board, almost half of these appointments are people in pre foreclosure. What does that tell you about this market? 🧐

@KellyScaletta @atrupar Why does this guy always have a shit-eating-grin plastered on his face? Is everything a joke??

@atrupar What–and hear me out now–the actual fuck?

Hassett: "If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now."

@SacAppraiser Claude is the way.

“But ChatGPT says…” I talked to a homeowner who says ChatGPT is telling him he will get about 80% of the cost back in value for the improvements done to the house.