Thursday, November 5, 2026
Florida's Amendment 3 would cut non-school property taxes on homesteads by an estimated $11.8 billion a year once fully in effect, according to the state's Revenue Estimating Conference. It needs 60 per cent of the vote on Tuesday. Voters in Oklahoma, Wyoming and North Carolina are deciding their own property tax measures; none of the four results is known yet.
PulteGroup said on 22 October that third-quarter net new orders fell 6 per cent to 6,208 homes and earnings fell to $2.53 a share from $2.96, as closings dropped 9 per cent. Chief executive Ryan Marshall said rising rates had pushed "even more consumers to the sidelines." The average 30-year mortgage rate was 7.32 per cent in the week to 22 October, against 6.19 per cent a year earlier, Freddie Mac said.
The Census Bureau said on Tuesday 20 October that September housing starts fell 5.2 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,221,000, while building permits were little changed at 1,400,000. The same day the National Association of Realtors said pending home sales fell 7.3 per cent on the month and 11.3 per cent from a year earlier.
Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.40 per cent this week, up from 7.28 per cent and from 6.30 per cent a year ago. It is the highest since November 2023 and the seventh straight weekly rise. Buyers are responding by stepping back.
A $219 million construction loan for a partial conversion at 100 Wall Street, $113 million for a 25-story Magnificent Mile conversion in Chicago, and $44 million for a Boston office redevelopment closed in September and October. The conversion pipeline is moving from concept to concrete, backed by a combination of tax incentives and capital that has found its price.
The average 30-year mortgage rate rose to 7.28 per cent this week, Freddie Mac said, the highest since November 2023 and the biggest weekly jump since October 2022. The rate is the same as three years ago. What produces it is not. In 2023 lenders charged almost three points over the ten-year Treasury. Now they charge about two, and the ten-year is doing the rest.
Mortgage balances fell by $74bn in the second quarter, to $13.1 trillion. Households do not usually retire debt when the alternative uses of cash pay this well, and the composition of who is paying and who cannot refinance explains more about the housing market than any measure of affordability.
In a survey of 520 homeowners in April, 44 percent said their insurance premium now rivals their mortgage payment and 23 percent had been dropped by a carrier since 2024. Of those dropped, 16 percent ended up in state-sponsored coverage.
At least eighteen states have stripped local governments of the power to ban second units, and eleven of those laws passed in the last four years. What decides whether the units get built has moved to water, wastewater and the cost of a kitchen.
Owners holding loans written at generational lows are staying put, not because they cannot sell but because the replacement payment is unrecognisable. The effect runs through labour markets, schools and the housing stock itself.
Going without homeowners coverage was a fringe decision made by people with no choice. It is becoming a calculated one, made by owners who ran the numbers and did not like them.
Hospitals, resorts, universities and manufacturers are financing workforce housing because recruitment failed for a reason no signing bonus fixes. The model has a history, and it is not a happy one.
Assessment cycles lag transactions by years, which means households are receiving bills based on a market that has already turned. The lag is the problem, not the rate.
Title, escrow, recording and settlement fees are disclosed on every mortgage and compared by almost no one. The line has grown faster than the loan it attaches to, and buyers pay it once and forget it.
After a decade of encouraging local governments to permit more housing, several states have stopped asking. Preemption is producing measurable supply and a federalism fight that has barely started.
After years of renderings and press releases, office-to-residential conversion is producing actual closings, and a repeatable financial template is emerging.