Sunday Spotlight.
Nobody's market. Somebody's opportunity.
Rates plateaued, not falling. The people winning this month aren't the ones waiting for 5% — they're the ones who stopped waiting.
Ryan Serhant is calling this "nobody's market." Fine. The people I closed loans for last month didn't get the memo.
The 30-year fixed is sitting around 6.6% this week. It's not going to 5% this year — every housing economist worth listening to says rates stay above 6% through the rest of 2026, and the Iran situation earlier this summer knocked the earlier optimistic forecasts sideways. If you're a buyer waiting for a 5-handle, you're going to keep waiting. And the house you could buy today is going to cost you more next spring when everyone else stops waiting at the same time.
Serhant, Umansky, Oppenheim — they're all saying versions of the same thing this week. The market isn't broken, it's stuck. Buyers stuck. Sellers stuck. Everybody watching everybody else. Serhant thinks 2026 will be the year of "group ownership" as people get creative about affordability. Fine. But creative affordability isn't a 2026 trend — I've been writing bank-statement loans, DSCR investor loans, and 1-year tax return programs for 20 years for exactly the buyers everyone else won't touch.
Every deal I closed this month had the same shape: someone got a "no" somewhere else first. A W-2 buyer with a lot of write-offs. A self-employed contractor in Queens whose bank statements told the real story his tax returns didn't. A Capital Region seller whose agent needed the buyer's payment run at their exact list price before Sunday's open house. None of that is complicated. It just requires someone who answers the phone.
That's the whole newsletter this week. Not rates. Not headlines. Just the three moves — one for buyers, one for sellers, one for realtors — that are actually working right now, in Albany, Saratoga, and Queens, while everyone else is waiting.
The national chatter — decoded for our market.
What Serhant, Oppenheim, and Umansky are saying this week, and what it actually means in the Capital Region and NYC.
You don't need three friends to buy a house. You need the right program.
Serhant's group-ownership prediction is a symptom, not a solution. The real reason buyers can't get to the closing table isn't creative co-ownership — it's that most lenders only underwrite the easy 20%-down, W-2, 780-FICO deal. Everyone else gets a "no" and thinks they can't buy.
I close loans every week for buyers with 580 FICOs, self-employed income the IRS doesn't see, investor buyers scaling a portfolio, and first-timers who thought they needed 20% down. Bank statement. DSCR. 1-year tax return. FHA down to 500 FICO. Down-payment assistance. Non-QM portfolio programs. If you got told no somewhere else, that's not the end of the conversation — it's the start of ours.
"If you were turned down in the last 12 months, send me the denial letter. I'll tell you in 20 minutes whether it was the loan officer or the loan."
See the Non-QM programs →Buyers are coming back. For the sellers who read the room.
Oppenheim's advice is the whole game right now: price it right or sit. Every listing sitting past 30 days in Albany, Saratoga, and Queens has the same problem — it was priced for the buyer who existed in April 2022, not the one shopping in July 2026. The buyer today is running the monthly payment at your list price and walking away because it doesn't fit.
Here's a move no one else in the Capital Region or Queens is doing: before you list, send me your list price. I'll run the buyer's-side monthly payment at three rate scenarios and three down-payment scenarios in 20 minutes and send it back to your agent as a one-page PDF. Your agent walks into the pricing conversation with the buyer's math already done. Your listing doesn't sit.
"Price it right the first time and you close in 30 days. Price it wrong and you chase it down for six months."
Run Number Crunch →The passive agent is losing to the prepared one.
Umansky's point about discipline is what separates who eats and who doesn't this year. Every buyer who walks into an open house without a pre-approval is a deal you'll lose in 48 hours to the agent whose buyer has one. And every seller whose agent hasn't run the buyer's monthly payment at the list price is a listing that's about to sit.
Send me your fence-sitters this week. I answer the phone nights and weekends — a 20-minute call with your buyer tonight is a live pre-approval by tomorrow morning. That's not a promise, that's Tuesday. If you've got a fence-sitter, a self-employed buyer, someone who got a "no" at their bank, a first-timer who thinks they can't afford it, or a seller who needs the numbers before they list — that's exactly who I built this practice for.
"Your buyer without a pre-approval is somebody else's client. Let's fix that before Sunday's open house."
Loop Brian in →If you read this and thought of someone — forward it.
The buyer who thinks they can't. The seller whose listing is about to sit. The agent whose fence-sitter needs a real answer. One forward this week, and I'll take it from there.
Sr. Loan Consultant · NMLS #481563 · Powered by New American Funding · NMLS #6606 · Equal Housing Lender.