For months now, I’ve been hounded with the question: “When will mortgage rates fall back to 3%?” People still cling to the fantasy that the last decade was somehow “normal.” It wasn’t. It was a once-in-history phenomenon driven by central bank manipulation following the 2008–2010 mortgage-backed securities crisis, mixed with the COVID crisis. We lived in an artificial world of zero rates, negative real yields, and government intervention that distorted every market from bonds to real estate.
That period is over, and it is not coming back.
The mainstream press continues to peddle this narrative that the Federal Reserve controls long-term mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are pricing in global sovereign risk, not domestic political propaganda. The same interest-rate shock hitting homebuyers in Miami is hitting borrowers in Munich, Montreal, and Melbourne. This is a global cycle driven by capital flows rather than the Fed.
As I explained in the Real Estate Outlook 2026, residential property is no longer priced on your local bank’s posted rate. Those days died long ago. Capital flows determine rates, and capital is voting with its feet against government debt worldwide.
All conference attendees and virtual ticket holders will receive the Real Estate Outlook 2026 report that details what to expect in the years ahead as confidence shifts from public to private assets.