New: 🧠 Market Minds Issue #087

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Permits Down, Inventory Up

You’ve likely seen the headlines, but here’s what’s buried beneath: single-family housing starts just hit an 11-month low, and permits have cratered to levels not seen since early 2023. This isn’t just seasonality or a blip from interest rates flirting with 7%. It’s a market correction wrapped in builder hesitation and padded by excess inventory (the kind we haven’t seen since the 2007 prelude to the crash).

Permits dropping 3.7% may not sound catastrophic, but when builders start tapping the brakes in every region except the Northeast, something’s broken in the confidence engine. That “engine” is squeezed by labor shortages (thanks, immigration policy) and tariff-induced inflation, all of which are driving a wedge between what builders want to do and what they can.

Supply Catching Up, But Only in Select Zip Codes

We’re finally seeing the national inventory normalize — an uncomfortable fact for those hoping scarcity alone would hold up prices. The homeowner vacancy rate is quietly creeping up. In markets that led the country in pandemic-era construction booms (read: the South and West), builders are not just slowing down. They're bailing out. The South, once a magnet for migration and money, is now seeing the sharpest decline in both starts and permits.

Multifamily’s Volatile Rebound

On paper, multifamily starts shot up 30% in June. Sounds impressive, until you zoom out. This segment is notorious for volatility, and its spikes rarely sustain. It’s also not where long-term equity lives. With inflation data still murky and the Fed pinned between political crossfire and economic crosswinds, the smart money is calling these multifamily gains what they are: sugar highs.

The Waiting Game Is Ending: Housing in the Back Half of 2025

Mortgage Rate Purgatory

You’ve been here before: mortgage rates flirting with 7%, price tags still climbing, and buyers sitting on their hands. But here’s what’s different now: they’re running out of patience. With the 30-year fixed hovering around 6.78% and no clear rate cuts in sight, the fantasy of 5% financing is fading. That "lock-in effect" that's kept would-be sellers frozen in place? It's losing its grip. Buyers and sellers are beginning to accept the new rules of engagement, even if they don’t like them.

Inventory Up, But Not for the Right Reasons

Yes, inventory is rising. But it’s not a function of new listings flooding the market, it’s about homes taking longer to sell. That 4.6-month supply sounds like progress until you remember the baseline for a balanced market is six months. In many metros, properties are sitting, price cuts are returning, and builder incentives are becoming the norm.

Price Growth Is Slowing (But Not Reversing)

We’re still talking record highs. May’s $422,800 median sale price marks the 23rd straight month of year-over-year increases. But the velocity is changing. Appreciation is slowing, with some markets slipping into neutral. Still, the West and Northeast, where inventory is tightest, will continue to command premiums.

Policy & Politics

The Trump administration's tax and tariff agenda is a wild card. Builders may like the regulatory rollback whispers, but they’re spooked by material cost volatility and geopolitical ambiguity. Add in economic growth, sticky inflation, and mounting debt concerns, and the Fed has little room to breathe. That translates to rate pressure and another year without meaningful monetary easing.

Where the Pressure's Building

The fundamentals haven't changed: seven million jobs added, but home sales still stuck at 75% of historical norms. That mismatch is brewing a pressure cooker. Pent-up demand is real and growing. Once the psychological dam breaks (i.e., buyers accept that 6% is the new 4%), expect activity to pick up, especially in second-tier metros with bloated inventories and price cuts.

Realtor.com’s Zenlist Bet and the Quiet War on Inventory Access

The Real Game Is in the Shadows

Realtor.com’s parent company, Move Inc., just acquired Zenlist — a platform purpose-built to navigate the increasingly murky waters of MLS and non-MLS listings. Access is the new battleground, and Zenlist is holding the keys to the gated communities of private inventory. Forget the noise about innovation and consumer experience. The real takeaway is this: in a market starved for supply, private listings have become prime currency. And the portals are finally waking up to that.

A Portal Wakes Up

With this move, Realtor.com is effectively endorsing the growing shift toward office exclusives and pre-market visibility tools, long seen as taboo in traditional MLS culture. Zenlist’s integration with brokerages like @properties Christie’s and eXp was already hinting at this pivot. Now it’s mainstream. The big portals aren’t just fighting for traffic. They’re fighting to control where that traffic gets to see inventory first.

Scale Meets Exclusivity

Zenlist has traction: 35,000 agents already onboard, backed by major brokerages and MLSs. With Realtor.com's branding and traffic muscle now behind it, the platform could redefine how and where inventory is surfaced (and to whom). The power play isn’t about listings. It’s about who sees them first.

Rent a Car? No Thanks…

This Monticello, NY home is listed at a dollar under $10M. Are these the worst listing photos you’ve ever seen? Or the BEST because they are generating buzz?

And don’t worry, there’s plenty more…

Check it out 👇

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

Housing starts and permits have plunged to new lows, with builders pulling back amid rising costs, labor shortages, and fading confidence. While national inventory appears to be rising, it's driven more by stagnating sales than fresh supply, signaling a cooling market rather than recovery. Meanwhile, buyers and sellers are adjusting to a higher-rate reality, inching closer to action as price growth decelerates but doesn’t reverse. In the shadows, Realtor.com’s acquisition of Zenlist signals a deeper shift: the real battle isn’t for listings, it’s for access — and private inventory is quickly becoming the new gold standard in a market starved for differentiation.

Have a great weekend - we’ll see you next Saturday.

Cheers 🍻

-Market Minds Team