New: 🧠 Market Minds Issue #143

We appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to read Market Minds. Buckle up and enjoy the free value, and you won’t want to miss… a house that looks like the listing might come with an acceptance letter.

Property taxes are becoming a political problem.

Voters in Florida, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Wyoming will consider measures in November that would reduce property taxes or restrict how quickly they can rise. More than 10 states have already passed relief measures since the beginning of 2025.

The pressure is straightforward: From 2016 to 2025, average annual property taxes on single-family homes rose about 34%, to more than $4,400. A house can appreciate without generating another dollar of income for its owner. The tax bill doesn’t care.

Florida has one of the more aggressive proposals. Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to increase the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, while reducing the annual assessment cap on non-homestead properties from 10% to 5%. School taxes would be excluded from the larger exemption.

The politics have already gotten messy: A judge ordered Florida to rewrite the ballot language because it wasn’t neutral enough.

Wyoming could exempt 50% of home values from property taxes. Oklahoma is considering a 1.75% annual limit on assessment increases, while North Carolina voters face a similar proposal to constrain property-tax growth.

The underlying problem is national: Housing values have climbed, and tax bills have followed.

There’s just one detail. Property taxes are the largest source of state and local tax revenue, helping fund schools, firefighters, and other municipal services.

So cutting them doesn’t necessarily eliminate the cost. It can relocate it — to another tax, another level of government, or reduced services.

Homeowners may get a smaller bill. Governments still have one. The November votes will begin answering the popular question of how much homeowners should pay. They won’t necessarily answer the harder one: who makes up the difference?

Home flipping contracted in early 2026. Investors flipped 64,348 homes in the first quarter, down from 70,579 a year earlier.

The investors who stayed in did a little better. Gross profit rose to $66,000 from $64,300 the previous quarter, while gross ROI increased from 24.7% to 25.4%.

But this is a recovery measured in inches. Both profit and ROI remain below year-ago levels.

Texas had 6,367 flips, the most of any state, and nearly 10% of its home sales were flips. Yet the average gross profit was only $15,965 and ROI was 5.6%.

Compare that with Pennsylvania, where flippers generated a 70% ROI. Or New Jersey, where average gross profit reached $147,250.

Lots of flipping doesn't necessarily mean good flipping. Some of America's busiest markets appear to offer investors surprisingly thin economics.

Pennsylvania's 70% ROI looks spectacular until you put last year's number beside it: 92.9%.

Similar compression is showing up elsewhere. Tennessee's ROI fell from 73.7% to 49.6%; Virginia dropped from 64.3% to 50.3%; Ohio from 53.3% to 35.2%.

So the strongest markets can still be strong while becoming considerably less attractive. Both things can be true.

Flips now represent 8% of all home sales, up from 7.2% the previous quarter. That's less a flipping boom than a consequence of a slow housing market: investors have a larger share of fewer transactions.

At the same time, the median flip takes 165 days, up five days, and 38.9% of purchases now use financing. More borrowed money sitting around for longer is not an ideal combination when margins are already uneven.

Flipping may be stabilizing after several difficult quarters. But the more interesting signal is where the money isn't being made: activity, profitability and momentum are increasingly telling different stories.

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Ghosting often looks like a follow-up problem. It may actually be a process problem.

The client disappears because too much was left undefined: the relationship, the value of working together, or—most commonly—the next step. A three-phase appointment system reduces those gaps by creating momentum before, during, and immediately after the meeting.

The first appointment shouldn’t be the first meaningful interaction.

Start a property drip: listings for buyers, relevant comparables for sellers. Send a short personalized video introducing yourself, expressing interest in earning their business, and reinforcing credibility with experience or reviews.

Then hold a proper strategy meeting. Cover the client’s goals, market conditions, your communication plan, and what you’ll do differently. For buyers, explain the agency agreement in full before the showing—not on the porch while everyone is staring through the windows.

Preparation turns an appointment from “meeting an agent” into the next step in an existing relationship.

Once you’re together, gather information rather than performing a presentation.

Ask buyers to rate properties and explain what worked and what didn’t. With sellers, get specific reactions to pricing, competition, and the proposed selling strategy. Revisit qualifying questions if something remains unclear.

The basics matter: eye contact, a smile, questions about what they actually care about, and a two-way conversation. Put the phone away and take notes on paper. Attention is cheap to promise and surprisingly rare to demonstrate.

The critical move is BAMFAM: book a meeting from a meeting.

If a seller isn’t ready to sign, ask: “When would be a good time for me to follow up?” If buyers haven’t found the right property, identify the next homes and schedule another outing.

For first-time buyers who have already toured several homes without a strategy consultation, stop showing and have that conversation first.

Finally, send a short post-appointment video thanking them, reinforcing that you want their business, and reminding them why you’re committed to getting the job done.

The desired outcome from every appointment is simple: specific feedback, a scheduled next meeting, and personal follow-up.

You can’t prevent every client from disappearing. But leaving with “I’ll follow up sometime” makes disappearing remarkably convenient.

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Property taxes are becoming a bigger housing issue, with average bills up 34% since 2016 and a growing number of states moving to limit or reduce them — though someone will still have to replace the lost revenue. Meanwhile, home flipping is showing an uneven recovery: fewer homes are being flipped, profits and ROI have improved slightly, but high activity doesn’t necessarily mean high returns, and even some of the most profitable markets are losing momentum. For agents, keeping clients from disappearing may have less to do with chasing them afterward and more with controlling the process from the start: prepare before the appointment, make the meeting a real conversation, and never leave without defining the next step.

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

Cheers 🍻

-Market Minds Team

The content of Market Minds is provided for informational purposes only and reflects personal opinions based on sources believed to be reliable. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or professional advice. Each reader is solely responsible for their own decisions.