Craig Carman

speaker

75 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 26 Jun

Craig Carman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · The Housing Crisis: Your Biggest Questions, Answered · 26 Jun 2026 podcast

I think they're especially difficult now.

Because of this lock-in effect we were talking about earlier, and suddenly you have all these people who are motivated to hold on to their homes, pushing prices up higher and higher, even if the rate of price acceleration has slowed.

I mean, home prices have gone up 35 consecutive months now.

The median home price is over $400,000.

If you put 20% down, that means you need $80,000, which is tough for a first-time homeowner to come up with.

So it really comes down to mortgage rates as the variable that could make housing a bit more affordable for more Americans.

And unfortunately, right now, it's tough to think of a catalyst that could meaningfully bring down mortgage rates.

And the only thing that I could really think of at the moment that would seem certain to bring down mortgage rates would be a severe economic slowdown or recession, in which case then rates would have to come down in response to that.

The problem is slowdown in the economy and a recession are not very conducive to a strong housing market.

And when people are worried about their job, they tend not to do big-ticket purchases or

Nothing is a bigger ticket purchase for most people than buying a home.

And when people are worried about that, it doesn't really matter where mortgage rates are.

Unfortunately, we're a bit stuck for the moment.

Thanks for your time.

Appreciate it.

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