Kate Wood

So principal, interest, taxes, and insurance.

Taxes and insurance are absolutely walloping homeowners in many parts of the country.

Like Holden mentioned, right?

You know, your hurricanes, tornadoes, sort of more one-off disasters, and then just regular stuff like hail getting bigger, hail getting stronger, right?

So Cotality, which is a firm that does real estate data, among other things, found that from 2020 to 2025, average escrow costs, so this is what homeowners are paying into their taxes and insurance, were up 45% on average across the U.S.

Holden mentioned Florida.

Florida often a bellwether for this kind of stuff.

In Florida, it was a 70% increase.

So people who are buying homes in 2026, like looking ahead, you're really going to want to look beyond the list price and the interest rate.

You're going to want to look into property taxes.

You're going to want to look into insurance, weather data, stuff like that.

Really try to figure that into your home buying budget so that you know that it's a home that you can afford now and that you're going to be able to afford later.