Fed independence goes before the Supreme Court
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What potential good news is there for homebuyers this year?
Maybe some good news for homebuyers? From Marketplace, I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer in for David Boncaccio. Will 2026 be the year that homes finally become more affordable? Tomorrow, we get pending home sales for December. That'll tell us how many homes went under contract. And Zillow recently released a report with some potentially good news for prospective buyers. Their researchers say homes will become affordable in more metro areas by the end of this year. Marketplace's Carla Javier brings us this look at affordability.
To be clear, homes aren't suddenly becoming way more affordable for everyone, says Orfeh Divungi at Zillow.
What factors could influence home affordability in 2026?
It's going to be a year of small wins.
He says there are three factors.
Incomes have continued to increase. Mortgage rates have actually fallen relative to a year ago. And then the third factor is, of course, prices. Price growth has remained somewhat flat.
He says that median income households buying today have to spend roughly a third of their income on mortgage payments.
Which is high, but it's actually the best it's been since August 2022.
And Zillow forecasts that home buying in some areas could become even closer to affordable by the end of the year. Spending no more than 30% of income on home payments, including property taxes and insurance, is the affordability rule of thumb, says Eric Maribodjuk at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
If you start spending more than 30% of your income on housing costs, then it means you're giving up something else.
For Jessica Lautz at the National Association of Realtors, affordability this year? I think it's a very mixed picture. She says she'll be watching those all-important mortgage interest rates too. And if more inventory comes onto the market and brings prices down. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace.
The New York Stock Exchange is working on a new platform for digital trading that would allow investors to trade around the clock. The platform would be separate from the NYSE's current exchange, which operates only on weekdays. Later this week, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, or PCE, for November is due to be released. It comes as the Federal Reserve prepares to meet for its next meeting on interest rates next week.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow in the case around President Trump's bid to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations. Cook denies any wrongdoing. She hasn't been charged with any crime. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to attend tomorrow's session. The question is, can a president remove a sitting Fed governor? For more, my colleague David Brown. Ron Caccio spoke with Sarah Binder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at George Washington University. Here's that conversation.
The Federal Reserve Act says that presidents can only remove governors for cause. Now, I know H.R. people around the country deal with for cause all the time. How do you understand that idea of firing for cause?
Well, when Congress writes that, its point is that the president has to have an actual real non-policy reason to dismiss an appointee. Negligence, inefficiency in office, those phrases go everywhere. The president just doesn't have carte blanche to say, I don't like you. I don't like your policy decisions. That's why Congress put that for-cause phrase into many of the laws that set up these agencies.
I mean, regardless of what one's view is on the seriousness of the allegations against Lisa Cook, it is fact that they're not proven yet.
Correct. And I think it's important to keep in mind this isn't a case on the merits. It's not about whether or not there was mortgage fraud here. The key question is, can the president remove Governor Cook while her case, her legal case, works its way through the federal courts?
I mean, is it relevant that the court has in previous case allowed President Trump to remove members of various other federal agencies that he does have latitude when we're not talking about the Fed?
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