Welcome aboard the 2026 Spring Housing Market.

Please direct your attention to the emergency exits, which are located in 2021 and are no longer accessible. If you are holding a 2.875% rate, your exit has been permanently sealed. We appreciate your loyalty to your current property.

In the event of turbulence caused by a Strait of Hormuz ceasefire that lasted approximately 11 minutes before strikes resumed on bridges and oil infrastructure, rates will drop 11 basis points on a Tuesday and return to 6.5% by Thursday. This is normal. Remain seated. We're sure this will all resolve easily and peacefully with no impacts to inflation or rates.

The FHFA promised a major housing announcement “in one to two weeks” three and a half weeks ago. Finally this past week a press conference was scheduled. And then canceled. We do not have information about the announcement. We do not have information about why the press conference was canceled. We will provide an update when we have one. We have not had one.

Income and asset verification will be conducted the same way it was conducted in 2004, which was conducted the same way it was conducted in 1987. We are aware that every other industry has solved this.

The eClose experience today will involve printing 400 pages, driving to a title company, signing with a pen, and scanning everything back into a system that will lose it once. We understand the auto industry, the healthcare industry, and your local pizza chain have all figured out digital signatures. We are working on it.

60% of you are on the same LOS. You hate it. It knows you hate it. It has added three new paywalls since January. Everything is fine.

The largest lenders in America are allegedly steering borrowers into higher rate and fee products during the worst housing affordability crisis in decades as they forge new platform alliances that will make it worse. This is under review. The review is ongoing.

The owner of the largest mortgage company in America has been selling millions of his own shares every month at cratering prices. He remains very bullish in his public statements. We are sure these things are unrelated.

The new Fed Chair nomination is stalled. Jay Powell leaves May 15th. The plane does not currently have a pilot confirmed for the second half of the flight. Everything is fine.

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Heading to DC today for the MBA State and Local Workshop and National Advocacy Conference.

My favorite things about that city, in no particular order:

You can walk everywhere. I walk every city I visit. DC is built for it in a way that makes every other city feel lazy.

The history sneaks up on you. You stop noticing it after a while. Then you walk past something on the way to grab coffee and it just levels you.

Everyone there thinks they are saving the world. Some of them are right. All of them are intense. It is a lot and I love it.

The food scene is wildly underrated. The Mall at 6am before the tourists show up is one of my favorite things I always try to do.

This year I am leading the Ohio delegation as State Leader. Six congressional offices. Two senators. Real conversations about housing affordability and what this industry actually needs from the people writing the rules.

Can not wait to catch up with some of my favorite people in this business and make sure the people writing housing policy actually understand what is happening on the ground.

In a world where oil prices control your destiny.

Where a ceasefire can last eleven minutes and destroy your commission in twelve.

Where the worst people in the most expensive zip codes in America are about to get a whole lot worse.

This spring. The Strait of Hormuz came for all of us.

But it came for them first.

NETFLIX PRESENTS

From the producers of White Lotus and the geopolitical instability of an active conflict in the Persian Gulf.

SELLING SUNSET: THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ EDITION

When rates touched 5.99% in February, the most morally flexible real estate agents in Calabasas opened champagne, relisted everything, and briefly, beautifully, became the people they always said they were.

Then February 28th happened.

Iran. The Strait. Oil infrastructure. Eleven minutes of ceasefire. Bridges on fire. Rates climbing back above 6.4% by Thursday.

And something extraordinary happened.

People who were already awful became historically, transcendently, breathtakingly more awful.

Watch as Skyler, who has not eaten a carbohydrate since the Obama administration and lists her spiritual sign as "hustler," tell a seller in Calabasas that the Strait of Hormuz situation is "actually creating urgency in the luxury segment." The seller asks what the Strait of Hormuz is. Skyler pauses. Skyler says "it is an energy thing.

Watch as Brandon, who got his license in 2021 at the exact peak of the easiest real estate market in American history and has confused that with talent ever since, announce the formation of The Brandon Mitchell Group, a real estate team consisting of Brandon, one part-time assistant who also works at a juice bar, and a logo Brandon had designed on Fiverr for $35.

Watch as Kennedy, the office's self-described "luxury specialist" who has completed one transaction over $3 million (her own condo, which she sold to her mother), explain to a camera crew how the Strait of Hormuz has actually created a unique window for sophisticated buyers who understand the macro environment.

Watch as Crystal, who describes every property as "a vibe" and every client as "my person," breaks down in the office bathroom for eleven minutes after a deal falls apart because the Strait of Hormuz moved her buyer's rate 40 basis points overnight.

This is not a show about real estate. This is a show about what geopolitical catastrophe does to people who were already catastrophes.

This is what happens when the worst housing affordability crisis in four decades meets the worst people in the best zip codes and the Strait of Hormuz lights everything on fire.

SELLING SUNSET: THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ EDITION

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The bar for "AI-powered" in 2026 is embarrassingly low. Here is what it actually looks like when the tools work.

Claude Co-Work is not a chatbot. It does not reset every conversation like it has never met you before. It holds and builds institutional knowledge over time. And I can't express strongly enough how impactful that is.

Right now it knows the Ohio MBA Annual Conference has 106 registrants, that 19 new registrations came in this week and immediately updated our projection to 265 with the event a little over two months out, and that three sponsor packages are sitting unsigned in the pipeline and that we are projected to sell 11 of the remaining 18. Every change that occurs with conference, every new registration adjust all line items of the budget and the projected net profit.

Here is the part that actually changes how you operate. When something changes, everything that touches it changes with it. A speaker cancels and Co-Work does not just note it. It flags the open session, drafts the replacement outreach, updates the pipeline, adjusts the related tasks in Asana with new owners and due dates, and surfaces the downstream items that would have otherwise fallen through the cracks. The session leader list, the run of show, the follow-up queue. All of it. One change, complete ripple.

Asana is not a project manager. It is a scoreboard. When Co-Work and I identify action items, we push them straight to Asana with owners, due dates, and notes already attached. My team wakes up Monday and their week is already built.

Nobody had to ask me anything. I did not have to remember to tell them.

That ripple effect is the thing most people miss when they think about AI in operations. It is not about doing one task faster. It is about eliminating the fifteen things that were supposed to follow that task that nobody tracked.

Co-Work is the brain. Asana is the calendar. Together they run four businesses without a six-figure tech stack, a per-seat license, or anyone sitting through a three-hour Salesforce training they will never use.

Most AI tools are very good at making you feel productive while you accomplish nothing.

These two are the exception. One remembers everything. The other makes sure someone does something about it.

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Apr 10 - CPI Release (March inflation data)

Apr 13-14 - MBA State & Local Conference

Apr 14-15 - MBA National Advocacy Conference

Apr 15 - Tax Day

Apr 23-25 - NFL Draft (Pittsburgh, first time since 1948)

Apr 26-28 - Texas MBA Annual Conference

Apr 27-30 - HousingWire’s “The Gathering” Conference

Apr 28-29 - FOMC Meeting / Fed Rate Decision (Powell's second-to-last as Chair)

MAY 2026

May 2 - Kentucky Derby (152nd running, Churchill Downs)

May 5 - MISMO Spring Conference (Louisville)

May 7 - Jobs Report (April)

May 14-17 - PGA Championship (Aronimink Golf Club)

May 16 - Preakness Stakes (Laurel Park, Md.)

May 17-20 - MBA Secondary and Capital Markets Conference (Marriott Marquis, NYC)

May 25 - Memorial Day (markets closed)

May 31 - Indy 500 (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)

JUNE 2026

Jun 3 - Jobs Report (May)

Jun 5 - Belmont Stakes (Saratoga Race Course) -- Triple Crown on the line

Jun 11 - FIFA World Cup kicks off (USA, Canada, Mexico -- 48 teams)

Jun 14-16 - Ohio MBA Annual Conference (Columbus OH)

Jun 15 - Father's Day

Jun 16-17 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision, press conference)

Jun 18-21 - US Open Golf (Shinnecock Hills)

Jun 19 - Juneteenth (federal holiday, markets closed)

Jun 22 - NBA Draft (approx.)

Jun 29 - Wimbledon begins

“Successful entrepreneurs are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not.” — Jeff Olson

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]