Episode summary
What will it take to crash or accelerate home prices in 2026?
HousingWire Daily
· · 20 min · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Logan Mohtashami argued that 2026 home prices are likely to stay in a narrow range rather than crash or reaccelerate sharply. His baseline forecast is a slight decline, but he said that outcome depends on inventory continuing to rise seasonally and demand not accelerating much further. He framed the market as a tug-of-war between buyers and sellers, with affordability still limiting how much prices can run up.
On the downside, Logan said a true national price crash would require clear signs of stress in seller behavior, especially a vertical move in new listings and a meaningful acceleration in foreclosure data. He said those signals are not present, and that any serious stress would have had to begin much earlier because foreclosure processes take many months or even years. He also stressed that household balance sheets and credit conditions remain too strong for a broad distressed-seller wave.
On the upside, he said prices would need an abnormal collapse in inventory, much lower mortgage rates, and a surge of buying to accelerate materially. Because qualified mortgage rules and affordability constraints still limit demand, he does not see that setup either. His conclusion was that boring is good: a more normal market should give buyers and sellers room to breathe.
Key takeaways
- Logan Mohtashami’s base case for 2026 is a slight national home-price decline, not a crash.
- He said a crash would require new listings to go vertical and foreclosure data to accelerate, which has not happened.
- Mohtashami said a sharp price surge would need inventory to collapse, rates to fall much more, and demand to spike quickly.
- He argued that strong household balance sheets and qualified mortgage rules make both distressed selling and runaway appreciation unlikely.
- The host and Logan framed 2026 as a healthier tug-of-war market, with buyers and sellers closer to balance.
Notable quotes
“it's going to be a tugof-war. Now, right, we always believe that a forecast is useless without a model because things change around the week”
“the history of nominal home prices crashing nationally is very rare, right? We go I always like to use the Kell index going from 1942 all the way to 2025”
“what I would need to see is that new listings data, our new listings data that we have cherished for so many years”
“What is one group of people we never listen to, Sarah Wheeler, about housing economics? Middle-aged men stock traders”
“if you wanted to create something uh it has to be an abnormal inventory year, an abnormal new listings year and rates go lower than anybody's forecasting”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Motoshami to talk about home prices and what it would take to crash prices or have them accelerate this year. First, I want to thank our sponsor, Trust and Will, for making this episode possible. Logan, welcome back to the podcast.
It is wonderful to be here. We're both in Texas now. So, — Yes, we are. you are you are here for a um event with Fairway, right? — Yes. I'm going to speak in a few uh a few hours here. So, uh uh and it's it's it's going to be fun after that last existing home sales report, man. It is going to be a very very very fun start to the year.
Well, this leads me to our topic for today, which is home prices, right? We have a lot of variables to look at now. 2026 could be could be interesting.
Let's let's start with your forecast for home prices this year. So keeping in theme with the chart daddy doctrine, it's going to be a tugof-war. Now, right, we always believe that a forecast is useless without a model because things change around the week.
So I have had a very very slight decline and if you look at the history of home prices after a period, if inventory is growing and rates aren't really breaking too much lower, uh then you kind of have like a flat or maybe down just 1% or or 1 1% year. So we're going to go off of that principle. But it's 2026 now.
It's 3 years after that fastest crash in home sales uh ever. And a lot of people said prices follow volume. Except that's never been the case for eight decades.
So again, like why didn't home prices crash last year?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- home prices
- mortgage rates
- housing market outlook
- new home sales
- housing supply and demand
Watch the episode
Watch “What will it take to crash or accelerate home prices in 2026?” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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