Animal Spirits Podcast – Talk Your Book: The State of the Housing Market

Date: November 29, 2025
Hosts: Michael Batnick, Ben Carlson (The Compound)
Guest: Logan Mohtashami (Housing Wire Daily)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson sit down with Logan Mohtashami, a noted housing data analyst, to dissect the state of the U.S. housing market. They challenge widely circulated narratives, break down misleading survey data, and examine the dynamics of affordability, mortgage rates, and policy responses. Logan, known for his data-driven approach, debunks common misconceptions and offers a pragmatic outlook for housing in 2025 and beyond.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current Housing Market Sentiment & Narratives

• The prevailing mood surrounding the housing market is overwhelmingly negative, largely due to persistent affordability challenges. (01:13)
• There's heavy focus on one data point: the sharp rise in the median age of first-time homebuyers, which is being used to shape national narratives about homeownership's accessibility. (01:34)

Notable Quote

“Inflation has really taken a toll. The cumulative impact, particularly on housing affordability... it sucks. Let's just call it what it is.”
— Ben Carlson (01:18)

2. Debunking the Median First-Time Homebuyer Age Myth

• A recent viral chart claimed the median age of first-time buyers skyrocketed to around 39–41, but this is contradicted by other reputable data sources.
• The National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey at the heart of the narrative is problematic—out of surveys sent to 173,000 homeowners, only about 6,000 responded ("3.5% response rate"), and the questions skewed the sample. (03:48)
• Other sources (e.g., NY Fed) show first-time buyer percentages and median ages have barely budged: typically 32–36, tracking with marriage and family formation trends. (04:27)
• The supposed decline in first-time buyers and sharp age increase are largely artifacts of bad survey methodology.

Notable Quotes

"If you're a young person and you see a question like, I'm not even answering anything!"
— Logan Mohtashami (04:00)

“The only time Millennials lose their title as top buyers is when mortgage rates get above 7%.”
— Logan Mohtashami (05:45)

3. Affordability: Problematic, but Fixable—Over Time

• Housing affordability is indeed at one of its worst points since the early 1980s, surpassed only by that era.
• Government interventions (proposed tax breaks, 50-year mortgages, portable mortgages, etc.) are ramping up but might do more harm than good. Trying to subsidize an already heavily subsidized market risks stoking speculation rather than addressing root problems. (07:23, 14:45)
• Logan's remedy: Time. Let rates, price growth, and wages adjust naturally—mortgage rates dropping steadily to around 6% will gradually improve sales and affordability.
• Nominal home prices rarely drop except during huge market distress (e.g., post-2007), so “waiting for a collapse” isn’t realistic. Instead, expect price stagnation and real wage catch-up.

Notable Quotes

“You have to endure and let the market kind of take care of it.”
— Logan Mohtashami (07:48)

“The only time home prices fell nationally was 1990. It was like 0.7%.”
— Logan Mohtashami (08:45)

“Sometimes not doing anything might be the best solution. Let time kind of heal itself.”
— Logan Mohtashami (16:13)

4. Mortgage Rates, Policy, and Market Dynamics

• Significant psychological threshold: when rates dip below 6%, demand ticks up—recent history shows this three times since 2022. (09:57)
• Builder incentives (rate buydowns) are manipulating parts of the market (especially new homes), but most homeowners are unlikely to move until rates get much lower (below ~5.75%).
• Logan casts doubt on rates dipping well below 6% soon, given Fed policy and narrow spreads, but sees improvements on the horizon as spreads continue to normalize. (12:47, 13:44)
• Government or Fed purchases of mortgage-backed securities to tighten spreads (“force rates lower”) are unnecessary as spreads are close to historical norms already. (17:07)

Notable Quotes

“We're almost back to normal... So we should be almost back to normal toward the end of next year and then we didn't have to do MBS spreads or anything like that.”
— Logan Mohtashami (18:12)

5. Regional vs. National Housing Dynamics

• National housing data often masks significant local/regional variation. In 2024, inventory growth mostly came from Florida and Texas due to migration, tax, and insurance pressures—not a national market crash. (19:18)
• Areas like Colorado face pure affordability issues; other regions will feel pain if local factors tilt—national price declines are rare, local corrections common.
• “Doomers” extrapolate regional drops to the national outlook, but the structure and credit quality today prevent a broad collapse. (20:34)

Notable Quotes

“People have been making big leaps on housing for as long as I can remember, and most of them have been trash for a long time.”
— Logan Mohtashami (20:34)

6. Can We Just Build Our Way Out? The Homebuilder Perspective

• The narrative about builders chronically underbuilding is misleading; builders build to demand, not out of public service—they pause construction when too many homes go unsold (“not the March of Dimes”).
• Only a dramatic government intervention (e.g., direct purchase of builder inventory) could change this supply dynamic—otherwise, don’t expect “overbuilding.” (22:38)

Notable Quotes

“The builders are here to make money because they are not the March of Dimes.”
— Logan Mohtashami (23:06)

7. Debunking Crash Narratives and Misleading Online Data

• Many loud voices fueling “doom porn” are ideologically driven and not evidence-based.
• Logan’s go-to counter: data on inventory and foreclosure rates, which show that current dynamics (low listings, low forced sales) are nothing like 2008. (24:30)
• Cites the Redfin “seller vs. buyer gap” chart as misleading—despite the hype, Redfin’s own median price data shows steady or rising prices, not an impending collapse. (26:21)
• Live, weekly tracking of new listings, pending sales, and price cuts are the real “early warning systems”—not static, cherry-picked charts.

Memorable Exchange

“My tombstone is going to say chart daddy. And it’s going to have this one chart there—foreclosures were rising in 2005, 6, 7, and 8... None of that has been happening for 14 years.”
— Logan Mohtashami (24:30)

“Redfin suckered you all 24/7… Somebody in the marketing team is going to get a nice Christmas bonus.”
— Logan Mohtashami (26:40)

8. Final Takeaways & Resources

• If there’s a real problem, it’ll show up in new listings and distressed credit data—these signals have consistently predicted true carnage in the past. (28:54)
• Logan encourages listeners to follow live data and not fall for poorly constructed narratives.

Key Timestamps

• 03:48: Debunking the NAR Survey
• 06:38: Affordability versus Survey Myths
• 09:57: Why Time, Not Intervention, Is the Key
• 13:44: Mortgage Rates: Where Do They Have to Go?
• 17:07: Mortgage Spreads & Fed Policy
• 19:18: Regional vs. National Market
• 22:38: Can We Just Build More Houses?
• 24:30: Crash Doomers & Inventory Truth
• 26:21: Redfin’s Seller vs. Buyer Chart—A Cautionary Tale
• 28:54: What Real Warning Signs Look Like

Memorable Quotes

• “Reading is a good thing. The history of human civilization has taught us that those that read will always have an advantage over those that don't.”
  — Logan Mohtashami (01:04)

• “If things go really bad, new listings data goes vertical... You cannot hide when things start to break. But it hasn't happened yet.”
  — Logan Mohtashami (28:54)

Conclusion

This episode offers a masterclass in separating reliable data from viral myths, especially around the most pressing questions of the 2025 housing market. The hosts and Logan Mohtashami systematically torch the hype around “collapsing” homeownership, skewed survey data, and easy policy fixes. The audience comes away with a sober understanding: housing’s challenges are real, but the path to improvement is slow, boring, and, above all, rooted in patience—not panic or political theatrics.

Find Logan Mohtashami’s work at Housing Wire Daily, wherever you get your podcasts, and connect on Instagram for real-time economic data analysis. (29:23)