A (0:00)

Welcome to Investing Made Simple. Lennar Investor Marketplace is an innovative platform that's transforming the way people buy and invest in new construction. Find rental ready new homes for sale across 90 plus desirable markets nationwide alongside institutional quality rental comps and local area insights. In addition to pre inspected home listings, Lennar Investor Marketplace consolidates all the information you need into one place, real time rental cost comparisons, neighborhood demographics, local school scores, projected expenses and appreciation forecasts. Each listing comes with a pro forma specifically underwritten for single family rental opportunities. Lennar's underwriting tools also include a calculation that gives you an estimated NOI and expected return as well as an automated rent valuation model tailored specifically for new homes, helping you forecast rental income accurately. Lennar is one of the nation's most trusted homebuilders with more than 1.5 million happy homeowners across the country. Lennar builds new homes for every stage of life, including first time home buyers, those looking for a larger or higher end home, and active adults ages 55 plus, making it possible to find a home for every buyer type and at every price point. Get started today@lennar.com that's L E N N A R.com find the investor marketplace under Shopping Tools Present or future market conditions are not guaranteed. You should consult your own accounting, legal and tax advisors to evaluate the risks, consequences and suitability for any real estate transaction.

B (1:39)

Get in the game with the College branded Venmo Debit Card. Rep your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. select schools available. Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max $100 cash

A (2:07)

back per month welcome to the Paul Morris Podcast, formerly known as Radical Wealth Plan. I'm your host Paul Mark Morris and right now I'm going to do the state of the market. People are always asking me, is now a good time to invest? And here's the honest answer. It depends on what you're looking at because stocks, bonds, real estate, oil, gold, they're all telling a completely different story right now. Same economy, there's a war going on, same Fed, completely different playbooks. Most people have absolutely no idea which of these markets they're in right now. Today I'm Going to break it all down very quickly. No fluff, no spin, where things actually stand, what I'm watching, and where I personally see opportunity. So one thing that is overarching is that we are already beyond three weeks into a war. And here's what's actually going on. Before we talk a single stock, interest rates or property, you have to understand the environment. And the environment right now is unlike anything we've seen since the 1970s. I'm not saying that for drama. I'm saying it because the data says it. There is an active war, and we are more than three weeks into it. And here are the facts. February 28th, more than three weeks ago, the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran. Operation Epic Fury, that's the actual US Term for it. And they killed Iran's supreme leader and dozens of their senior military officials. Iran responded with waves of missiles and drones across the region. The US has struck more than 7,000 targets in Iran since it started. Iran's missile launches are down 90% from day one, but. But they're still firing. And now it's hitting some of the oil reserves and some of the reserves for natural gas. That's going to have an impact on the broad economy, the world economy, in ways that are very important. Okay, so let's talk about the Strait of Hormuz, probably something you all have heard about already, the number that you need to understand. Roughly 20% of all the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz every single day. It's a narrow waterway between Iran and oman. It's about 21 miles at its narrowest. And right now it's effectively closed. Hundreds of tankers are sitting idle on the sidelines. And brent crude hit $115 per per barrel this week. That is the highest that it's been since 2022, all combined. Gulf oil production is down at least 10 million barrels per day as of mid March. The International Energy Agency has called this the largest supply distribution in the history of the global oil market. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE oil all reporting Iranian drone strikes on energy infrastructure this week. And Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field. That's the largest natural gas reserve in the world. These hits are having an impact. And though the US And Israel are working together to slow down the attacks, in particular on energy sources, we, we really need to see how that's going to play out. One thing for sure is I could talk about the price of crude oil going up. And to me that doesn't really mean very much. I think what means most to me and to the viewers are what's going on in terms of the price of gasoline. And again, the US Average, not entirely meaningful because price varies so greatly from the most expensive states to the least expensive states in terms of the price of gas. But as a national average, just to give you an idea, the national average just under three months ago was $2.81 per gallon, and now it's all the way up to $3.88 per gallon. That's really a huge increase of over 30% in terms of the cost of gasoline going up. That impacts all Americans. It impacts our workers, it impacts everybody that in the service industry, just period. So this is having a huge impact, and it is true that it's having a larger impact by percentage in the areas where gas is less expensive. But I think it's safe to say that we're all feeling the impact of the increase of the price of gasoline. And we know that definitely impacts inflation, impacts the economy. We need to see how this is going to play out. But it certainly doesn't seem like it's going to stop anytime in the near future that we have to wait and see on. But the facts are the facts, and that is we're seeing about a 30% increase in the cost of gasoline, which impacts all of us. Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the Fed and rates and what just changed. The Federal Reserve met this week, Wednesday, March 18th, and I want to tell you exactly what happened. Fed funds, they held the rate steady at 3.5 to 3.75%. It's the second consecutive pause before this war. Markets were pricing in two rate cuts for 2026, and now wall street is pricing in zero cuts this year, and some are starting to whisper about rate hikes. Powell's exact words at the press conference were, we are not making as much progress on inflation as we had hoped. He also said, quote, the implications of developments in the Middle east for the US Economy are uncertain. The translation of that is the Fed has no idea what this war does to inflation, and nobody really does. The Fed's new inflation Forecast is at 2.7% for 2026, up from their December estimate of 2.4. So they're still expect growth, not a recession. And their internal projections still Show One price, one rate cut in 2026. But that assumes that the war ends. And as of today, we don't know what's going to happen. Powell's term ends in May. Kevin Warsh, Trump's nominee to replace him is being held up in the Senate. I think one thing we know for sure, and that is we can say that monetary policy leadership is in flux right now when the market needs clarity the most. The 10 year treasury rate is rising. Mortgage rates, price off this number, the 30 year fixed mortgage, about 6.11% as of March 12, up from 5.98% just before the war started. Two weeks before the war, mortgage rates dipped below 6% for the first time since 2022. That's a huge psychological milestone and, and the war reversed that in 48 hours. Housing wire's top analyst says if this conflict continues much beyond where we are today, the rate ceiling moves to six and a half, possibly to 6.75%. So here it is. Two weeks ago, mortgage rates dropped below 6% for the first time since 2022. People were excited and then the war started and we're now seeing it back above 6% and, and climbing. The Fed held rates steady this week, but they basically told you, don't count on any more cuts anytime soon. So now let's talk about stocks. In my, the honest version, in my opinion, the market since the war started. And let me walk you through what the stock market has actually done. The s and P500 entered 2026 near 6800 points. Today it's 6500. That's down about 5% from its high. Nasdaq down 2% this week alone. And tech has taken hits throughout. Here's the interesting thing, though. Stocks have not crashed in the way that we might expect. Day one of the war. The Dow fell 600 points in the morning, but then brought back up almost flat. Why? Because historically, geopolitical crises hurt markets for about a month and then recover. Looking at the experts, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said it best this week. The market reaction has been more benign than you think. But I'm not dismissing the risk. That was his statement. Who's winning, who's losing? Energy stocks surging, that's obvious. Defense stocks. Lockheed Martin up 6%. Northrop Grumman up. You know, and the airlines got crushed again. Makes sense. Higher fuel costs equal lower margins. United Airlines down 6%. Tech has been volatile, but holding better than expected. Now let's take a look at currency and gold. Really the safety play, the dollar. In a crisis, money runs to safety. And right now safety means the US dollar, the dollar index is up by nearly 2% since the war began. And that might be a little counterintuitive. You know, 2% may sound small, but it's actually really big. In currency terms, the dollar reversed months of losses in just 48 hours. Even the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen, historically the safest currencies, are losing ground to the dollar. Why is that? Because even with oil prices surging, the US is more insulated than almost anyone else because we produce a lot of domestic oil. We're not Japan, we're not South Korea. Higher for longer interest rates in the US Also support the dollar. Gold the counterintuitive story. Here's where things start to get really sort of out of whack. And I want to explain this as best I can. When a war starts, gold is supposed to go up. That's generally the rule. Gold did spike when the war started. It hit over $5,400 per troy ounce in the first days, but then it sold off. It sold off hard. Gold just had its worst week since 1983. Down more than 10% in a single week. Gold is now trading around $4,500 to $4,600 per troy ounce, down from 5,600 in January. Why? Again, interesting. It's because the war stopped the interest rate thoughts? And gold plays at a zero yield. So when rates stay high or go higher, gold becomes less attractive. Investors are selling gold to fund losses in oil bets and to raise cash. The dollar surge is also making gold more expensive for overseas buyers, suppressing demand. Long term bulls are not gone. JP Morgan still targets gold at $6,300 by year end. But in the short term, the war gave gold an inflation boost and an interest rate headwind. At the same time, the headwind is winning. The safe haven people expected is the US dollar, not gold. Now let's talk about real estate, something I actually know something about. The rest you know, I get from the news and parsing the news and listening to experts. But real estate's really something that I understand and mostly what my audience listens for. So real estate is again the market where I see legitimate opportunity even through all of this. First, what the war did to housing. Immediately before the war started, mortgage rates had dropped below 6% for the first time since 2022. I mentioned that before. That's a massive psychological threshold. Buyers were starting to move. Existing home rate sales were up almost 2% in February. Purchase applications were up 10% year over year. It looked like the spring season was finally going to happen. And then the war. In 48 hours, mortgage rates jumped back above 6%. They're now a fair amount higher than that. And Potentially heading as high as 6 and a half to 6.7% if the conflict extends. The spring selling season has just got complicated. But here's what I want you to understand. The war created uncertainty. Uncertainty is not the same as disaster. The underlying housing fundamentals have not changed. Inventory is still historically low. Demand for housing doesn't evaporate because there's a war. If this conflict is short duration and there are signals that it might be, the market will likely rebound. If it drags, rates stay elevated, buyers stay cautious, and we wait. But the math points still in the same direction. And it's what I've been talking about for a while. The thing I've been talking about for quite some time, the debt wall. That's a big opportunity. And I'll explain what I think is the most important story in real estate right now. And it has nothing to do with the war. It's already happening and the figures vary, but close to $1 trillion in loans taken out at 3 to 4% interest rates are coming due right now. Combined with 2025, we're looking at 1 1/2 trillion that are forced to have a refinancing event. What's going on is that owners who bought multifamily and other commercial properties, they, they were doing this at 3 to 4% and they were doing their underwriting. In other words, figuring out is this a good deal for us, what is the return on the deal for us when the rates were 3 to 4%. A lot of these loans, most of these loans have a 30 year amortization. That means they look at the payoff over 30 years. But they don't have a 30 year rate lock. They have a five year rate lock or a seven year rate lock. And what that means is after five years or seven years years, the rates get to change on these loans taken out at 3 to 4%. Now they're looking at 6% and higher. These owners have two choices and that's refinance at higher than 6% or sell a loan that cost $175,000 per year in interest at 3.5% now costs $325,000 per year at 6.5%. That's the same building, the same tenants. Lenders are now covering only a small percentage of the property value, down from a really healthy 75% of debt coverage, now down to 55 to 60%. And what's going to happen is many owners can't afford to write the check to close that gap. So the only option that they have is to sell. Originally, a property that was cash flowing would now not be cash flowing. Distressed apartment sales hit $13.8 billion in mid-2025, up from 1.1 billion in 2020. That's a 12 time increase in distress. The second half of 2026 is expected to be even worse. The riskiest vintage, that's loans taken out at peak prices on inexpensive debt. That's between 2021 and 2022. Hit the debt wall right now. I'm not rooting for anyone to lose their property, but motivated sellers, equal buying opportunities. That's just how it works. And let me give you the sectors I'm watching where I'm personally paying attention. And that of course is multifamily. Multifamily construction starts are down 70% from peak. That's the lowest since 2013. The Sun Belt had a supply glut for 18 months that's now ending. When new supply dries up and demand stays constant, what happens to rents? They go up. The setup for the next multifamily upcycle is being built right now. If you're a patient, disciplined buyer, that supply drought translates into a shortage by 2027. And continuing on, industrial warehouse E commerce is growing at 13 to 14% per year. Every percentage point of that growth equals more warehouse demand. The consumer shift to online buying seems to be permanent, so the infrastructure has to keep up. Industrial has a structural tailwind that doesn't depend on the Fed or the Middle East Data centers. Rents are up 50% since 2022. No other real estate sector is anywhere close. The AI economy runs on data centers. Every model, every agent platform needs physical infrastructure. These are long duration institutional GR assets with 30 year demand tailwinds. This is the most durable sector I know of in commercial real estate right now. What I'm avoiding is also pretty obvious and that is office space. The delinquency rate up 12%. One in eight office loans is already in trouble. 83% of office loans that matured are showing delinquencies. And I'm not touching office space for that reason. The remote work shift is permanent. The occupancy story doesn't recover the big picture. And where I stand, let me zoom out and tell you what I actually believe around all of this. And that is the war adds uncertainty, uncertainty adds risk. But the structural forces in real estate really seem to care about the war. The rate trajectory is still higher for longer, but the direction is still down. I would say just delayed the new supply collapse. A shortage is coming in 2027. But that's baked in permanent demand for housing. People always need somewhere to live. And the debt wall is a historic volume of motivated sellers hitting the market right now. These forces are aligned in a way that they haven't been since the post 2008 recovery. This is a very special time. And the people who move early, with discipline, with the right numbers, are going to look back at 2026 the same way that I look back at 2010. So to say it plainly, I believe the next 18 to 24 months represent one of the best real estate buying windows we will see in this entire decade. For sure, the war adds uncertainty to the timeline, but it doesn't change the math. The math is still there. So let me give you a brief summary of the state of the market as of today, and that is we're in an active war. Beyond the third week. It's reshaping oil markets, inflation expectations and and Fed policy in real time. Oil is above $100 per barrel, the mortgage rates have jumped above 6% and the Fed rates held steady just this last week. There are no cuts in sight. Insight? Maybe a rate hike in 2027. The stock market's down, but it doesn't appear to be broken. Defense and energy are up. Airlines and software are getting hit. Gold did the opposite of what people expected. And the dollar is the real safe haven. Play and real estate, despite the rate noise, still has the most compelling structural setup I've seen in 15 years. So don't rely on what I say. Do your homework. Know your market, know your numbers. If you want to talk through what any of this looks like for your specific situation, you can reach out directly. And if this episode gave you something useful, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, and send it to someone trying to figure out where to put their money right now. I am Paul Mark Morris. This is the Paul Morris Podcast. See you in the next one.