Mortgage rates fell to another 2025 low as tariff and growth fears sent treasury yields lower. Mortgage applications increasing in turn, volume jumping over 20% from the week prior. Freddie Mac's chief economist saying in a statement, quote, the decline in rates increases prospective homebuyers purchasing power and should provide a strong incentive to make a move. Joining me now on the housing market and more, we've got Noble Black, Douglas Elliman Associate Broker. Noble, it's great to have you in studio.

Thanks for having me.

I just want to start the National Housing market right now. I think people have a lot of questions, they're feeling blocked out of the market, as we were discussing. How are you looking at the market right now?

Well, with excitement, because it's definitely good for us, right? I mean, it has really been a great market starting back in July and August, which is usually slow for us. But when people, first, really being confident that there was a rate cut coming, um, we started seeing especially the wealthy start coming back into the market. Not that they needed to finance, but they just felt like they were good winds at their back, and it's really continued since then. So we're very excited, certainly for New York, but nationally, I think people are looking at a very strong market for at least the next, I think people are saying 12 to 18 months.

And how are you thinking about the Federal Reserve and the kind of potential that we may not get as many rate cuts this year as we previously might have anticipated? How does that impact and interplay with activity on the housing market?

As of right now, I think people are baking that in. Certainly back in the fall, we were thinking like this is going to be amazing because we had the, you know, half point and then we had the other quarter point, we were expecting another train that looks like it's been pushed out, right? I think the surprise for us is that we were busy leading up to the election, which we're usually not. And then after the election it really continued. And I think for a lot of people, not to get into politics, but I think for a lot of people, even if they weren't happy with the result of the election, a lot especially the wealthy felt like, okay, there's going to be lower taxes. They kind of, they're going to make a lot of money, right? I think that's a lot of people's mindset. They feel like also values are not going down and let's be frank, rates have been high for, you know, two years basically. So life happens, divorce, job changes, marriage, people are absorbing the change and they're coming back into the market.

And since you mentioned it, and I am wondering about the Trump administration's focus on the 10-year yield and keeping that low, which is obviously tied to mortgage rates. We've seen record breaking drop in the 10-year yield just in the last two months. If that continues, how much does that unlock activity as well?

I think a lot. I mean, I think, we've got strong activity, but I think if we can get mortgage rates continuing to go down dramatically, you're going to see a lot more people coming back into the market. Because especially for, nationally speaking, but certainly even in New York, if you're talking about the entry level, those people are still very rate conscious, right? And for New York, that's kind of let's call it below a million and a half or two, nationally that's higher prices. But those people are very much still looking at what their mortgage payments are going to be. And those are the people right now that are the least likely to be coming into the market. They're slowly coming back in. But if we can get rates meaningfully down, we've got a whole other group of supply that's coming in that'll just build on the market.

And I wonder if I can just get your advice on this. I talk about this with friends all the time, we were talking about it a little bit before, but just this feeling amongst younger potential first time homebuyers that it's just out of reach. So why even kind of work towards it? Why even kind of be saving for it instead of just keeping your money in the stock market, for example? Why does real estate still make sense for some people as an investment?

It's frustrating, right? Especially for young people, it can be kind of overwhelming. Look, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a huge source of building wealth, and I think that's going to continue to be the case. So whether you're, starting small and then you're working away from that, whether you have to, you know, beg and borrow from neighbors and friends and, and whatever you can do to get into the market, ultimately you're going to own something that I think is going to appreciate. It's a, you know, a nest egg that you're building and I don't see that changing anytime, certainly in the next, medium, five, 10 years. I, I think that's the way that our country still operates, and I think for young people, again, start small, save that. But it's, it's forced savings and it's the best path that we know of to building wealth.

Yeah, and I know it varies so much city by city, but how much do you generally tell people they need to have saved before they can approach the home buying conversation?

More than they think, probably. It's, you know, in New York, it's really tough, right? The prices here and then, and I specialize in New York and the Hamptons, and the prices are really, really high, especially for first time buyers. It's rare that we see somebody that is totally on their own, totally self-made that's buying something for the first time, you know, without parental help or without a spouse or anything like that. It's just, it's hard to build that nest egg. Um, but again, start small, you don't have to live in a prime location, you don't have to be in Manhattan, you can go to one of the suburbs and then again, work your way up to that. If you take a loan from your parents and then pay them back, you know, obviously most people don't have that option, but whatever you can do to get into the market long term, it's going to come back to you in terms of a good investment.

Right. I'm a Manhattan girl, so it's hard for me to imagine that, but I, I take your point seriously. Lastly, I just want to ask, the firm obviously featured in Selling the City on Netflix. And I wonder, has that impacted activity at all? Has it impacted the type of clientele that you're seeking? What's been the biggest change?

You know, I mean, I think it's certainly that the series was well received and certainly gotten our firm's name out in front of a lot of people. My business is so dramatically different from the reality show business. Um, you know, most of my clients are not people that want to be public. I mean they're, they're bold face names, but they don't want their private lives out there. Um, but they may watch the show, right? So it's still very entertaining. So, you know, I think it's been something that's given a lot of people a lot of fun and, um, you got another show to binge watch. I don't know that it's really changed our business much, but it's certainly been some good TV for some people.

Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Coming in. Thank you so much. Love to have you back soon.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.