A Personal Note to My Clients & Friends
As summer winds down and we head into the fall market, one truth remains constant: sensational headlines are designed to provoke emotion, but data is what builds wealth. In the mortgage and real estate world, the crowd is often looking in the rear-view mirror while the real opportunities are forming right in front of us.
Whether we worked together six months ago or six years ago, my team’s commitment to you is unchanged: straight talk, zero fluff, and custom-tailored lending solutions built for your life. Let’s look at what the numbers are actually telling us as we enter September.
1. Market Perspective: Real Estate Values vs. The “Cooling” Narrative
“The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.” — Benjamin Graham
Every headline this past month has been fixated on “sluggish summer sales.” But let’s look at actual home equity:
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Case-Shiller Reality: On an unadjusted basis, nationwide home values rose 0.4% in June, bringing the cumulative gain over four consecutive months to +2.7%. Even with seasonal smoothing, year-over-year appreciation accelerated from 1.2% to 1.5%.
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FHFA Conforming Data: Conforming home prices rose 2.3% year-over-year.
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The Buyer’s Window: Buyers now hold negotiating leverage in 41 of the 50 largest U.S. markets, with roughly 20% of listings taking price cuts and sellers actively offering rate buydowns.
While sidelined observers wait for rates to magically drop back to pandemic lows, prepared buyers are securing properties at today’s prices, extracting seller concessions, and riding steady, undeniable equity gains.
2. The Good, The Bad, n’ The Ugly
THE GOOD: Inflation Realities & The BEA Math Fix
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The Portfolio Fee “Strange Bird”: In the recent PPI report, portfolio management fees jumped 6.5%. Because stock portfolios rose in value, the dollar amount paid to advisors increased—even though fee percentages actually drifted lower (deflationary). The government clocked this as a massive spike in “inflation.”
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The Adjustment is Coming: The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is finally updating this flawed methodology starting with their late-September release. Analysts project that fixing this phantom data will instantly decelerate year-over-year core inflation by at least 0.2% to 0.4%.
THE BAD: Data Center NIMBYism & The “Water/Grid” Panic
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The 71% Opposition: A stunning 71% of Americans now say they oppose a new AI data center anywhere near them—a higher opposition rate than nuclear power plants! The public panic centers on two myths: “they drain our water” and “they blow up our power bills.”
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The Water Math: Total direct U.S. data center water consumption is roughly 17 billion gallons annually. America’s golf courses use 425 to 493 billion gallons—up to 100x more! California ships 70 to 100 billion gallons of embedded water to China every year in the form of alfalfa, and uses 1.6 trillion gallons annually just to grow almonds (13% of the state’s total water). A single almond takes 1.1 gallons. Data centers generate roughly 92 cents of economic output per gallon of water, versus just 8 cents for golf.
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The Grid Reality: While interconnection queues are slow, data center growth is driving a massive renaissance in private, behind-the-meter generation, modular nuclear power, and utility revenue that actually lowers per-watt capital costs for surrounding communities. NIMBYism is our biggest threat to winning the global compute race.
THE UGLY: The Commercial Real Estate “Freeze”
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CREFC Sentiment Index: The CRE Finance Council Board of Governors Sentiment Index inched up just 0.9% to 101.0, essentially flatlining right at its 2017 baseline after earlier sharp drops.
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Cautious Stagnation: While outright panic has eased (only 24% expect the economy to worsen, down from 54%), “neutral” was the dominant response on seven out of nine core industry metrics. Borrowers and lenders are hesitating purely over interest rate uncertainty, causing capital deployment to back up into a massive holding pattern.
3. Perspective: The Global Vote of Confidence (and the Real Nuance)
Headlines love to push the narrative that investors are abandoning U.S. assets. The official Treasury International Capital (TIC) data tells the exact opposite story:
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The Inflow Reality: Over the trailing 12 months, net foreign purchases of U.S. equities surged to $909 billion—setting fresh records almost every single month and clocking in at roughly 2 to 3 times the previous 2021 peak.
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The Broader Picture: If you look at total foreign purchases of U.S. long-term securities (including Treasuries, corporate bonds, and agencies), net inflows reached $1.33 trillion.
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Who is Actually Selling? The widely covered “Sell America” chatter was largely a domestic phenomenon—U.S.-based investors reallocating into international equities—not foreign institutions dumping American assets. Global private capital has been aggressively buying.
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The Caveat: As Apollo’s chief economist Torsten Slok pointed out, this record inflow is heavily concentrated in foreign private capital chasing the U.S. AI and tech boom. That concentration is both a massive engine of liquidity and a reminder that our markets are closely tied to the continued execution of the tech sector.
4. Preparation, Planning, and Readiness
Market stability is not an accident; it is the product of disciplined planning. If you are navigating this market, here is your playbook for the fourth quarter:
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Leverage Seller Concessions: With buyers holding leverage in 41 top metro areas, ask us about structuring temporary 2-1 interest rate buydowns or permanent seller-paid financing credits.
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Small Business & Micro-Financing: Take advantage of our 2X expanded commercial loan limits and streamlined micro-loan programs to capture equipment, inventory, or operational expansion before year-end.
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No-Doc / DSCR Lending: Avoid the hassle of tax return red tape. We finance single-family and multi-family investment properties nationwide based solely on property cash flow.
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Tax-Deferred Repositioning: As portfolios evolve, we specialize in structuring comprehensive 1031 and tax-deferral strategies to reposition your real estate assets safely.
Let’s turn today’s market complexity into your personal advantage.
Go to michael-ryan.com today to schedule a 30-minute no-obligation strategy session.
Michael Ryan & Associates
Strategic Mortgage Brokerage