Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
The average weekly rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at its highest level in nearly a year, contributing to elevated housing costs and dampening buyer interest.
A home for sale in Alhambra, Calif., on Aug. 28, 2025. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty ImagesFor the most recent week, the mortgage rate was at 6.55 percent, according to a July 16 statement by Freddie Mac. This is the highest level since the week ending Aug. 27, 2025, when the rate was at 6.56 percent. Since mid-May, rates have consistently hovered around 6.5 percent.
Rates have risen consecutively over the past two weeks, from 6.43 percent for the week ending July 1 to 6.55 percent currently.
Meanwhile, pending home sales in the country declined 2.2 percent for the four weeks ending July 12 compared to the four-week period ending July 5, according to a statement from real estate brokerage Redfin.
First-time homebuyers are facing a "tough time" breaking into the housing market, Christine Kooiker, a Redfin Premier agent in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said in the statement.
"High mortgage rates mean that even homes in the most affordable price point - under $350,000 in the Grand Rapids area - are a stretch for a lot of buyers, and they're hard to find and competitive," Kooiker said.
Many buyers are "sitting on the sidelines, too, because they're locked into low mortgage rates or can't find a new home they love."
Similar findings were made by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which, in a July 16 statement, reported a 5.4 percent month-over-month dip in pending sales in June.
The decrease was most pronounced in the Midwest, followed by the West, South, and Northeast.
"The highest mortgage rates in nearly a year and the record-high national median home price together are contributing to a tepid housing market that is especially difficult for first-time homebuyers," NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun said in the statement.
Housing AffordabilityLawmakers have taken action to ease the burdens on prospective homebuyers and make housing more affordable for Americans.
On July 11, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. The legislation aims to ensure housing affordability through various measures, such as rolling back permits and regulations, and offering financial support to homebuyers, builders, and state and local governments.
The bill was passed by the House and Senate last month. However, President Donald Trump refused to sign the bill until the election integrity bill, the SAVE America Act, was passed by Congress.
According to Article I of the U.S. Constitution, if a bill is not returned by the president within 10 days after being presented, it shall become law. Trump's deadline to veto the bill was July 10.
The bill "will cut red tape, lower costs, and boost the supply of housing," Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) said in a July 13 statement.
"We need to build on this momentum and keep rolling up our sleeves to tackle the housing crisis confronting far too many American families."
Meanwhile, builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes declined in July from the previous month, according to a July 16 statement from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index was at 36 in July, the 15th straight month it has remained below the 40 level. This is the longest stretch of monthly values below 40 since 2012.
NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz cited housing affordability as the "primary challenge" facing the home building industry.
NAHB chairman Bill Owens said that many potential buyers continue to hesitate to purchase homes as they wait for mortgage rates to come down and for more clarity on inflation and the economic outlook.
While the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has some important provisions addressing obstacles faced by buyers and builders, "these reforms will take time to implement," Owens said.
Tyler Durden Mon, 07/20/2026 - 14:05Summary:
For years, left-wing political violence in the US was often treated as isolated and/or a non-issue. The Trump administration is now calling it a domestic terrorism threat.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle described the incident outside 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan earlier today as an "anti-government attack on a federal facility."
Watch the suspected left-wing radical attack the federal building, which houses offices for agencies including DHS, ICE, USCIS, the FBI, and the Social Security Administration.
A low IQ suspected left-wing terrorist attempted to set a federal government building on fire before being apprehended. pic.twitter.com/rWTctxtRQd
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) July 20, 2026Suspect identified as Andrew Arrabaca ...
The suspect detained in connection with the incendiary device outside 26 Federal Plaza has been identified as 43-year-old Andrew Arrabaca. pic.twitter.com/r7ZAzX0EUj
— Roberto Gil (@RbtGil) July 20, 2026Barnacle also said the suspect carried a sign reading "ICE Off Our Streets," which suggests an association with left-wing groups.
Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team collected evidence at the scene where an incendiary device was detonated outside of 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, New York, United States on July 20, 2026. Monday morning the incident occurred and federal authorities are investigating… pic.twitter.com/RiXBlvbxop
— Kyle Mazza (@KyleMazzaWUNF) July 20, 2026Even The Atlantic had to recently admit there was a troubling rise in left-wing terror...
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed delegations from 65 nations about the alarming rise of far-left terrorism across the West.
Socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the incident "deeply disturbing." Yet Mamdani and his unhinged anti-American DSA-ers have pushed an increasingly hostile climate toward federal law enforcement.
Suspect ArrestedBREAKING: Suspect apprehended after incendiary device deployed outside 26 Federal Plaza in NYC, FBI reports pic.twitter.com/7sZxyan0XV
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 20, 2026 FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force InvestigatingThe FBI tells Fox News' Bill Melugin:
"This morning an individual deployed an incendiary device outside of 26 Federal Plaza. The individual has been taken into custody and the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the incident."
Melugin continued:
NYPD tells FOX there was a "found firearm" in relation to this event, but couldn't confirm if it was found on the suspect.
FBI statement to @FoxNews:
"This morning an individual deployed an incendiary device outside of 26 Federal Plaza. The individual has been taken into custody and the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the incident."
NYPD tells FOX there was a "found… https://t.co/bUdDbryRxC
The attack at 26 Federal Plaza, which houses offices for agencies including DHS, ICE, USCIS, the FBI, and the Social Security Administration, comes days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned of far-left terrorism across the West.
Another view:
From outside my apartment. Saw what looked like a shotgun and people running for cover behind walls. Scary sights pic.twitter.com/geMnremrKD
— DoubleDash_DigitalDash (@DoubleDash_H) July 20, 2026 Explosion Reported Outside 26 Federal Plaza In Lower ManhattanNew footage shows what appears to be a fire and a person being arrested outside 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
"Moment of EXPLOSION that went off outside of the 26 Federal Plaza in NYC around 8:30am this morning, with Immigration agents and FBI Rushing out guns drawn and FPS apprehending the suspect. Sidewalk has been shut down and building evacuated," FreedomNews wrote on X.
NOW: Moment of EXPLOSION that went off outside of the 26 Federal Plaza in NYC around 8:30am this morning, with Immigration agents and FBI Rushing out guns drawn and FPS apprehending the suspect. Sidewalk has been shut down and building evacuated.
NYPD on scene confirmed it was… pic.twitter.com/aihTqsFpcN
Notably, the building houses several federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Social Security Administration, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
There is no additional information at this time.
Tyler Durden Mon, 07/20/2026 - 13:45Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
Assholes who wear Vineyard Vines all summer on Wall Street have once again put those Wharton PhD’s to good use by again “discovering” that assets so toxic and illiquid they make drinking cement taste like Fiji water apparently become safe when you rearrange them, rename them, and place an insurance company between the losses and the people buying them. Sound familiar?
According to Bloomberg, UBS and other firms have been exploring structures that package stakes in private-credit funds into bonds. Because perpetual private-credit vehicles do not fit neatly into conventional ratings models, bankers are looking to add insurance “wrappers” that allow portions of the deals to inherit the insurer’s stronger credit profile. The resulting paper can then be marketed as investment grade, even though the assets underneath remain opaque, illiquid private-market investments.
This is apparently considered innovation. I just hear Anthony Bourdain explaining CDOs during The Big Short over and over again.
An insurer guarantees a tranche against losses, the tranche receives a better rating, and other insurers can buy it while setting aside dramatically less capital. In the example described, an A2-rated tranche could require less than 1% in regulatory capital, compared with a charge that could reach 30% for a direct investment in a private-credit fund.
Nothing says “rock-solid asset” quite like needing several lawyers, a ratings agency, an insurance guarantee and a regulatory-capital loophole to explain why it is safe.
The comparison with 2008 is not merely rhetorical. Before the financial crisis, Wall Street packaged mortgages into residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Those securities were divided into tranches, and ratings agencies assigned extremely high grades to senior portions based on assumptions that nationwide housing losses would remain limited and geographically dispersed.
Then Wall Street added another layer of genius: credit-default swaps.
Insurer AIG’s Financial Products division sold enormous amounts of CDS protection on mortgage-related securities. These contracts operated much like insurance, promising payment if the protected securities suffered specified credit losses. AIG collected fees up front and initially posted little collateral because everyone treated the company’s high credit rating as a substitute for cash.
The crucial clarification is that AIG’s traditional state-regulated insurance subsidiaries were not simply writing ordinary homeowners policies and accidentally destroying civilization. The catastrophe grew largely inside AIG Financial Products, an inadequately regulated derivatives business that used the broader AIG organization’s pristine rating to guarantee complex financial bets.
But that rating was the magic wand.
As mortgage values deteriorated and AIG was downgraded, its counterparties demanded tens of billions of dollars in collateral. AIG did not have enough readily available cash to meet those calls. Suddenly, the institution that had promised to insure everyone else’s balance sheet needed the federal government to insure its own. The same rating that had made the contracts appear safe became the trigger for the liquidity crisis once it disappeared.
On September 16, 2008, the Federal Reserve authorized an initial loan of up to $85 billion to keep AIG from collapsing. The government received a 79.9% equity interest in exchange. The support was later expanded and restructured through Treasury investments, additional facilities and special vehicles created to remove mortgage securities and CDO exposures from AIG’s balance sheet.
Total commitments commonly associated with the rescue eventually reached roughly $180 billion. The CFTC later described the intervention as about $600 for every American alive at the time.
AIG had more than $1 trillion in consolidated assets in mid-2008 and sat at the center of a sprawling network involving major banks, retirement plans, commercial-paper markets, municipalities and other insurers. Federal Reserve officials concluded that a disorderly failure could have caused severe losses across financial institutions and further reduced the availability of credit to households and businesses.
In other words, AIG did not merely make bad investments. It sold protection so broadly that its own failure threatened to detonate the institutions that believed they were protected. The insurer had become the bomb.
And now, less than two decades later, Wall Street is again using insurance guarantees to turn difficult-to-rate credit exposure into highly rated securities.
What could possibly go wrong besides the exact thing that already went wrong?
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The modern structures are not identical to AIG’s CDS book. Today’s private-credit wrappers may be smaller, more collateralized and subject to different contractual and regulatory safeguards. There is no evidence that the current market has already created an AIG-sized hole.
But the rhyme is deafening. The underlying private credit assets are dogshit, as I’ve written about on this blog non-stop. The engineering is complicated. Ratings play a central role. Capital requirements become lighter after the transaction is rearranged. Risk migrates from the original lender to insurers, annuity providers, pensions and other institutions promising money to ordinary people decades from now.
The fund-finance market is estimated at somewhere between $1 trillion and $1.75 trillion, up from only a few hundred billion roughly a decade ago. That puts its expansion in the same broad neighborhood as the pre-2008 boom in structured subprime finance.
Private-credit managers need liquidity because exits have slowed, old investments remain stuck, and some borrowers are repaying existing loans with still more debt. Meanwhile, insurers and annuity companies are hungry for yield and attracted to structures that turn higher-risk fund exposure into favorably treated investment-grade paper.
It is a beautiful ecosystem. Private funds need money. Insurers need yield. Banks need fees. Ratings agencies need business. Regulators need to remain comatose. Everyone gets exactly what they want until the whole thing winds up bending over the average taxpayer, saver or retail investor somehow.
One particularly obvious danger is concentration. When an insurer wraps multiple securities, every buyer begins relying on the same corporate balance sheet. A downgrade of that insurer could cause many wrapped tranches to be downgraded simultaneously, potentially triggering forced selling across portfolios at precisely the moment markets are least able to absorb it. It’s like a high school test where everyone copies off of the same person who fails the test, causing the rest of the class to.
The structures also make it increasingly difficult for regulators to trace where the final losses reside. Researchers have warned that repackaging risk adds “structural complexity and opacity” and can amplify contagion when one link fails, as the Bloomberg report notes.
Once again, Wall Street is not eliminating risk. It is relocating it, obscuring it and reducing the amount of capital held against it. And once again, the entire arrangement is encouraged by the understanding that the Federal Reserve will respond to a sufficiently large accident with emergency lending, asset purchases, liquidity facilities and whatever alphabet soup is necessary to keep asset prices from discovering consequences.
This is the lesson Wall Street learned from 2008: not that leverage and opacity are dangerous, but that they should be spread widely enough to qualify for federal protection.
Make a reckless bet by yourself and you go bankrupt. Make the same bet through enough banks, insurers, pensions and retirement accounts and you become systemically important.
The Fed has spent years turning moral hazard from an embarrassing side effect into a rational business model. Every rescue lowers the perceived cost of the next gamble. Every emergency facility teaches markets that liquidity risk is temporary. Every rapid intervention tells executives that the real objective is not avoiding catastrophe, but making sure a catastrophe would be too politically expensive to tolerate.
So the structures get larger. The collateral gets murkier. The ratings get friendlier. The capital cushions get thinner. The chains of counterparties get longer.
Then everyone acts stunned when one downgrade causes twelve institutions to discover they were all holding the same risk.
We are not preventing the next crash. We are steadily assembling the mother of all crashes while congratulating ourselves for distributing the explosives more efficiently. And when it finally happens, the people who designed it will explain that nobody could possibly have seen it coming.
Except, of course, anyone who remembers 2008…or who is unlucky enough to sit next to me at an airport bar when I have 3 hours to kill and feel talkative.
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Tyler Durden Mon, 07/20/2026 - 13:25