GRIP: 04Feb2026 US Housing – From Drama To “Dull but Investable”

After four wild years, the US housing market is finally behaving more like an income asset and less like a meme chart. National home price growth has slowed to under 1% year‑on‑year, with several major forecasts clustering between flat and low‑single‑digit gains for 2026—large banks sit near 0%, while others like Zillow, Realtor.com and NAR bracket roughly 1–3%. In practice, that means a quiet rotation: some pandemic‑winner metros and 20‑plus cities are likely to see small price dips, while more boring markets with healthy local economies and tight supply grind out modest nominal appreciation. Equity has come off peak froth but, on aggregate, homeowners remain unusually well cushioned by a decade of earlier gains. Under the surface, volumes rather than prices are where the story lives. Existing‑home sales closed 2025 with a strong month‑on‑month jump in December, taking activity to its highest level since early 2023 and nudging full‑year sales slightly above 2024’s trough. Inventory is rebuilding—up mid‑single digits year‑on‑year in late‑2025 data—with days on market near two months and roughly three months of supply, still shy of a truly “loose” market but a far cry from 2021’s famine. On the financing side, 30‑year fixed mortgage rates have drifted into the low‑6s after peaking materially higher last year. That mix—slightly cheaper money, more choice, and stable pricing—is slowly coaxing buyers back, especially where builders sweeten the deal with buydowns and incentives rather than headline price cuts. For portfolio builders, the opportunity is in treating this “reset, not rebound” as a stock‑picking market rather than a macro bet. The national averages mask sharp regional spreads: research flags softer pricing and even projected declines in some West Coast and Sun Belt cities where pandemic‑era building overshot, while other states with stronger job growth and constrained supply are set up for steadier performance. Transaction volumes are expected to improve only gradually—think low‑to‑mid single‑digit growth in sales and sub‑3% price gains, not fireworks—but that’s precisely the environment where disciplined capital can buy into local distress, preferred equity or recap situations without fighting speculative froth. Politically, the current administration is signalling a clear bias toward protecting homeowner wealth rather than engineering a sharp affordability “reset,” which tilts the policy backdrop toward stability over shock therapy. For GRIP readers, early 2026 US housing looks like a classic grind‑it‑out market: boring on the surface, but rich in micro‑opportunities for those willing to zoom in on city‑level cycles, financing structures and who really controls the scarce, well‑located stock.