Tens of millions of Americans will never own a home — consequences will be severe 

Real estate agents are a hopeful bunch by trade. They have to be. Every March, they dust off their lockboxes and tell themselves that this spring will finally break the spell. Buyers will return. Sellers will list. The market will swipe right again.

But that hope has been crushed for a second consecutive year — this time by a war in Iran that has sent mortgage rates soaring.

The numbers tell a truly depressing story. The National Association of Realtors had forecast a 14 percent jump in existing-home sales for 2026. Zillow predicted a more modest 4.3 percent bump. Both forecasts now look like fiction worthy of a cryptocurrency white paper. Experts have already conceded that 2026 will resemble 2024 and 2025, two of the slowest years on record. The market has become a staring contest where nobody blinks, nobody moves, and the country suffers.

Zoom out from the spreadsheets, and the spring stagnation reveals something far uglier than a bad quarter for realtors. America is becoming a country where owning the place you live is increasingly out of reach. The median home now costs roughly five times the median household income. In 1985, that ratio was closer to three. A generation ago, a teacher married to a mechanic could buy a starter house in most metropolitan areas. Today, that same couple gets outbid by a private equity fund buying the........

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