THE VERTICAL – Weekly Brief

Where housing, money & tech collide

Author

Jake Heller
September 02, 2025

A QUICK SCAN

  • Rates keep sliding. 30 year fixed hits 6.59% - lowest in 10 months. Buyers have a real window right now.

  • Builders dangling carrots. From 2-1 buydowns to free basements, incentives are everywhere.

  • Household growth slowing. Harvard’s JCHS says demographics + affordability = fewer owners over the next decade.

  • Multifamily quirks. Absorption’s soft but rents still hit records. Built-for-rent keeps surging.

  • AI just ate another week of grunt work. Underwriting, lease abstracts, feasibility - what used to take a team all week now takes a bot 30 minutes.

1 | THE GREAT STANDOFF: Buyers Circle, Sellers Blink (Slowly)

Active listings are up, rates are down… so where’s the boom? Sellers are holding out.

  • Homes pulled off the market: +47% YOY. Phoenix leads with 30 delistings for every 100 new listings.

  • Price cuts? Record highs, but still not enough to meet buyers where they are.

  • Days on market: creeping up, now 53. Overpricing costs you an extra week.

Reality check: Sellers have equity cushions and low mortgages. They’d rather wait it out than cut deep. If you’re a buyer, circle anything sitting 60+ days. That’s when stubborn turns into “let’s deal.”

2 | BUILDER TACTICS: Buydowns, Free Basements, Whatever It Takes

Traffic’s softer, demand’s shaky, and builders know it. Publics lean on rate buydowns, privates get creative.

  • David Weekley: forward commitments + closing cost help.

  • Drees: below market fixed rates, 2-1 buydowns, even free finished basements.

  • Davidson Homes: pivots weekly depending on what buyers want most - rates, design credits, or straight up discounts.

Builders can’t control rates, but they can throw sweeteners at the problem. Your takeaway? If you’re shopping new builds, ask what’s on the table. Odds are there’s wiggle room.

3 | BIG PICTURE: Household Growth Slowing

This one’s from Harvard’s JCHS and it matters:

  • Projected homeowner growth: 337k–685k per year through 2035 (below past averages).

  • Renter growth: 174k–523k per year.

  • Base case: homeownership rate basically flat at 65.9%.

Translation: affordability + demographics = slower household formation. It’s not just about today’s rates; it’s the long game of who can actually buy.

4 | MULTIFAMILY MIX: Absorption Soft, Rents Not

Absorption’s weaker, but rents keep rising:

  • 48% of new apartments rented within 3 months - down from 75% at the peak.

  • Median asking rent: $1,920, a record high (+12% YOY).

  • Built-for-rent multifamily? Up 21% YOY. Share now 94% of starts.

This is the market’s paradox: renters still paying up, even as absorption slows.

5 | AI IN CRE: Three Workflows That Change Everything

This is where things get exciting. CRE operators are moving past “AI experiments” into real workflows that save days, not hours.

1. AI-Powered Renovation Workflows
We ran an old kitchen photo through Genspark’s AI Designer and got:

  • Multiple finish options (quartz, stainless, vinyl plank).

  • Full spec list of materials.

  • Contractor ready scope of work.

  • A detailed budget tied to the scope.

Normally: designers + contractors + revisions = weeks.
Now: Photo → Render → Specs → Scope → Budget in under an hour.

Why it matters: plug real reno numbers into underwriting on Day 1, wow investors with before/after visuals, and hand contractors a real scope without the headaches.

2. The Workflow That Makes Brokers Untouchable
For brokers, staying top of mind with clients is everything. Here’s how one team does it:

  • Step 1: Grok auto builds a weekly LA Multifamily Intel Brief covering transactions, leasing, pipeline, policy, and capital markets.

  • Step 2: Copy into Gamma AI → instant client ready deck.

Result: instead of 4+ hours of research + design, brokers send polished market briefings in 10 minutes.

This isn’t about efficiency, it’s about being the one broker who delivers fresh, real-time insights every week.

3. Lease Abstracts Without the Pain
Forward a 50 page lease to Manus Mail → get a clean abstract in a spreadsheet a few minutes later.

No portals. No analysts stuck in doc purgatory. Just quick, actionable data.

6 | MARKET PULSE: Rates, Pending Sales, Buyer Leverage

  • 30 year fixed: 6.51% - lowest since last fall.

  • Pending sales: up 2%. Buyers circling.

  • Spread between 10Y Treasury and mortgage rates: narrowest in 3 years. More room for rates to fall.

  • Affordable listings: 439k in July - most since 2022.

Bottom line: It’s still tough out there, but affordability is cracking open in ways we haven’t seen in years.

7 | COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: AI for CRE Collective 🚀

The most exciting thing I’ve been part of this year is the AI for CRE Collective, a private community of developers, brokers, investors, contractors, and operators who are actually using AI in real estate.

Inside:

  • Real workflows (like automating market analysis, building agents, and generating investment memos).

  • Collaborative tool testing.

  • Workshops + demos.

  • Curated industry news + early tool access.

It’s where experiments turn into production.

👉 Join us here: AI for CRE Collective

BOTTOM LINE

Housing is stuck in a standoff. Sellers holding, builders bribing, Harvard warning of slower growth.

But the real story? AI is moving from novelty to necessity. Renovation workflows, broker briefings, lease abstracts, and feasibility reports created by AI aren’t “nice-to-have.” They’re competitive advantages that free up your team to do more deals.

The play: stay patient on housing, get aggressive on AI.

QUESTIONS, DEALS, OR AI GEEK OUTS?

Always down to dive in. Just hit reply.

— Jake