"At a Glance" Local Housing STATS and News 08/04/26

30-Year Fixed: 6.82% ▼ 0.01%  |  15-Year Fixed: 6.32% ● 0.00%

Rates eased a hair. The daily 30-year fixed slipped a basis point to 6.82% and the 15-year held at 6.32%. Not relief, but not another climb either.

Wall Street is buying California’s wildfire risk, and that is good news for homeowners. Insurers have sold $5.18 billion of catastrophe bonds carrying wildfire exposure so far in 2026, already 93% of last year’s full-year record with half the year still to run.

Here is why it matters more than it sounds. A catastrophe bond lets an insurer hand wildfire risk to investors who want the yield. The more of that capacity exists, the more willing carriers are to keep writing policies in fire-prone areas instead of walking away. Anyone who has tried to place coverage in a California hillside neighborhood in the past two years knows the problem is availability, not just price. This is the plumbing behind that, and right now the plumbing is getting bigger. It has more than doubled since 2023.

Builders are pulling back. Residential construction spending fell for a fourth straight month in June to an annual pace of $889.3 billion, 4.7% below last year. Single-family took the bigger hit, with mortgage rates above 6.5% for 11 straight weeks. Slow sales are turning into fewer starts and fewer permits, which tightens supply 12 to 18 months out.

Why a REALTOR® cares: builders cutting starts today is next year’s inventory shortage. If your buyer is waiting for prices to break, the supply side is quietly moving against them even while rates stay high. Worth warning clients too: fraudsters are now paying U.S. freelancers to post fake rental listings, because a domestic poster does not trip the fraud alarms a foreign one does. Consumers reported about 65,000 rental scams from 2020 through mid-2025, losing $65 million.

Today’s live board across our five focus cities shows 710 homes a buyer can actually pursue right now, including 45 brand new listings and 100 more coming soon. The full, always-updating ledger lives at harvrealtor.net/live-inventory.

Today’s Live Inventory (buyable now)

• Fremont: 278 available (210 active, 22 new, 44 coming soon)
• Hayward: 197 available (169 active, 10 new, 17 coming soon)
• Milpitas: 101 available (76 active, 5 new, 20 coming soon)
• Newark: 83 available (64 active, 4 new, 14 coming soon)
• Union City: 51 available (42 active, 4 new, 5 coming soon)

Median asking prices barely moved: Fremont at $1,239,500 with a median 27 days on market, Union City at $1,298,444, Newark at $1,198,000, Milpitas at $1,149,000, and Hayward at $849,000. Board-wide the 15-city table carries 2,677 listings, down 14 from yesterday. Three straight days of easing inventory with rates flat means the market is quiet, not turning.

S&P 500: 7,600 ▲ 1.48%  |  DOW: 53,178 ▲ 1.32%  |  NASDAQ: 25,913 ▲ 2.13%

The Dow closed at an all-time record high. It finished Monday at 53,178, up 1.32% on the day and up 10.64% for the year, with the S&P and NASDAQ green alongside it.

The chart puts the run in context. The Dow started the year at 48,063, gave up more than 6% into a March 27 low of 45,167, and has climbed almost without pause since. That is a round trip of roughly 8,000 points in four months.

Amazon joined the $3 trillion club, rising 4.58% to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. Palantir was the other standout, reporting revenue up 48% to $1 billion on demand for its Foundry platform, and Microsoft added 4.93%. After a couple of years of AI spending with little to show, several of these companies are finally posting the revenue to justify it. One rumor worth watching: Bristol Myers Squibb is reportedly weighing a bid for AstraZeneca, possibly as large as $400 billion. Both deny it, and AstraZeneca fell 6.88% on the noise.

US 10-Year: 4.70% ▼ 0.05%  |  Gold: $4,070 ▲ 0.47%  |  Silver: $58.63 ▲ 1.19%  |  Brent: $78.94 ▼ 5.77%

The 10-Year backed off. Treasury put the 10-year yield at 4.70% at Monday’s close, down 5 basis points from Friday. Small, but it is the right direction for anyone shopping a mortgage.

Oil fell off a cliff. Brent dropped 5.77% to $78.94 a barrel, a second straight brutal session, on hopes the U.S. and Iran are heading back to the negotiating table. Two days ago it was $83.73. Metals went the other way, with gold adding $19 to $4,070 an ounce and silver up 1.19% to $58.63.

Summer travel is cooling, too. International flight bookings by Americans fell 8% year over year, with airfare to Europe up 12% and a weaker dollar making everything abroad pricier. Delta and United both warn elevated jet fuel prices are here for a while.

Why a REALTOR® cares: a 10-Year drifting down while oil collapses is the combination that eventually pulls mortgage rates lower. It has not happened yet, and one day is not a trend, but this is the shape of the setup you want if you are waiting on rate relief for a buyer.

BTC: $63,959 ▲ 0.37%  |  ETH: $1,868 ▲ 0.30%  |  XRP: $1.08 ▼ 0.92%

Mostly flat across the majors. The story worth reading twice: attackers drained more than 1,000 Bitcoin from Coldcard hardware wallets in 41 minutes on July 30, roughly $89 million across about 1,200 wallets. A hardware wallet is supposed to be the safe option because it keeps keys offline; the failure was a coding mistake in certain versions that made the recovery phrase guessable. If a client holds crypto on a hardware device, this is the week to have them check their firmware version. Separately, Strategy sold about $105 million of Bitcoin last week as the slump pushes big holders to raise cash.

Disclaimer: The market data, rates, and information provided are for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always verify rates and data with your lender or financial advisor before making any decisions.