"At a Glance" Local Housing STATS and News 08/12/26

30-Year Fixed: 6.79% ▼ 0.01%  |  15-Year Fixed: 6.28% ▼ 0.01%

Rates barely moved, but the delinquency data did. The daily 30-year fixed eased a basis point to 6.79% and the 15-year eased one to 6.28%. The number worth your attention today is that the share of mortgage balances newly falling behind reached 3.95% in the second quarter, the highest since 2015. We checked that in the New York Fed’s own data rather than taking the headline, and it holds: a genuine decade high.

The stress is not spread evenly, and that is the useful part. FHA loans ran an 11.88% delinquency rate against 2.75% for conventional. VA sits at 4.99% and all loans together at 4.44%. FHA is the low down payment, lower credit score path, so it carries the buyers with the thinnest cushion, and they are stumbling first. Conventional delinquencies actually improved 14 basis points on the quarter.

Locally that argues for a reserves conversation, not a rate conversation. A buyer who qualifies on paper with nothing left after closing is exactly the profile in that 11.88%. In the Tri-City market, where a median ask still starts with a 1 in four of our five cities, the gap between qualifying and being comfortable is wide enough to be worth naming out loud before the offer.

Meanwhile the market keeps grinding. July existing home sales fell 1.7% nationally while the median price set a July record at $434,100, up 2.0% from a year ago and the 37th straight month of annual gains. Fewer sales at higher prices is the signature of tight inventory, not healthy demand, and it is the same shape we see on our own board.

Today’s live board across our five focus cities shows 697 homes a buyer can actually pursue right now, including 50 brand new listings and 110 more coming soon. The full, always-updating ledger lives at harvrealtor.net/live-inventory.

Today’s Live Inventory (buyable now)

• Fremont: 276 available (199 active, 21 new, 55 coming soon)
• Hayward: 196 available (161 active, 16 new, 18 coming soon)
• Milpitas: 102 available (78 active, 2 new, 22 coming soon)
• Newark: 76 available (56 active, 9 new, 11 coming soon)
• Union City: 47 available (40 active, 2 new, 4 coming soon)

Fremont was the only city to gain today, adding 4. Milpitas lost 4, Newark 3, and Hayward 2, while Union City held flat. Median asking runs from $849,500 in Hayward to $1,298,000 in Union City, and Newark stays the fastest of the five at 22 median days on market.

S&P 500: 7,728 ▼ 0.32%  |  DOW: 53,791 ▼ 0.34%  |  NASDAQ: 26,445 ▼ 0.60%

A soft, red day with nobody really trading. All three indexes slipped, and the reason is simply that the July inflation reading lands this morning. When the number that decides whether the Fed has room to cut is hours away, desks stop taking risk.

Earnings were the only real news. Super Micro rose 0.45% on orders ahead of expectations and CoreWeave added 2.42% on a cloud and AI quarter strong enough to name Anthropic and Meta as new customers. Cava fell 1.25% even with sales growth, because customers adding extras is a thinner story than customers showing up.

One structural detail worth keeping. Leveraged AI ETFs hold roughly 1% of global ETF assets but generate about 16% of daily ETF trading volume, nearly all of it concentrated in a handful of AI names. That is why the index can lurch on days when nothing actually happened.

US 10-Year: 4.70% ▼ 0.02%  |  Gold: $4,420 ▲ 1.01%  |  Silver: $66.40 ▲ 2.21%  |  Brent: $88.91 ▲ 1.36%

The New York Fed published its quarterly read on household debt yesterday, and it is the most useful thing on the wire. Total household debt actually fell slightly to $18.8 trillion. The trouble sits underneath that number.

Non-housing debt hit $5.20 trillion. Credit card balances rose $21 billion to $1.26 trillion and auto loans rose $28 billion to $1.71 trillion, while student loans fell $7 billion to $1.65 trillion. The chart shows how those four pieces have grown since 2003.

The delinquency picture is genuinely split. Overall, 4.7% of household debt is in some stage of delinquency, slightly better than last quarter. But 12.9% of credit card balances are now at least 90 days past due. An aggregate that improves while its worst slice deteriorates is not a calm reading, it is two different economies inside one number.

Elsewhere, the 10-Year eased to 4.70%, Brent settled at $88.91 with the Hormuz route still contested, gold ran to $4,420 an ounce and silver jumped 2.21% to $66.40, its highest in about seven weeks.

Why a REALTOR® cares: card balances and auto loans are the two debts that move a buyer’s debt to income ratio fastest, and both are climbing. A client carrying $6,000 on a card at pre-approval and $11,000 by the time they write an offer can lose the approval without their income changing at all. This is the quarter to tell buyers to stop opening credit.

BTC: $63,415 ▼ 0.22%  |  ETH: $1,891 ▲ 1.53%  |  XRP: $1.01 ▲ 0.78%

Flat for Bitcoin, better for the rest. The real story is a Texas Bitcoin mine turning into a landlord: Riot struck a $9.1 billion deal with Anthropic to supply power and data center capacity, and the stock rose 4.33%. AI labs need grid power and cooled buildings, and miners spent a decade acquiring exactly those two things for a business now in a downturn. If the power contract pays better than the mining, the Bitcoin part becomes the side business. Separately, the Clarity Act has been delayed, so the SEC keeps improvising on crypto rules.

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.