"At a Glance" Local Housing STATS and News 09/02/26

30-Year Fixed: 6.89% ▲ 0.02%  |  15-Year Fixed: 6.39% ▲ 0.01%

Both rates set a fresh 52 week high for the second day running. The 30 year added two basis points to 6.89% and the 15 year one to 6.39%, per Mortgage News Daily. Its published 52 week ranges now read 5.99% to 6.89% and 5.55% to 6.39%, so today’s print is the top of each.

The cause is not in the mortgage market. The U.S. struck Iranian targets after two oil tankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, and the ten year Treasury rose four basis points to 4.79%. Mortgages are priced off that curve. Yesterday’s move was mostly mechanical month end bond trading, which unwinds on its own. This one is a geopolitical risk premium, which does not keep to a calendar.

What it costs a buyer, concretely. On a $450,000 purchase with 20% down, the monthly payment is now roughly $2,369. That is $5 more than yesterday and about $212 more than in February. Small daily steps, all in one direction.

Locally the board is carrying 2,649 listings across the 15 city board, counting everything active alongside everything in contract, with 202 coming soon and 192 brand new today. That is 15 fewer than yesterday, ordinary drift after Monday’s month end drop of 80. Our own 5 city ledger shows 695 homes a buyer can pursue right now, including 59 brand new listings and 105 more coming soon. The full, always-updating ledger lives at harvrealtor.net/live-inventory.

Today’s Live Inventory (buyable now)

• Fremont: 265 available (199 active, 26 new, 40 coming soon)
• Hayward: 184 available (147 active, 21 new, 15 coming soon)
• Milpitas: 116 available (80 active, 4 new, 32 coming soon)
• Newark: 76 available (60 active, 5 new, 11 coming soon)
• Union City: 54 available (44 active, 3 new, 7 coming soon)

Supply is flat and demand is steady. Fremont shed three active listings and added one to contract. Coming soon rose to 40 in Fremont alone, which is the pipeline for the next two weeks, and it is not thinning. The honest read for a client this week: rates are at a one year high because of a war risk premium in the bond market, not because of anything happening in housing. That premium can come out as quickly as it went in. Nobody should time a purchase on that guess, but anyone floating a rate should call their lender today rather than Friday.

10-Year Treasury: 4.79% ▲ 0.04%  |  Gold: $4,383 ▲ 1.91%  |  Silver: $65.34 ▲ 1.90%  |  Brent: $94.65 ▲ 4.60%

Hormuz is driving this entire section. Money left Treasuries and went into oil. Brent settled Tuesday at $94.65, up 4.60% in a single session, and gold and silver have both rebounded about 1.9% this morning after a hard Tuesday.

Three of these four numbers had to be corrected against their primary source before publishing. The newsletter that circulated this morning had the ten year at 4.81% and called it a one basis point move; Treasury’s own daily yield curve has Tuesday closing at 4.79%, up four basis points. It had Brent at $96.67 and up 2.16%; ICE front month futures settled at $94.65, up 4.60%, so its level was too high and its move was less than half the real one. Its gold quote does not square with where gold actually settled Tuesday. Silver was left out entirely, as usual.

Gas is over $4 a gallon and the White House met with about a dozen refinery bosses to push for more gasoline and diesel, offering faster permits and more Venezuelan crude. With Brent near $95 that is a hard promise to keep.

The cheap used car is disappearing, and so is what your money buys

This is not a housing number, but it is the same squeeze showing up in a different line of the household budget. Barely a third of used cars now sell for under $20,000, against more than half in 2019. More telling is what a fixed budget buys: $10,000 to $15,000 once got a 4.7 year old car with 58,000 miles and now gets an 8.7 year old car with 98,000 miles. Edmunds also put the average transaction price of a three year old used vehicle at $32,461 in the second quarter, a record. A buyer stretching for a payment on an older car is a buyer with a thinner debt to income cushion when they sit down with a lender.

S&P 500: 7,631 ▼ 0.71%  |  DOW: 52,766 ▼ 0.79%  |  NASDAQ: 26,099 ▼ 1.03%

All three indexes fell, with the NASDAQ down a full point. Dell raised its yearly revenue forecast by $25 billion to $192 billion, about $74 billion of it AI servers, and fell 6.98% anyway. GoPro jumped 40.38% on a merger with a private optics firm aimed at data centers and defense. Palo Alto Networks beat on revenue and profit and dropped 5.24%.

What Tim Cook’s 15 years built

Apple has a new chief executive. John Ternus took over on September 1, ending Cook’s 15 years in the job, and the stock rose 2.61% on the news. The chart going around this morning showed Apple’s whole history on a straight line from 1980, which flattens Cook’s entire first decade into a line hugging zero and puts its one label on the dullest looking stretch of the picture. Its headline number does not hold up either. Measured from Apple’s first trading day close, the all time gain is roughly 253,000%, not the 203,106% printed on the card. So here is the tenure on its own terms: $13.44 a share to $325.13, a gain of 2,320% over 15 years.

Bitcoin: $77,269 ▼ 1.39%  |  Ethereum: $2,401 ▼ 2.16%  |  XRP: $1.34 ▼ 3.01%

Lower across the board, and a little heavier than this morning’s newsletter had it. Bitcoin is holding just above $77,000. Two things worth knowing: scammers are draining wallets through fake Grand Theft Auto 6 early access pages that ask people to connect a wallet and approve a request, and the game does not release until November. And one of Coinbase’s co founders is bidding on at least three Venezuelan oil blocks in the Orinoco Belt.

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.