You will see it this week. Maybe you already have.
The agent who cut corners and still closed the deal. The MLO who overpromised and somehow kept their clients. The recruiter who hired fast, skipped the culture fit, and got away with it.
And somewhere in the back of your mind a quiet, dangerous thought shows up. Maybe that is just how it works.
It is not.
Here is what is actually happening. The negative examples are loud. They spread fast. They get shared, screenshotted, and turned into cautionary tales that somehow also feel like permission. Bad behavior stirs emotion. And emotion travels.
Good behavior does not work that way. The agent who spent three years building a referral network through genuine relationships does not make the highlight reel. The MLO who called every client back within the hour, every time, for a decade does not go viral. The transaction coordinator who caught the error that saved the deal does not get a LinkedIn post.
But those people exist. In every market. In every office. In every brokerage you have ever walked through.
The question is not whether the bad examples are real. They are. The question is whether you are going to let them set the standard.
Your clients are watching how you operate. Your team is watching. The newer agents in your office are watching more than you think.
You are someone’s role model whether you signed up for it or not.
Good news is always quieter than bad news. That does not make it less true. Keep doing the work the right way. The market has a long memory, and so do the people who matter most in your business.
A few of my readers have asked me to re-cap what happened in the U.S. Senate today – here is my take:
On March 12, 2026, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in an 89–10 vote. This landmark bipartisan legislation led by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) represents the most significant federal housing overhaul in decades.
The bill combines the Senate’s “ROAD to Housing Act” with the House’s “Housing for the 21st Century Act” to address the national shortage of nearly 4.7 million homes.
Executive Summary
The primary goal of the Act is to boost housing supply and lower costs by cutting federal “red tape,” modernizing aging housing programs, and incentivizing local governments to reform restrictive zoning and permitting rules. While largely praised for its supply-side reforms, the bill includes a controversial provision targeting corporate landlords that has sparked intense debate among industry stakeholders.
Key Highlights & Provisions
1. Restrictions on Institutional Investors (Section 901)
The most discussed addition is a provision titled “Homes are for People, Not Corporations.”
The Ban: Prohibits “large institutional investors” (entities owning 350 or more single-family homes) from purchasing additional single-family properties.
Build-to-Rent (BTR) Mandate: Requires institutional investors to sell build-to-rent homes to individual buyers within seven years of construction.
Controversy: Critics, including the National Association of Home Builders and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argue this will stifle investment and could slash single-family production by 40,000 units per year.
2. Cutting Regulatory Red Tape
Environmental Streamlining: Categorically excludes certain low-impact projects (like infill and rehabilitation) from rigorous NEPA reviews to speed up construction.
Pattern Book Grants: Provides funding for cities to adopt “pre-approved” building designs, allowing developers to bypass lengthy permit approvals for standardized housing types.
Rural Housing Reform: Streamlines the joint review process between HUD and the USDA for projects receiving funding from both agencies.
3. Modernizing Federal Grants (HOME & CDBG)
CDBG Flexibility: For the first time, allows Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to be used for new housing construction (previously limited to rehabilitation).
Incentive Adjustments: Starting three years after enactment, CDBG funding may be adjusted by 10% based on a community’s actual housing production.
HOME Program: Expands income eligibility to better support “workforce housing” and authorizes funds for infrastructure (like water/sewer) adjacent to housing projects.
4. Supporting Diverse Housing Options
Manufactured Housing: Updates federal rules and provides grants (via the PRICE program) to preserve and maintain manufactured home communities.
RESIDE Act: Authorized to help local governments convert vacant or abandoned commercial structures into “attainable housing.”
Public Welfare Cap: Increases the cap on bank “public welfare investments” from 15% to 20%, encouraging more private bank capital to flow into affordable housing.
5. Unexpected Provisions
CBDC Moratorium: Includes a temporary ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) through 2030, a priority for some conservative lawmakers.
What’s Next?
The bill now returns to the House of Representatives. While the House passed a previous version 390–9, leaders like Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) have signaled that the Senate’s new investor restrictions and the removal of certain community banking provisions may require further negotiations or a conference committee to reconcile the two versions.
We talk a lot about confidence in this business. We talk about the mindset it takes to knock on a door after a rejection, to pick up the phone after a dead lead, to walk into a listing appointment after losing the last three.
What we do not talk about enough is where that confidence actually comes from.
It does not come from winning. Not entirely.
Winning builds your skill. It teaches you what works, sharpens your process, and gives you the evidence that you are capable. Every closed deal, every funded loan, every signed contract is a data point that says you know what you are doing.
But winning does not teach you what to do when it falls apart.
That is what failure does.
Every deal that blew up at the title table. Every client who went with another agent after three months of your time. Every rate lock that expired at the worst possible moment. Those are not just painful memories. They are proof that you survived. That you came back. That the ground did not swallow you whole.
When the next hard thing comes, and it will, your brain does not just ask “can I do this?” It also asks “have I been here before?”
If the answer is yes, the fear shrinks.
This is why veterans in this business carry themselves differently. Not because everything went right for them. Because enough went wrong and they are still here.
Do not waste your failures. They are building something in you that success never could.
Your pipeline is full. Your calendar is stacked. You have three offers pending, two listings coming, and a referral partner who wants lunch this week.
And somehow, nothing is moving.
Here is what most high performers do in that moment. They add. Another system. Another tool. Another meeting. Another strategy session with themselves at midnight.
Wrong direction.
When performance stalls, the instinct is to do more. But more is usually not the problem. More is usually the symptom.
The best agents and MLOs I have watched work through a plateau did not find their way out by adding. They found it by cutting. They dropped the two clients who were consuming 40% of their energy and producing 10% of their revenue. They stopped attending the networking event that felt productive but never converted. They deleted the apps that created the illusion of work without the output.
Clarity is not something you find. It is something you uncover.
Think about your business right now. Not the version you are building toward. The one you are actually running today. What is on your plate that does not belong there? What are you holding onto because you said yes six months ago and do not know how to say not yet?
A transaction coordinator who is stretched across too many files makes mistakes. An MLO chasing every lead type closes none of them well. An agent who is everything to everyone becomes nothing to the right client.
Subtraction is not giving up. It is getting precise.
The most dangerous word in a high performer’s vocabulary is not no. It is yes, said to the wrong thing at the wrong time.
So before you build a new plan, audit the current one. Not for what to add. For what to remove.
When you need clarity, subtract.
Over the next few posts we will do this together. Simplify. Survive. Stay grounded. Embrace the hard. Build something that lasts.
A brand new study dropped this week that every real estate professional needs to read. Not to panic. To plan.
The research, published March 5th by Anthropic economists Maxim Massenkoff and Peter McCrory, is titled “Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence.” Here’s the number that stopped me cold: AI is theoretically capable of handling 94% of tasks in computer and math occupations, and 90% in office and administrative roles, yet it’s only being used for about 33% of them in actual professional settings right now.
That gap is not permanent. It is closing. And our industry is in its path.
The workers most exposed are not warehouse employees or entry-level staff. They are the educated, higher-earning, white-collar professionals. The lawyer. The financial analyst. The mortgage originator. The transaction coordinator. The people whose jobs are built around documents, information, and process. That’s our world.
Here’s the part I want you to hold onto: the study also found no significant increase in unemployment for high-exposure workers yet. This is not a cliff. It is a slow shift. And that means the professionals who act now will be the ones who are left standing when it levels off, doing very well, because there will be fewer of them serving the same volume of business.
Geoff Colvin wrote about this in his book “Humans Are Underrated” back in 2015. His thesis was simple: stop trying to compete with machines at what machines do. You will lose that contest. Instead, he argued, build the four things humans do that technology has never been able to replicate: empathy, social sensitivity, storytelling, and relationship building.
Read that list and think about the best agent, the best MLO, the best title rep you know. That is exactly what they do every single day. The question is whether you’re building those skills intentionally or just hoping they carry you.
Your Role. Your Risk. Your Move.
If you’re a Transaction Coordinator, here’s the honest truth: the checklist version of your job is going away. Document collection, deadline tracking, compliance checklists, status updates, AI is being purpose-built to automate exactly those tasks. The TCs who thrive will be the ones who lead with Colvin’s skills. Client communication when things go sideways. Emotional steadiness when a deal is falling apart. Problem escalation that requires a human judgment call. Start making that shift now, before someone makes it for you.
If you’re a Mortgage Loan Originator, rate shopping, guideline matching, and doc review are in the crosshairs. What AI cannot do is sit across from a self-employed borrower with three LLCs and a complicated return and build enough trust to get the deal done. It cannot call a first-time buyer at 9pm before a rate lock expires and talk them off a ledge. The MLOs who survive will own the complex, the non-QM, the jumbo, the scenarios where empathy and expertise are the actual product.
If you’re in Title and Settlement, the production side is highly exposed. Title search, commitment prep, back-office review, that is document analysis and legal pattern matching. AI is very good at exactly that. Title sales is a completely different story. The referral relationships you’ve built with agents and lenders through years of showing up, solving problems, and following through are not automatable. That is relationship building and social sensitivity in action. Protect and grow that side of your business aggressively.
If you’re a Real Estate Agent, you are actually more resilient than most headlines suggest. Physical presence, emotional attunement, local expertise, negotiating across a table, those are genuinely hard to replicate. Your real risk is the transactional end: the buyer’s agent whose primary value is delivering information that buyers can now find for free on their phone. The agents who survive will be the ones who lead with Colvin’s four skills every single day. The ones who tell the story of why this home fits this family’s life. The ones who read the room in a negotiation. The ones whose clients call them back for every transaction because the relationship is real.
The Practical Moves That Matter
Get fluent in AI tools before someone forces you to. The professionals who already know how to use them will be training others, not replaced by them.
Specialize in the complex. Luxury clients, distressed properties, non-QM borrowers, estate sales, 1031 exchanges. The messy, human-intensive scenarios are your moat. Generalists are more replaceable than specialists. Always have been.
Own the judgment and accountability layer. AI can draft a contract. It cannot be held liable for the advice behind it. The agent, the originator, the title officer who stands behind the recommendation and shows up when things go sideways, that person still has a job. Always will.
Use AI to handle the process so you can focus on people. The professionals who thrive won’t fight these tools. They’ll use them to do in two hours what used to take two days, and put that time back into relationships, prospecting, and the conversations that actually move the needle.
Colvin had it right a decade ago. AI is taking the process. Your job is to be human. Lead with empathy. Read the room. Tell the story. Build the relationship.
No model can do that. But you can.
The window to adapt is open. Let’s use it.
And that is how we Win the Day.
Sources: “Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence” by Maxim Massenkoff and Peter McCrory, Anthropic, March 5, 2026. “Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will” by Geoff Colvin, Portfolio/Penguin, 2015.
The smartest people in the room are asking the wrong questions.
“Where do I find my next transaction coordinator?”
“How do I source a good compliance specialist?”
Those aren’t bad questions. They’re just questions for a world that’s already ending.
The Claude Code Moment
Earlier this year, Anthropic’s Claude Code didn’t improve software development. It retired the entry-level software engineer as a job category. Not in 2030. Now.
The industry moved from humans assisted by AI to AI supervised by humans. In less than a semester.
That’s not a tech story. That’s a preview.
The Junior MLO. The Transaction Coordinator. The entry-level Analyst grinding through loan files at 11pm. The roles that used to be your training ground for future top producers are being handed to systems that don’t sleep, don’t need onboarding, and don’t ask for raises.
A system will produce what a system will produce. Nothing less. Nothing more.
What You’re Actually Hiring For Now
Here’s the reframe:
Knowledge is no longer your asset. Judgment is.
AI knows compliance, comps, and underwriting guidelines faster than any human alive. What it cannot do is read the room. It cannot feel the moment a deal is technically possible but humanly wrong. It cannot close a listing appointment before the CMA is even presented.
So ask yourself this:
Are you hiring for what people know, or for what they can see that a machine cannot?
The new elite professional is part strategist, part AI architect, part relationship manager. They don’t do the work AI can do. They direct it. They deliver the judgment and trust no model can manufacture.
The Reckoning Is Already Inside Your Org Chart
80% of knowledge-worker tasks are being reshaped right now. Not approaching. Here.
The leaders winning are doing two things at once.
They are aggressively upskilling their best people, giving top performers the AI fluency to do the work of three.
And they are completely rewriting what they hire for, moving away from years in the industry toward the ability to operate where technology meets trust.
Do you want to change the goal or change the behavior? Because updating a job description while running the same hiring process is just rearranging furniture in a house that’s being rebuilt around you.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The professionals coming into your pipeline right now are not the ones you hired five years ago. That is a good thing, if you know how to see it.
They are building systems. They are fluent in tools you may not have heard of yet. They are not impressed by legacy. They want to know if your operation is built for where this is going.
The question is not whether you can find them.
The question is whether your hiring strategy is sophisticated enough to recognize them when they walk in the door.
The market rewards people who see the shift early. Your next hire might be the most consequential decision you make this year. Not because of what they know. Because of what they are capable of becoming.
A System Will Produce What A System Will Produce, Nothing Less and Nothing More!
We’ve all heard the clichés about “grinding” and “hustle” in this industry. But after years in the trenches watching CEOs scale, recruiters hunt, and top-tier MLOs and agents hit their ceilings I’ve discovered that the real barrier to the next level isn’t a lack of effort.
It’s avoidance.
There is a fundamental truth I’ve had to learn the hard way: You can’t deal with what you won’t face.
What We’re Looking Away From
In real estate, we are masters of the “pivot” and the “distraction.” We’re so good at putting out fires that we sometimes ignore the person holding the matches.
Here is what I’ve found: behind every plateau in a brokerage or a personal book of business, there is usually an “unfaceable” truth sitting right in the center of the room.
For the CEO: It’s that one “top producer” who is actually toxic to your culture. You won’t face the hit to your volume if they leave, so you tolerate the rot.
For the Recruiter: It’s the data showing your value proposition has grown stale. It’s easier to blame “the market” than to audit your own pitch.
For the Agent & MLO: It’s the prospecting gap. You’re busy with “admin” because facing the phone feels like facing rejection.
The Cost of the “Shadow”
I’ve noticed that when we don’t face a problem, it doesn’t just sit there. It grows teeth.
An awkward conversation with a staff member that you avoid today becomes a legal headache or a mass exodus six months from now. A flaw in your lead-gen that you’re “too busy” to analyze becomes the reason you’re stressed about your mortgage in Q4.
Avoidance is just a high-interest loan. You get a little peace of mind today, but the balloon payment at the end will break you.
What Happens When You Turn Around
Here is the shift I’ve witnessed: The moment a leader stops squinting and actually looks at the mess, the fear starts to dissipate.
I’ve seen CEOs finally fire the toxic producer and watch their office energy – and retention – skyrocket. I’ve seen agents admit their CRM is a disaster, spend a weekend cleaning it, and find $5M in “lost” pipeline.
The “facing it” part is 90% of the battle. The “dealing with it” part is just a checklist.
My Takeaway
We’re in a business of transparency and contracts, yet we’re often the least transparent with ourselves.
So, here’s my challenge to the high-performers reading this: What is the one thing in your business right now that you are hoping will just “sort itself out”?
Whatever it is, face it this week. Not because it’s easy, but because you can’t lead a team—or a life—that you’re running away from.
I was talking to a colleague recently who was convinced the sky was falling. Between the inventory ups and downs and the latest round of law suits and regulatory headaches, they felt like they were constantly playing defense. It is a familiar feeling in our world. If you have been in real estate, lending, or title for more than five minutes, you know that moment when a challenge stops feeling like a speed bump and starts looking like a brick wall.
The natural instinct is to vent, white-knuckle it, and pray for things to go back to normal. But “normal” is a moving target.
Lately, I have been leaning on a concept from Ryan Holiday’s book, The Obstacle Is the Way. The core idea is simple, but it hits hard: the thing blocking your path isn’t just an annoyance. It is the path.
Shifting the Lens
In our industry, we are constantly navigating high-stakes deals and big personalities. We tend to see obstacles as distractions from our “real” work. Holiday argues (drawing from Stoic philosophy) that our interpretation of the problem is actually the bigger problem.
Look at the market shifts we have survived. When rates jumped, some people pulled the covers over their heads. But the high performers I know? They treated it like a masterclass. They stopped leaning on easy “order-taking” refis and finally mastered the art of the tough conversation. They got creative with financing because they had to. As Holiday puts it:
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Recruiting in a Gritty Market
I see this all the time with broker owners and recruiters. When the “top producers” are staying put, you can either complain about a stagnant talent pool or you can innovate. This obstacle forces you to stop selling generic splits and start selling actual culture and better systems.
If it is hard to hire right now, that struggle is just a spotlight. It is showing you exactly where your value proposition is weak or where your training needs a renovation. The difficulty isn’t stopping you; it is showing you where to build.
The Deal Killer (and the Tough Candidate) Are Your Best Teachers
For the MLOs, agents, and recruiters in the trenches: we all have that one “impossible” file. It is the one with the nightmare appraisal or the title issue that feels like a dead end. For a recruiter, it is the candidate who has every reason to stay put or the one who ghosts you at the eleventh hour.
It is easy to call these a waste of time. But looking back at my own career, the “deal killers” and the “ungettable” candidates were my best mentors. They forced me to collaborate with affiliate partners in ways I never had to before. They forced me to solve real business problems instead of just pitching a desk. I did not just get through those messes; I became a better professional because the situation was difficult.
Making it Practical
When you hit that next wall (and we both know it is coming) try to look at it through the three steps Holiday outlines:
Perception: Drop the drama. It is not “bad” that lead flow slowed down; it is just a data point. What is actually happening?
Action: Stop waiting for the perfect time to move. If the front door is locked, find a window. What is the one deliberate step you can take right now?
Will: This is the internal grit. It is accepting the market for what it is and deciding to use this pressure to get stronger.
The Bottom Line
We do not grow when things are easy. We grow when the market or the competition forces us to find a gear we did not know we had. The obstacle isn’t blocking the road; it is the road.
Next time you are feeling stuck, ask yourself: What is this mess trying to teach me that I was too comfortable to learn before?
Source Reference: Holiday, R. (2014). The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.Portfolio/Penguin.
It’s Not Over Until You Win – And You Get to Define What Winning Means!
We often hear that big corporations only think about the next three months. But Alphabet, the parent company of Google, just did something that caught my eye. They raised 20 billion dollars through a 100 year bond.
Think about that. A bond that outlasts everyone currently sitting in their boardroom. It is a true vote of confidence that what they are building today is going to matter for a century.
In the real estate world, we have spent the last few years grinding through a flat and honestly frustrating market. Growth hasn’t exactly been falling out of the sky. If you wanted to scale, your only real moves were poaching top talent or trying to squeeze more out of affiliated services like mortgage and title, which brought a whole different set of headaches to the table.
But here is the catch. Most brokers are so busy dealing with the daily drama of the “whirlwind” that they forget to build their own 100 year bond.
Data vs. Drama: Direct from the Chief Economist’s Desk
I spent some time recently with Lawrence Yun, the Chief Economist for the NAR, along with my real estate students and others. While the headlines are busy chasing clicks with doom and gloom, Lawrence and I dug into the actual data moving the needle for 2026.
My biggest takeaway? The inventory shift is happening faster than the media realizes. We are seeing the lowest mortgage rates in three years. On top of that, policy makers are finally looking at capital gains relief for homeowners. That is a move that could remove the financial friction of selling and transform this market overnight.
Here are the three signals you need to watch:
The Lock-In Effect is Cracking: The gap between current rates and those 3 percent “unicorn” rates from a few years ago is finally narrowing. Sellers are starting to feel like they can breathe again.
The 10-Year Treasury Disconnect: There has been a weird spread between the 10-year Treasury and mortgage rates. As that gap shrinks, we are going to see even more downward pressure on rates this year.
The Wealth Gap: The data is undisputed. Americans build long-term wealth by owning real estate, not renting it. Homeownership is still the primary engine for financial security.
Are You Building a Fortress or Just a Utility?
When the market is flat, hesitation is dangerous. We are in a platform transition where gravity accumulates quickly. If you wait until the “perfect” time to fix your internal systems, you might find yourself permanently dependent on the companies that didn’t wait.
History has a great example in John D. Rockefeller. He didn’t just want the oil. He wanted the pipelines and the refineries. He named his company Standard Oil because he wanted to set the standards for the entire industry.
In your brokerage, your “pipelines” are your operating systems.
If you are just providing a desk and a CRM, you are a utility. And utilities get commoditized. To win, you need a framework that helps you decide in the “fog” of 2026. Whether it is the Rockefeller Habits, EOS, or 4DX, you need an operating system that turns your vision into actual traction.
The Survival Logic
Alphabet is willing to endure volatility and skepticism because they know the alternative is worse. They would rather face the temporary pain of a big investment than the permanent disadvantage of being left behind.
We often accuse our industry of living month to month. But when the shift ahead is this big, you have to extend your horizon. The 2026 recovery is going to reward the leaders who secured the rails and defined the standards while everyone else was distracted by the noise.
In a market defined by drama, I am committed to bringing you the signal. Let’s get to work.
PS: If you want to stop guessing and start building, I have two resources ready for you. I can send over a quick summary of the 3 big operating systems (EOS, 4DX, and Rockefeller Habits) or a 5-point “Infrastructure Audit” you can bring straight into your next leadership meeting. Just hit me up and let me know which one you want.
A System Will Produce What A System Will Produce, Nothing Less and Nothing More!
Recently, I posted about the Great Deceleration – that demographic shift coming between 2035 and 2045 where household formation drops to a century-level low. If you missed it, the punchline is simple: the “more people more houses” engine that has powered our industry for 70 years is finally running out of gas.
So, I’ve been thinking: If I’m a real estate investor standing here in 2026, and I can see this cliff coming, what do I actually do about it today?
If the “rising tide” isn’t going to lift all boats anymore, you’ve got to build a better boat. Here is how we pivot from betting on growth to betting on utility.
For decades, the “bread and butter” play was the 3-bedroom suburban starter home. But look at the math: the birth rate is down, and the “Headship Rate” (the Fed’s way of saying “people living alone) is struggling.
The new “starter home” is actually the Senior Downsize. By 2035, every Boomer is 70+. They don’t want to mow three acres anymore, but they aren’t ready for a nursing home.
The Move: Look at 1-2 bedroom “Active Adult” rentals or properties that allow for ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). If you own the high-quality, low-maintenance unit in a good neighborhood, you own the highest-demand asset of the 2040s.
2. The Rise of the “Multi-Gen” Floorplan
Affordability isn’t just a “phase”; it’s a structural reality. We are seeing a permanent shift toward families “doubling up.”
The Move: Stop looking for “standard” houses. Start looking for properties with two primary suites, finished basements with separate entrances, or “casitas.”
The Logic: You’re looking for a house that can support two “Consumer Units” (as the BLS calls them) under one roof. These properties will be the most resilient because they allow two incomes to split one mortgage.
3. Follow the “New Americans”
As I mentioned in the last post, by the late 2030s, natural population growth goes negative. That means 100% of your new tenant pool will likely come from immigration.
The Move: Get comfortable with ITIN lending and niche community marketing now. If you don’t have a strategy to serve immigrant communities, you are effectively opting out of the only growth segment left in the market.
4. Transition to “Service-Heavy” Real Estate
In a world with fewer new households, you can’t just buy a house, sit on it, and wait for it to appreciate 10% a year. The “easy money” is gone.
The Move: You have to become a Housing Provider, not just a landlord. Whether that’s mid-term rentals for traveling healthcare workers (who are in high demand as the population ages) or “service-plus” rentals for seniors, the profit will come from the service you provide, not just the dirt you own.
The Bottom Line: Utility Wins
The Great Deceleration isn’t a death sentence for real estate; it’s just the end of the “accidental” profit era. The winners of 2035 will be the people who stop asking, “How many people are moving here?” and start asking, “How are the people already here actually living?”
It’s about Utility over Appreciation. It’s about building for the “Silver Tsunami” and the “Multi-Gen” family.
PS: What’s one property in your portfolio right now that fits a “multi-generational” or “senior downsize” model? If you don’t have one, how could you pivot?
