Nobody is enjoying this one

I am not going to dress this up. Nobody is enjoying this one.

That is not a forecast and it is not a strategy. It is what October looks like from my desk, and I would rather say it plainly than write you a cheerful paragraph that we would both know was for my benefit.

What is actually in front of me this month

A lot of people sitting on loans they took out when things looked different, doing the arithmetic over and over and correctly deciding not to move yet.

Two emails this morning about refinancing, both of them really about credit card balances rather than about the house at all.

People who want to move house and are waiting, not because they are being clever, but because the numbers do not work yet and they know it.

And a steady handful of people who are buying anyway, because a job changed or a family changed, and the calendar does not check what the market is doing before it happens to you.

What I tell people

If nothing is forcing your hand, nothing is forcing your hand. That is a legitimate answer and I will not talk you out of it.

But do not confuse waiting with preparing. They feel similar and they are not the same thing at all. Waiting is doing nothing until something changes. Preparing is using a quiet month to get everything in order so that when something does change, you are a phone call away from acting on it instead of two weeks away.

I have watched the difference between those two enough times to be boring about it.

The disclaimer, which is also just true

None of that is a prediction. I do not do predictions. That is just what is on my desk this month.

If I had a crystal ball I would not be sitting here, and anybody showing you one is selling something. Ask me what I am seeing and I will tell you exactly. Ask me what happens next and you will get this paragraph again.