Here is the honest real estate read for March 2026, with full awareness of where we are geopolitically.

Aluminum, copper, steel — the raw materials of construction — are all in the middle of a supply shock. Aluminum is already in a supply deficit and getting tighter by the week. Diesel, which runs every piece of construction equipment on every active jobsite, just crossed $5 a gallon. If you are in the middle of a development project with fixed-price contracts, you are about to have a very interesting conversation with your general contractor about change orders and force majeure clauses. If you are about to start a project and you have not locked your materials pricing, do that now. Today. Before you read the rest of this.

The Federal Reserve held rates steady at its most recent meeting — its second consecutive pause of 2026. That is not surprising. What is surprising is the bind the Fed is now in: supply-driven inflation is rising from the commodity shocks just as the labor market was showing signs of softening and recession risk was building. The standard playbook for this situation (raise rates to fight inflation, cut rates to fight recession) is internally contradictory. The Fed cannot do both at once, and the market knows it.

For residential real estate, this means mortgage rates are not going down meaningfully in the next six months. The rate relief that buyers were hoping for has been pushed back by a geopolitical event nobody modeled. If you were waiting to buy because you thought rates would fall — you need to update that assumption. The path back to 5.5% or lower on a 30-year mortgage is significantly longer than it was 60 days ago.

The Elephant in the Room

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