The Housing Market Is Shifting: How Buyers, Sellers & Agents Can Win in 2026

What’s really happening in the 2026 housing market?

In this episode, Tim Jones sits down with South Florida real estate expert Justin Himmelbaum to break down the changing housing market, rising inventory, home pricing, mortgage rates, negotiation strategies, and the biggest mistakes buyers and sellers are making right now.

As the market moves toward more balanced conditions, what does that actually mean for buyers, sellers, and real estate agents?

Justin shares practical insight on how sellers can price their homes more effectively, why overpricing can cause a listing to sit, what buyers should consider before waiting for lower rates or prices, and how agents can help their clients navigate a market that looks very different from the COVID-era frenzy.

The conversation also covers real estate investing, building home equity, leverage, foreclosures, pre-foreclosures, and distressed property opportunities, and why trying to perfectly time the market can cause buyers and investors to miss opportunities.

🔥 Whether you're buying, selling, investing, or working with real estate clients, this conversation offers practical strategies for navigating today's changing housing market.

🤝 Connect with our guest, Justin Himmelbaum:

→ Website: https://www.zillow.com/profile/the-himmelbaum-group

Get Free Email Alerts: https://www.foreclosure.com/alert/
Find a Foreclosure home: https://www.foreclosure.com/foreclosures/
Affordable Homes: https://www.foreclosure.com/affordable-housing/
Buying Foreclosure Videos: https://www.foreclosure.com/videos/
Foreclosure articles: https://www.foreclosure.com/articles/

Foreclosure.com is America's largest provider of distressed properties, with more than 1.8 million foreclosure, preforeclosure, bankruptcy and tax lien listings across the United States located conveniently in one place. 

📲 Join us on social media for daily updates:

→ Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/foreclosure_com/ 

→ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Foreclosurecom   

→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@foreclosure.com

→ Twitter: https://x.com/foreclosure

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

0:00

welcome back everyone I'm Tim Jones with foreclosure.com Today we're talking about the shift we've been seeing in the housing market since the covid boom the market is slowing down a little bit inventory is starting to increase and buyers and sellers are having to adjust their expectations so I wanted to bring someone who's got their finger on the pulse here in South Florida my good friend Justin Himmelbaum Justin thank you for joining us today thanks for having me Tim appreciate you well I'm excited to dive in today um I hope we can break down some pricing strategies some buyer psychology seller mistakes and negotiation opportunities I really do appreciate this but before we dive into the market can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and where you are in your real estate journey today yeah so where I am geographically is Boca Raton where I am in my real estate journey is about 8 years ago I stopped bartending and I figured like no bartender ever is done I would go out and get my real estate license and see if I could get that make that successful and about six months in it became pretty clear it was gonna work out yeah and now we sell about 40 million in real estate every year about 60 to 80 homes a year and and it's been it's been a great trajectory for my life and my family and blessed to be in this business and blessed to be able to help people in such a stressful moment of their lives right yeah cause most stressful moments are like moving dying and something and childbirth and so job change so I get to help with one of those right yeah if not sometimes two so that really makes me pumped that I get to help people I know you come from a very giving spirit as well so that really gets me to work every day well that's great Justin it's it's been great watching your journey you know I've loved to see you grow since since you were a bartender and when you were starting about I remember have that in that conversation you're thinking about getting your license and seeing where you are now is just it's amazing so um Justin's not giving himself credit but he he's been a pillar in this in this area for a long time not just Boca Raton but I've seen you all over Delray and and Boeing as well so great job bud appreciate it and that's why I wanted to talk to you because you are doing so well and I I know a lot of people aren't so you know I think buyers are a little nervous sellers are a little stubborn and um agents you know may not may not know how to handle this shifting market so Justin what's the biggest shift you've seen in today's market compared to compared to what we were seeing during Covid well I guess what you see as a Realtor is the biggest move is from a seller's market to a buyer's market right so we usually pinpoint that at 3 months of active inventory what does that mean that means that if no homes went on the market from today till forever it would take at the current rate homes are being bought per month it would take three months to buy up all of the inventory right now we're kind of ranging around five months so that becomes a buyer's market so anything less than three months would be a seller's market anything more would be a buyer's market and we seem to be around that four and a half five months is where we're trending at now and so what does that mean in terms of buyers and sellers it means that sellers went from calling all the shots think homes going for above asking price all the time to buyers calling more of the shots right so we're seeing it's a bit of a mixed market right now in that there's not a lot of great inventory out there there's just a lot of like hold over bad inventory where people are wanting the price that they thought they would get two years ago and prices of prices have stayed either stagnant or gone down about 5% across the Florida market or across the South Florida market I should say okay different in other areas of Florida but in the Southeast Florida market that's what we're seeing Tri County basically yeah Broward Dade Palm Beach for people who don't know yeah and so what we're seeing there is that not only is it a buyer's market but sometimes if you have a nice enough listing right it and you price it correctly it does become a bit of a seller's market where the seller can still call the shots so if you have a prime property and you have a unique situation then you could still be in a seller's market but for almost everything you're in a buyer's market yeah um think about think about supply and demand right basic macro economics we're dealing with if there's scarce if your property is a scarce property it's one in a great neighborhood and there's no others on the market okay you're in a seller's market in your micro climate but for the most part we're in a buyer's market where buyers get to call the shots what does that mean when buyers get to call the shots we're taking money off asking price right so you're expecting to sell 2 to 5% below asking what else buyers can now ask for credits again if you remember in the 2018 2019 2020 almost every home was sold where was like it would sell at 500,000 but the buyer would get a credit for five grand or 10 grand we're back to that where you can get help with closing costs FHA loans are more like agreeable yeah VA loans are more agreeable loans in general more agreeable so those are the things that change when you go from a seller's market to a buyer's market and that's what we're seeing in Southeast Florida yeah no that makes a lot of sense and um I liked how you you know position it that it's just in this area in Florida because I've seen places in like Cape Coral for example or Fort Myers where it's come down a lot more so and I'm sure people are gonna see this from around the country and there's markets that are different everywhere but um I'm glad we're focusing on Southeast Florida cause it's still pretty hot right now exactly and what I want what I want people listening to this to understand is right think about this when you think about buying an investment property you wanna buy in somewhere that there is a built in scarcity right my issue with a lot of towns like Cape Coral Fort Myers well people could always just go buy in the next town the town doesn't have anything there's no real scarcity based on like south East Florida has Everglades to the ocean and that's all you got so we're kind of built out of land there's a scarcity built in there that's a great one you think about a town like Asheville North Carolina yeah Asheville downtown sure that's not growing anymore but every suburb well if your suburb gets too expensive someone just goes to the next suburb over there's no real need to be in your suburb or another suburb so think about that when you go to buy a house why does Manhattan grow so fast cause of the scarcity right why does Southeast Florida why is that starting to pick up because of scarcity wow that's a great tip that's a great one you mentioned this briefly but in your last newsletter uh you you you really talked about pricing strategy and how it's everything right now can can you elaborate a little bit further on that yeah you know I think in the best thing that's happened to Realtors is the market changed when it was a seller's market your cousin's dog sitters like hairdresser could sell your house right yeah OK yeah it didn't matter yeah now you actually need the expertise of a realtor and that's where pricing strategy comes in right this is what we do day in and day out we understand the micro climates and you could be off by about 50,000 and that's gonna tank your listing right because the way the world works right now is everyone goes on Zillow or Realtor com or Redfin and they start looking right and if you're not priced in where they've set their barometer if you're over it they don't even see your property yeah that's so important so being 10,000 $25,000 off on pricing can can end up costing you 50 to 75 thousand dollars right because you your market's now on your home's now on the market for 30 days you decide to lower it to where it should have been but now it's been on for a while and now people then start seeing it after 45 days and they come in and they don't feel any pressure to buy anymore hmm goes back to the scarcity and the demand situation wow when you see a home's been on the market for 60 days there's you don't feel like there's 10 other people looking at that house at that moment when a house has been on the market for three days you feel like I better go see that house right now or someone else is gonna get it and I'm gonna miss out on a good opportunity so that's where pricing it accurately upfront while there's demand and while there's scarcity built in that's why it's so important because you can really like we just listed a property we listed at 3 75 we're gonna sell at 3 85 because we listed it right at market value and we created scarcity by not letting anybody see the home till the open house wow all the people saw each other and within four days we were under contract at 10,000 over asking right whereas another realtor would have come in and been like you could list it for 400 and you'll get 3 85 or you'll get three 75 someone will low ball you but they wouldn't if they wouldn't have come in all of a sudden you would have been selling at 3 60 so all these strategies really come in and are super important when it comes to selling listing strategy pricing correctly right off the bat is the biggest thing I almost don't want the listing unless they're gonna do that wow that's such a big one I mean I've dealt with that personally so I understand that as well and home sellers can be very emotional right they they're all looking at what their neighbors sold and they want that price when you know the market with that shift might not be the same and I can imagine down here especially Boca with a lot of neighborhoods with high HOA they're not thinking about the holding cost and like what it takes what that's gonna cost them you know what they want that extra 20,000 so bad but you know it's gonna cost them 40,000 to get it yeah so so emotion okay that's interesting so for buyers who are feeling stuck you know waiting for rates or prices to drop what opportunities are they potentially missing right now I think this is really important you know listen if you're a buyer the truth is that we're at average interest rates this is average right now 3% was not average so these are average interest rates are prices changing a little bit here and there yeah but that's that's a gamble that's a coin flip what we know is that you need time in the market you don't need to time the market right that's the oldest saying there is in the book you need to buy the house now and watch inflation make properties worth more right because overall the dollar becomes weaker and when you can buy a property for 25% down 20% down 5% down 3% down right if you're a first time home buyer you can get a conventional loan for 3% down there's some pretty cool programs if you want to reach out I can help you through those but there's a 3% program that has helped so many of my teacher friends and like around that like firefighters policemen civil servants This 3% loan package is amazing wow gets you like 1% off your rate 3% down wow so cool money back at closing just like awesome stuff so imagine you get in a property let's just use a simple math right you buy a let's say 300 thousand dollar property that's a pretty average price point for around the country at this point buy a 300 thousand dollar home at 3% down that's nine grand right so you're nine grand out of pocket closing costs are about 3% so that's another nine grand so you're at 18 grand out of pocket to buy this 300,000 dollar house right let's say inflation goes up 3% per year for 10 years you've made about 60% on your house so your house went from 300,000 to almost 500,000 so you've made 500,000 - 300,000 you've made almost 200,000 bucks wow your investment was 20,000 bucks where else you should if you put your money in the stock market they average every 7 years you'll double your money yeah you just 10 x your money so that's the simple thing is that not only does it help there where it really helps is when you go to buy your next home and you get to take the equity out of that home you get to take we won't go too far into this you get to take the portability portability yeah and you get to save money on your taxes at the next house yeah you get all of these options and when you have that equity you're able to go buy that next house that you would have never have saved up the down payment for so that's where it really helps right so I parlayed my first house 400 grand I bought it for sold it for 700 grand then I took that $300,000 in equity plus the money I had in the house which was like another like $30,000 cause I that is my story yeah I put 30 grand down and I walked away with 300 grand after three years yeah wow so it's like you can't you can't make that return anywhere else no you take that 300 grand return and I bought three other properties with it and that's been the catalyst of my life yes I make a good amount of money in real estate but the real estate deals have really been where I have been able to like catapult take big shifts that's that's great that's a great case study and uh congrats I mean that's that's that's a dream and we we know that markets are you know don't always go up right they have been going up and we're starting to see them go down so you know but I I think that's amazing and and you're I've always heard that that quote it's it's not about timing the market it's about time in the market but I always thought about that from a from a stock market perspective that makes a lot as much even more sense with home purchasing and home investing and I know you can buy stocks on margin I understand that but for the most part people don't they buy one stock of apple and it goes it doubles they double their money doubles but in real estate if you buy at 20% down that's one fifth the property doubles so you're 200 grand into a million dollar property it doubles you made a million you five extra money when the property doubles so even at 20% down you five extra money when a property doubles so that's like where you start to get into really big multipliers the less on your down payment the higher clearly the higher your rent payment basically is because your interest is gonna be higher your number per month is going to be higher the lower less money you put down so I understand that but if that number is something you're comfortable with go out in the future and you can really multiply your money yeah and then it's also like a a savings account too because everything you're rather than renting you're putting that money right into your own asset yeah exactly for savings account so you mentioned this a little bit earlier at least you touched on it but what are the biggest mistakes sellers and agents are making in this you know more balanced market yeah you know I think sellers what I've seen it over the last two weeks we're talking about it before the call sellers still feel like they're entitled to a different market we're not there yeah so if the market's not calling for that for your house it doesn't matter what you feel if there's no buyer there for it it doesn't matter what you feel or what should or what used to or you have to get with the current times or there's a good odds that you wait and even what you could have accepted today you're gonna have to accept less tomorrow so as markets go down we always say you need to get out in front of it yeah right you don't want to price over and then keep chasing the market down okay I'll price it here and in a month I'll change the price well in a month the price may have changed from the price it was and now every month you keep following this trend down you want to make sure you're out in front of that trend and let the market pick it back up so I I mean the the biggest story I tell sellers every time I go on a listing appointment so anytime someone calls me to hey I want to sell my house I go over and I tell the same story and the story is I went to a guy's house he bought this house for like let's say it was 7 80 or 800 and then he put some money into it

and he put it on the market for 8: 17:02

35 and I said you know listen he had it on for three months with a different agent it didn't get one it got I think three showings so a friend's like hey you should call this guy he calls me and I list the house for 800 I do better marketing than the other person sure sure sure but the truth is I list at 800 we get 30 people through the house we sell it for 8 15 in 10 days hmm

would someone if he was listed at 8: 17:29

00 30 something maybe come by and paid 8 15 yeah but probably 4 5 months down the road not 10 days later yeah right wow so what we're talking about is if you don't get out in front of these markets if you are above the market you're dead if you are under the market the market is miraculous right what we know is equilibrium price will win out almost all the time now in real estate there's not a billion buyers so it's not gonna always come out to exactly equilibrium price right because there's it's not a big enough market but if we price it under I can almost guarantee that it will come up to where it should be and if we price over I can almost guarantee you you will not get what you should have but the seller's mindset is well if I don't list this high I can't get that high and I want someone to possibly give me that if they would and it's it's the most common mistake sellers make and it's the one realtors I mean we're sitting around water coolers all day we're playing golf as you know right we're all playing golf and just going when are sellers gonna just understand yeah when are they just gonna pick up this simple fact that if you list it low you get market value if or maybe more because you create scarcity and if you list it high you die and so I'll give you an example right I'll give you a simple example I you were willing to pay 3 twenty five 325,000 for a house right so you're going out

you're looking at all the houses that are around 3: 19:03

20

five you're looking up to probably 3: 19:05

50 right yeah and then you're looking down to probably like 2 75 maybe you get find a fixer upper a deal cool if I have a house listed at 300,000 and you've seen 10 other houses and you know this is the best one you've seen you're willing to pay 3 25 for the right property I'm listed at 300 you put an offer at 300 cause you're like oh full price I'll take it I call you and I say hey Tim I got three other offers what do you wanna do

a one's one's around 3: 19:36

00 10 so you're gonna have to beat that what do you wanna do

you're gonna go up to 3: 19:39

15 all day every day cause you're still like it's 10 grand under what I would have paid yeah I already fell in love with the house my wife loves it and if my wife loves it I'm not trying to have another fight with her

let's let me get it done at 3: 19:50

15 and get this over with right yeah yeah yeah and that's what we see every day wow so I do you know I do about like I said 60 80 close transactions which is like hundred to a hundred and twenty like contracts written and listing agreements and all that so we see this like every two days I'm seeing this right and and I just think it's the biggest mistake that sellers make right is that I can I can't get someone who didn't see your property to make an offer fall in love and then I drag them up but if I make someone fall in love with your property and it's underpriced I can then do my job and get them to their highest price that's a home run right there I I have a lot of uh sellers I'm gonna be sending this video to after this so one of my family specifically I mean it's it really is simple no and it makes so much sense and when you when you explain it like that it's like a no brainer right so that's why you're getting all these deals is because you're like you're putting it down and and I think the fact that you're getting these properties sold so quickly is how you're getting all the recommendations and how your business continues to grow and scale so great job and thank you for sharing that because I think a lot of people need to understand that and hear that you make a good point too I think people really underestimate the stress of selling a house and when it sells in five 10 15 20 and you don't have to think about it anymore it beats it beats selling in four to six months yeah because the I mean I've seen relationships break down over it I've seen people go basically mad just get the house sold move on yeah you know we're definitely here to get you the most value we're gonna work on that I promise you but yeah that's your job right yeah that's that's a good agent's that's great man so Justin um as the market shifts do you think we'll see more buyers paying attention to off market properties like pre foreclosures or other distressed opportunities yeah I think right we I'm sure foreclosures have struggled over the last few years because as properties do really well right there's not a lot going in a foreclosure but as we come down off the mountain at some point right people are gonna get foreclosed on people lose their jobs people get themselves in bad situations I see it all the time a lot of the times people call me but more times than not they don't know where to go and they end up going to some weird place right so I think there's always gonna be a need for foreclosures and there's always gonna be pre foreclosures but as the market evens out and it doesn't stay on this skyrocketing path people have less equity over time and there's definitely gonna be options so you know I think what you offer at foreclosure.com is a great option for people to start finding those yeah find your local realtor they can help you find those or you know do the digging yourself but honestly a lot of money is made in these foreclosures when you find somebody who has enough equity left but just needs to get out of dodge yeah no it's great I mean uh we pride ourselves on on our data integrity and um but we always mention to you want to have a licensed professional help you through the process um whether you're buying or trying to get out of the situation so thank you Justin appreciate that you're welcome we're almost out of time here but I I wanna try to leave everyone with a little bit a little bit more actual advice if you can give one piece of advice to buyers sellers and agents heading into the second half of 2026 what would it be um for each one of those people yeah I mean I think in terms of buyers it's now's the time right inventory there's inventory out there you can make a deal right now if you're a seller price it right if you gotta sell price it right I don't think I don't think any economist believes the market's gonna be much different in six months or a year so if you're gonna sell no reason to hold on July August are great months you we do fall into a lull here in those like fall months because of Hurricane season kids going back to school we do get a little lull there but do what you need to do just price the house right and then I think when you when you talk to agents it's just have the real conversation with your clients you know for us is for the better agents out there I'm not trying to put myself in that category I'm probably not but you know just in case I happen to be if you're if you're an agent out there tell the truth to your sellers tell the truth to your buyers this isn't about you this isn't about your commission this is about you helping real people and so if you approach your job like you are helping real people and just doing the next right thing every step you can't lose in this business and so just do the next right thing it's the simplest I'm sure you're gonna tell your kids that at some point right just do the next right thing yeah because if you do that you cannot lose that's great it's great I appreciate it but I heard I heard of Matthew MCC one more thing sorry to catch up no no I heard of Matthew Mcconaughey thing that I think is the best and he said it's probably not him but I heard it from him so that it's gone it's being attributed to him he says don't leave any crumbs behind right don't do anything especially in your business where you could lose a license or something just do the next right thing because if you don't leave any crumbs behind you never have to look over your shoulder you can always sleep well at night and at the end of the day that's all that really matters whether you have 2 million in the bank or 2,000 in the bank if you're stressed about something you did four months ago with a client or something that you you know hey give me 2,000 over here I won't tell anybody about it you do those things you just you're asking for trouble and you're gonna be stressed about it so relieve yourself of those kind of things that's great and stress kills so haha thank you sure do what I think makes this conversation um important is that markets are always gonna change but opportunities never completely disappear so thank you for pointing that out Justin that's that's great we I really appreciate you coming on today um I'm excited to do this again you know if people want to connect with you where where where can they find you yeah so it's Himmel cell South Florida on Instagram okay h I m m E L cell South Florida and then you can text me 5 6 1 5 4 6 0 3 2 9 anytime alright I'm happy to uh I'm happy to be an asset if you're an agent and have questions happy to be an asset to you if you're a buyer or seller and have questions happy to be an asset to you if you just need a painter or a plumber I'm happy to be an asset to you if you want to know where to take your wife for dinner tomorrow call me I love I love being an asset to my friends my slogan is keep calm call him a bomb and that's not just for real estate that's for anything I love to be helpful I know you do too Tim and uh and that's why I always enjoy a conversation with you whether we're talking about kids or politics or music um or real estate you can we can always rap because I know you come from a great place oh ma'am much respect and um I really appreciate this conversation um and if you enjoyed this conversation or found any value please don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel go follow Justin on his content we'll make sure to leave a a link to his Instagram um below check out foreclosure.com if you're looking for alternative buying opportunities in today's market until next time I'm Tim Jones with foreclosure.com and thank you for joining us today