Interest Rates Follow the 10-Year Bond. Not the Fed.

Most people think the Federal Reserve controls mortgage rates. They do not. Mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury bond. When the bond market stabilizes, the big banks trade money cheaper. Lending becomes less expensive. Rates come down. When geopolitical chaos keeps the bond market volatile, rates stay elevated and everybody freezes.

The Strait of Hormuz matters to your mortgage. A two-week ceasefire was placed. The strait opened. Oil flows again. Helium flows. Technology manufacturing breathes a little easier. But this is temporary relief. The kind designed to keep us on pins and needles. Distracted from whatever else might be happening behind the curtain. When everything stabilizes at the macro level, and that means geopolitics, trade routes, and commodity prices, the cost of money comes down. That might be 2027 or 2028 before we see meaningful sustained movement.

The pullback in home buying is real. People see rates and they freeze. But rates are not the whole picture. The people who wait for "the right time" are the same people who waited in 2019, waited in 2020, and then watched prices climb 40% in two years while they were still waiting. Timing the market is a losing game. Preparation is the winning game.

If you are a seller, the market rewards preparation. Price it correctly and it moves. In any market. Clean properties. Updated systems. Neutral interiors. Stand at the curb and look at it the way a buyer would. Fix what they see first. The work does not change whether your home is worth $500,000 or $5 million. The strategy is the same. The effort is the same. That is why the fee should be the same.

Sellers Only Agent™ charges $17,000. Fixed. That does not change based on your home's value. Because the work does not change. Every fee that touches the seller's equity gets negotiated. Escrow fees. Title insurance. Vendor costs. Every dollar examined. 27 years of relationships in the Santa Clarita Valley working for the seller. Not the buyer. Not both. Just you.