Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin · Monday, August 10, 2026
Mauricio Umansky describes the current real estate market as transitional, experiencing a three-and-a-half-year low in transactions. He notes a significant drop in transactions compared to pre-COVID averages, attributing this to high interest rates discouraging owners with low existing rates from selling.
“We are in a great time right now. We're in a transitional time. Um, we've been in a three-year, three and a half year low. Um, it's been a very difficult market. Um, and when I talk about the market conditions, I talk about transactions.”
“Um, a typical, you know, when I analyze the real estate market, I analyze 2019. And I kind of just get rid of the whole 2020 COVID world because it was an anomaly on every part. Um, for the first three or four months, there was nothing. And then it was like, holy cow, it was everything, right? So I take those, that year and a half or whatever, and I just throw it out because it's an outlier. It's an outlier. It will never happen again.”
“Um, but a typical, somewhere around 5.6, 5.7 million transactions in the country. Um, during COVID, we went up to 7 million transactions. Um, right now we're at 3 and a half million transactions. Uh, 40% drop from the average of 5.8 million.”
“But what happens with that? Eventually people start hurting. And eventually you start seeing prices drop. We have now seen prices drop. It took a long time. In 2008 when we had the crisis, prices dropped quickly. We had a 35, 40% price drop, fast.”