MarketWatch: Weekly Real Estate Update for Riverdale, Bronx – 4/6/2026 – 4/13/2026

Did You Know?

* A paper called “Pocket Sales in the Housing Market: Selection, Outcomes, and Policy” by Darren Hayunga, a finance professor at the University of Georgia revealed the following:
– Contrary to search-theoretic models where limited exposure necessitates a discount, we document a robust 1.7% price premium. 
– We reject agency conflict explanations, finding instead that the premium arises from avoiding the open-market negotiation discount. 
– By immunizing sellers against adverse signaling, pocket sales achieve a sale-to-list price surplus of 1.6%, effectively capturing the listing price. 
– We further find these returns are convex, quadrupling for luxury assets where privacy demands are maximized. 
– Finally, we exploit the 2020 Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP) as a natural experiment. We document a compliance paradox: while the policy failed to reduce the volume of pocket sales, it successfully eroded their economic value. By removing the exclusivity essential to the mechanism, the CCP commoditized the channel without eliminating the practice.
– We looked at home sales where the seller found a buyer privately before putting the listing on the MLS. These show up as “zero days on market.” Most economists would predict that sellers who skip the open market should get a lower price because fewer buyers are competing. We found the opposite: sellers who did private deals got about 1.7% more than sellers who listed normally.
– This isn’t because agents were gaming the system or double-dipping on commissions. It’s because selling privately lets the seller avoid two things that cost money on the open market: visible price cuts (which make buyers think something’s wrong) and the back-and-forth negotiation where buyers talk the price down. Private sellers basically got their asking price. Normal sellers didn’t.
– The advantage was biggest for expensive homes, where it jumped to over 8%.

* While many of us look at our retirement fund statements with one eye closed, some people are making an absolute fortune from equity and commodity market volatility. Not all market pullbacks impact everyone negatively. (FT)

Mortgage Rate Updates:

Mortgage rates have dropped for the first time since the conflict in Iran began, offering a bit of relief to the U.S. housing market as the spring homebuying season gets underway. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.37% on Thursday, down from 6.46% the previous week and 6.62% in the same period last year. The 10-year Treasury yield, closely tied to mortgage rates, declined following Tuesday’s announcement of a two-week ceasefire. However, analysts caution that the economic fallout from the Iran conflict remains far from resolved.

Source: Freddie Mac