Billionaire Jeff Greene predicts house prices will soar once rates fall — and warns the US faces a 'downward spiral'

Business Insider

3 days ago

Interest rates are holding back a "huge boom" in the housing market, billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene told Business Insider.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Florida-based property tycoon said that prospective home buyers and sellers were "waiting for rates to come down." The annual interest on a 10-year, fixed-rate mortgage is still close to 7%, a sharp increase from below 3% four years ago.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said earlier this month that tariff-related uncertainty was the main reason the central bank hadn't cut rates since December. Mortgage rates closely track the Fed's benchmark rate.
"If rates come down, we'll have a huge boom in housing prices," Greene told BI.
A reduction in rates would likely result in more houses on the market, as homeowners who took out long-term mortgages at low rates would then be willing to refinance and move home, Greene said.
"People have locked in loans for any number of years into the future, and so they're not going to give up those houses" before rates fall, he said.
Increased supply could help first-time buyers get on the housing ladder, Greene said. It's "always been difficult" for young people to buy a home as they're competing against older people with deeper pockets, he said, but it's "particularly hard now" when rates are high and there are fewer homes for sale.
A 'downward spiral'
Greene said that federal spending, quantitative easing, low interest rates, and other forms of government stimulus have underpinned US economic growth for decades.
"The economy's been running on printed money for a long time; it's not a secret," he said. "We've just printed money and given it to people."
President Donald Trump's recently passed " Big Beautiful Bill" is likely to "keep the party going" and stave off an economic slowdown, Greene said.
Greene said Trump struck him as someone who would negotiate deals so his tariffs wouldn't cause " huge dislocations in the economy."
So far, the market seems to agree, and that outlook likely explains why stocks are at record highs, Greene said.
But he warned about the rising national debt, and the US government's growing interest costs.
"We've just kicked the can down the road for however many more years," he said. "You can drive 130 miles an hour down the road and have no accident, but at some point, somebody's going to pull out in front of you and you're going to die," he added.
Greene also said that "throwing our immigrants out of the country" was unwise when America has an ageing population, with an increasing proportion of people living on Social Security.
"We're kind of in a downward spiral," Greene said of the demographic challenges and mounting debt.