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Home Sales Hit 16-Year Low as AI Debt Lifts Mortgage Rates

AI debt issuance and Gulf oil pushed the 10-year to 5.13% and mortgages to 7.11%.

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The Tech Buzz
November 13, 2026

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WHAT’S INSIDE:

Feature: Home Sales Hit 16-Year Low as AI Debt Lifts Mortgage Rates

Top Tech News: Huang to testify, Nvidia slides, home sales sink, BoE inflation warning, Bessent relocated, Outlook outage, Beijing robot plan

Company Watch: Applied Intuition eyes $30B, Anthropic IPO, SoftBank loss, Rox, Fractile, Torus and Imprint funding, Index seed, X-energy permit

Buzzy Tools: Gemini 4, Android XR glasses, Pixel Tag, ChatGPT Business Hub, Claude Meetings, Adobe MCP, Meta Muse, Nectar, Spotify DJ

Buzzy Tech: Fable 5.2 quantum breakthrough, open-AI security risk, Beijing robots, Virtuoso surgery, altermagnets, AI agent identity

Crypto: SEC-CFTC rules, Trump Media profit, DTCC Solana plan, Kimber tokenized securities, Bullish platform, Coinbase urges post-hack cooperation

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Top Technology News

Huang to Testify — Ex-Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang agreed to testify before Congress on the spy scandal behind his exit; lawmakers will probe security lapses as Colette Kress steps in.

Huang Exit Rocks Chips — Nvidia fell 5% after CEO Huang resigned; AMD and Broadcom rose while Intel and Micron dropped. The 10-year yield topped 5%.

Home Sales Sink — Existing home sales fell 5.5% in October to a 3.75M annual rate, the lowest since 2010, as mortgage rates topped 7%. Full-year sales may miss 2025's 4.06M.

BoE Too Timid? — Thinktank Niesr says the Bank of England's hike to 4% was too hesitant, likely keeping inflation above its 2% target until 2030 and risking higher rates.

Bessent Relocated — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who leads the economic pressure campaign against Iran, was moved from his D.C.-area home to a military base over threats.

Outlook Goes Dark — Microsoft says "elevated loads" are knocking Microsoft 365 email offline across North America at peak hours, with no fix ETA. The suite has 345M paid seats.

Beijing's Robot Plan — A three-year plan targets 5 world-class and 10 leading humanoid robot OEMs by 2028, with 25% of national capacity in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Home Sales Hit a 16-Year Low and Housing Didn’t Cause It

Tech Buzz Editorial Feature

The explanation is not found in the housing market. It is in a bond market that picked up a new buyer with deeper pockets than any homebuyer alive.

Existing home sales fell to a 3.75M annual pace in October, the weakest since August 2010, while the median price climbed to a record $416,700. The 30-year mortgage sits at 7.11%. The 10-year Treasury crossed 5.13% this week after its sharpest jump since 2022. Almost none of that was decided by housing. The long end of the bond market is being set by a war premium on oil and by the biggest corporate borrowing spree in a generation, and American homebuyers are paying the clearing price for both.

The Market Froze And The Price Went Up Anyway

Sales dropped 5.5% in a month and 8.8% in a year. Prices rose anyway. Both are true because of who is left in the room. Cash buyers were 29% of October transactions, investors and second-home buyers another 20%, first timers 29%. When half the market does not need a loan, the median stops describing the market and starts describing the people who can ignore the rate.

"It is just a tough market for buyers and sellers," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

Distressed sales were 2%. Nobody is being forced to find out what the real price is.

Your Mortgage Is Priced At An Auction: You Were Never Invited

Mortgages are priced off the 10-year, and the 10-year is crowded. Economists at the Dallas Fed put AI data center investment at $3T to $5T over three to five years, with roughly $300B of AI-related investment grade issuance in 2026 alone. In 10-year equivalents that is up to $360B of duration supply, about one eighth of what the Treasury itself issues. Banks and insurers usually supply 38% of investment grade paper. Some are being elbowed out.

Add crude at $88.70 on Gulf tensions and a Fed governor floating a half point hike after a hot core CPI print. Three forces moved your mortgage rate last month and not one of them has ever walked a listing.

The Biggest New U.S. Borrower Doesn’t Build Houses

CoreWeave carries $46.9B of debt, $10.6B of it due inside a year. It paid $846M in interest last quarter and guided to $1.05B to $1.15B for the next one. Revenue more than doubled to $3.66B and it still lost $709M.

"We expect approximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits" over the next three months, chief executive Michael Intrator told investors.

That is one company. Across the sector you have a borrower who needs capital more urgently than any homebuyer and can outbid for it.

"You've got this circular financing squad where they're investing in each other," said Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel Investments. "That's a little scary."

The Builder Can Buy Down Your Rate. Your Neighbor Cannot.

In roughly a third of major metros, new construction now costs less per square foot than a resale. Nationally the median was $205 new against $212 existing. Austin runs $184 against $228, a discount near 19%. Raleigh and Tampa lean the same way.

Builders can buy the rate down to something that looks like 2021. The couple selling a 2016 ranch cannot, and with 8.5 months of supply on the books the builders will keep doing it.

"New homes are the overlooked opportunity more buyers should be thinking about," said Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow.

A record median price is not a floor. It is what you get when the weakest sellers stop showing up.

The $757B That Comes Due Before Any Rate Cut

The institutional side is further down this road. Multifamily CMBS delinquency hit nearly 8% in August, up from 6.5% a year earlier. Apartment prices fell about 5% over the same stretch. Per unit operating costs went from $6,950 in 2019 to $9,510 this year, a 37% climb no rent roll has matched.

Up to $757B of multifamily debt matures by 2028, most of it underwritten between 2020 and 2022 against a very different curve. Rialto alone has $14B of apartment loans needing workouts. Lenders are rotating toward retail, industrial and, increasingly, data centers.

The Exit Nobody Will Put Their Name To

The US carries 261.5M ounces of gold at $42.22 an ounce, a price Congress set in 1973. At market it is worth around $1T. Analyst Craig Tindale argued this month that Treasury and the Fed are preparing to reprice it and credit the difference against the debt. Many analysts have pointed out that pulling debt to GDP from 120% down to 81% would need gold near $50,000.

Worth knowing the argument exists. Also worth noting that Kevin Warsh has not said the words gold or accord in three press conferences as chair, Scott Bessent walked back the line everyone quotes, and gold fell 2.97% on Thursday to $3,881.70.

What To Actually Watch

Pending home sales, the contracts signed in September, hit a 25-year low. December's print is already written.

The uncomfortable part is that the obvious wish does not help. If the AI bid breaks, long rates fall and mortgages get cheaper, which is what every real estate professional says they want. It also means the capex propping up employment and earnings has stopped. You would be refinancing into a recession with a tenant who just lost his job.

Housing has stopped setting its own price of money. For 2027, position for the rate you get rather than the rate you want.

“High rates are keeping monthly payments elevated, while tariff-related construction costs are adding pressure to insurance premiums and property taxes are further straining homeowners.”

— Selma Hepp, Chief Economist, Cotality

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