My phone started going off around 9 this morning.
The same message, a few different ways: *Did you see they swore in the new Fed chair? Does this mean rates are finally coming down?*
I get it. Kevin Warsh got sworn in today — Trump’s pick, younger than Powell, openly more rate-friendly — and after two years of everyone waiting for some kind of signal, this feels like one. It looks like one. The headlines are going to treat it like one all day.
Here’s what I actually know.
The Fed chair sets the tone. He shapes the conversation. He can push in a direction. But the rate decisions themselves go through the Federal Open Market Committee — twelve people, twelve votes, and Warsh has exactly one of them. Right now, several of those other votes are pointing toward holding or raising, not cutting. Inflation is still running at 3.8%. Tariffs are still adding pressure to prices. The people whose entire job is to forecast this stuff are saying meaningful cuts are a late-2026 story at best, and more likely 2027.
Mortgage rates in Texas this morning: 6.5%. Exactly where they were before the ceremony.
None of that is a reason to panic or give up. But here’s what I keep watching in this market.
Right now, there’s more inventory in Austin and the lake communities than we’ve had in years. There’s negotiating room that didn’t exist twelve months ago. There are sellers who are actually motivated. The competition is quieter.
That changes the moment rates drop — and it changes fast. Every buyer who’s been sitting on the sidelines comes back at once. The leverage shifts. Prices respond.
So Warsh is worth watching. His tenure might genuinely move things in the right direction. But the gap between “new Fed chair sworn in” and “mortgage rates actually dropped” is measured in months and votes and inflation reports — not news cycles.
If you’ve been waiting for the right signal, I’d pay more attention to what’s happening in this market right now than to what happened in Washington this morning.
As always — happy to talk through what this actually means for your specific situation.
