6 Predictions for 2026 That Could Reshape the Economy and Housing Market

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Has real estate finally bottomed? Ben Miller, CEO of Fundrise (managing over $7B in real estate), says it’s so. And he’s not just talking about commercial real estate. If true, one particular type of real estate investment could do exceptionally well over the next year, but most people (even Dave!) are going in a different direction. Where could the next big real estate boom happen? We’re getting into it! To continue this prediction season, Ben joins us to walk through a few crucial economic outlooks that could greatly affect the housing market. From AI stunting hiring to inflation actually going down (below 2%!), American wage trends changing dramatically, and the assets that will perform best, we’re getting his take as someone who manages billions of dollars in real estate. Want mortgage rates to go down? We need lower inflation, and Ben says there’s good news on the horizon for stable prices. New technology adoption could lead to much lower inflation (even deflation in some cases). Could this be what reignites the housing market as mortgage rates react to a more stable economy? Ben gives his full take, with some surprises even Dave wasn’t prepared for. In This Episode We Cover The bottom for real estate prices? Why Ben thinks it’s here (or very close) The end of runaway inflation: How AI could kill the concern over rising costs More Americans making less, and what happens when AI takes tens of millions of jobs The one type of residential real estate that is poised to perform best in 2026 A new AI tool that could be pivotal for rental property investing research And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1215 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How will AI impact the economy? And what does it mean for investors in 26? It's a massive question
0:07.3	that may define the next few years and beyond. And today, we're diving deep.
0:16.2	Hey, everyone. I'm Dave Meyer, housing market analyst and head of real estate investing in bigger pockets. My guest today is Ben Miller, the CEO of Fundrise. Ben is a thought leader
0:26.1	in the real estate and finance space, and he has a long track record of finding value and
0:31.5	making deals work in many different investing markets. We had him on last December when he
0:36.8	came on to the show and presented a case
0:38.9	for real estate investing in 2025 that mostly proved correct. But since the market is always
0:45.1	changing and we face a lot of uncertainty heading into next year, I had to bring Ben back on to
0:50.7	share his expectations for the economy next year and how he recommends real estate
0:55.6	investors take advantage. We talk a lot about AI and its potential impact on different parts
1:01.0	of the economy and the housing market, including how you can leverage new tools in your
1:05.7	own analysis and investing. Ben, welcome back to the show.
1:09.7	Yeah, thanks for having me. I am always looking
1:11.7	forward to these conversations. You are exposed to a lot. You see a lot of different stuff in real
1:16.4	estate and in the economy. And you always have a very unique perspective on where things are going.
1:21.9	So maybe we can start there and have you tell us just what's your read on real estate and the housing market right now?
1:29.4	Yeah. I mean, I think real estate's bottomed, but I've been humbled by the last half decade.
1:35.0	You know, we had COVID, we had interest rates, so I'm much more humbled than I was before.
1:40.0	There are three or four really big things happening in the world today. Obviously, AI, interest rates,
1:45.7	the political environment affects the business environment a lot these days. And then the good news is
1:51.0	that supply is going away. New supply of construction has really fallen off a cliff. So those are
1:56.2	part of the big four things driving real estate these days. All right. Great. Well, let's dig into each one of them,
	...

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