Bookending your conversations with polite greetings and salutations ensures that you’re communicating more effectively while building better relationships.

Just like the NCAA took advantage of athletes, Compass CEO Reffkin writes, Zillow, NAR and MLSs are just “monopolies that profit from work they don’t create.”

For months I’d been catching a faint whiff of cooking gas in the bedrooms. When I asked my husband about it he dismissed my anxiety, so I left it alone, but I should have known better. When you smell gas, you’re supposed to open the window, leave the building, and call 911. Instead I hesitated.

The smell was intermittent, and only detectable in two of the rooms overlooking the street—a residential block of townhouses and apartment buildings in Brooklyn. With the air conditioners on during the summer, the smell seemed to wane. The cat was still alive, I reasoned.

[Editor’s Note: Brick Underground’s Inside Stories feature first-person accounts of interesting, real-life New York City real estate experiences. A previous version of this story ran in November 2022. We are presenting it again in case you missed it.]

Caption

The National Grid leaflet says not all gas lines are odorized. 

Credit

Emily Myers for Brick Underground 

Also in my defense: We had just replaced an air conditioning condenser on the roof at considerable expense to the landlord and I’d recently contacted him about the squirrels making a racket in the attic. I figured there are few rewards for being a tenant who’s permanently drawing attention to problems. I didn’t want to add a vague complaint about an intermittent gas smell.

Getting answers from the gas company

Back outside I reported the gas detection to AJ. The National Grid technician was in his building. Fairly soon he came out, shaking his head. “It’s a mystery,” he said. This wasn’t promising. I told him how the gas detector was hitting three bars in our place too. 

He then disappeared into the next building down the block. As AJ and I waited on the sidewalk for news, Margot introduced herself. She was heading back home, to her apartment in the building now being inspected by National Grid. “Had she smelled gas?” we asked. “Oh yes, I have,” she said brightly. Without a flicker of anxiety, she said “I’ll go and see if they need access to my apartment.” 

It crossed my mind that I should have some evidence of the gas levels for our landlord. I headed back inside with the detector. (It is absolutely not recommended to return to a building in which you can smell gas.) However, the levels were a little lower, up to two bars and then the battery died. 

I went back outside, eager to ask the National Grid technician some questions. He came out of Margot’s building and reported how he punched a hole in the wall and gas bubbled out. This took me a while to process. I pictured the punctured sheetrock; the paint damage; and the hiss of something invisible effervescing from a wall. He had turned the gas off, he told us. Which perhaps explains why the levels had gone down a bar just before the detector died. 

“Open the windows. Ventilate for a while,” he said. 

How dangerous is a gas leak?

Gas leaks can result in fires and explosions. I did know this. What I didn’t know—but now it seems obvious—that gas leaking from a pipe can travel not just to your neighbor but your neighbor’s neighbor, through the walls. A few days later I texted AJ to thank him for taking the initiative and berating myself for not doing it sooner.

“I had the same self-skepticism,” he texted back, adding that his energy levels improved overnight once the gas was turned off.

Next time I smell gas I know what I am doing—not ignoring it or trotting in and out of the building to take my own measurements. I’m leaving the building and calling 911 from a safe distance.

Other reminders: If you smell gas, don’t turn on or off any electrical appliances, don’t smoke or light matches or lighters, and don’t use a phone within the building. Once you’ve called 911, call the gas service provider for the building and don’t go back until you are told it is safe.

With the Federal Reserve all but locked into a 25 basis-point cut on Wednesday after the conclusion of its two-day meeting, the question for housing market professionals is how much lower mortgage rates could go after their recent tumble.

At HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center on Tuesday, long-term borrowing costs continued the plunge they’ve been on since topping out near 7% in late July. Rates for 30-year conforming loans averaged 6.45% — an eye-popping 19 bps lower than one week ago.

Rates for 30-year jumbo loans were down 3 bps during the week to 6.26%, while rates for 30-year Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans shed 13 bps to average 6.22%. Mortgage News Daily showed 30-year fixed rates at 6.13% on Tuesday.

Refi wave is swelling

While lower rates are beneficial for potential homebuyers, the mortgage industry may start to see the leading edge of a refinance wave that could propel business through the end of 2025. ICE Mortgage Technology reported earlier this month that 3.1 million homeowners would save by refinancing, up 55% in a two-week span.

“The refinance market is heating up in a way we haven’t seen for months,” Michael Gaines, a Detroit-based senior vice president of capital markets for Cardinal Financial, told HousingWire via email. “As soon as rates dipped below 6.5%, and closer to 6% for many government-backed loans, we saw refinance applications jump.

“That trend should only expand into year-end if rates remain in this range, because more homeowners will cross into ‘in the money’ territory.”

Greg Schwartz, CEO of New York-based Tomo Mortgage, told HousingWire that the market is “on the cusp of a meaningful refi wave.” People who purchased homes in the past two years at rates of 7% to 8% have prime opportunities to save.

“But refinancing is not free,” Schwartz cautioned. “There are fees involved, so rates need to fall far enough below someone’s existing loan to make the math work ex-fees.”

‘Breathing room’ for buyers

Rates of 6% or less are likely to spur more buyers and sellers into action. Existing-home sales have been sputtering for much of 2025, although data from the National Association of Realtors showed improvement in July. Existing sales rose 2% from July and were 0.8% higher on an annualized basis.

“Buyers are highly sensitive to rates right now; we found that 85% of active homebuyers postponed their search waiting for rates to drop, and most still believe today’s rates are unusually high,” Schwartz said.

“Lower rates are giving buyers some real breathing room. On a $400,000 mortgage, a half-point drop saves a little more than $100 a month, or about $1,200 a year. That kind of change in the monthly payment tends to outweigh the increases we are seeing in taxes and insurance in most markets.”

New-home sales have returned to earth, dropping 8.2% year over year in July, although this segment may be a better option for some buyers. And many Midwest markets are bucking this trend. Across all types of single-family homes, HousingWire data found that metros like Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids, Michigan, are seeing homes sell up to 83% faster than the national average.

“Rising taxes and insurance do create pressure, but they don’t erase the benefits of a lower rate,” Gaines said. “We look at the whole picture with each borrower. Sometimes that means helping them compare different insurance carriers, or structuring the loan to minimize monthly costs.

“What we’re seeing is that affordability is not one-dimensional. A small rate improvement, paired with the right loan program and smart planning, can still make homeownership possible even when escrow costs are rising. It’s less about one factor canceling another out, and more about helping buyers layer the right solutions together.”

Further cooling of rates?

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, interest rate traders are nearly unanimous that the Federal Open Market Committee will cut benchmark rates by 25 bps on Wednesday, placing them in a range of 4% to 4.25%.

But the optimism doesn’t stop there. About three-quarters of this group expects another 25-bps cut at the end of October, while about 70% anticipate a third cut in December. All told, if these policy moves materialize and mortgage rates move in tandem, the housing market could be working with rates near 5% by early 2026.

“It’s important to remember: a Fed move doesn’t equal a mortgage move,” said Charles Goodwin, a vice president at national real estate investment lender Kiavi. “Mortgages track the 10-year Treasury, and that’s still being pulled higher by inflation and government spending concerns. Even if the Fed trims short-term rates, that doesn’t guarantee relief for homebuyers.”

Goodwin went on to say that the “biggest mistake” he sees among prospective purchase and refinance borrowers is “waiting for the perfect rate.” Anyone who’s ready to buy now and is able to afford the monthly payment should lock in their rate right away.

“Purchase buyers should lock sooner, because certainty matters when you’re under contract and heading to closing,” he said. “On the flip side, if you’re still early in your search, you’ve got more time to see if late-year declines materialize.

“Refinancers have more flexibility. They’re not racing against a deadline, so they can afford to wait and see if small improvements come through later this year. But don’t expect another pandemic-era plunge. The most you’re likely to see is a quarter-point here or there.”