{{first_name}},

Yesterday was Memorial Day.

We spent it the way it should probably be spent — outside, doing nothing important. Fire pit going, kids chasing each other around the backyard with a wiffle ball bat, my wife laughing at something I said that wasn't even that funny. At some point in the evening I looked around and thought: this is the whole point. Not the house, not the market, not the rates. The people in the yard. The people we're doing it all for. And somewhere in the back of my mind was a quiet awareness that the reason we can have a Monday like that — uncomplicated and loud and good — is because other people gave everything so we could. I don't take that lightly. I hope you got some version of that day too.

Now. Back to the market — because two things happened this spring that most people haven't noticed yet, and they're both worth your attention.

There's a fight happening right now between some of the biggest names in real estate — and it got very close to home, very fast.

Here's the short version: Compass, one of the country's largest brokerages, has been pushing a strategy called "private listings" — where homes are marketed exclusively within their own network before (or sometimes instead of) hitting the MLS and the public portals like Zillow and Realtor.com. Their argument is that sellers benefit from the controlled exposure. The counterargument is that fewer eyes means less competition, which often means less money.

The conflict escalated quickly. Zillow filed an antitrust lawsuit against Compass and our own regional MLS — MRED, the Chicagoland MLS that powers listings across the entire area including Lake County — alleging the two worked together to threaten Zillow's data feed. MRED responded by cutting off Zillow's access to more than 30,000 residential listings, effectively erasing a massive chunk of Chicagoland inventory from the country's most-visited real estate portal overnight.

Within 48 hours, a federal judge stepped in. On May 22nd, Judge John Tharp partially granted Zillow's request for a temporary restraining order — forcing MRED to restore roughly 43,000 Chicagoland listings back to Zillow, while also ordering Zillow to display the nine Compass listings it had previously banned. Both sides declared victory. The underlying antitrust lawsuit continues, with hearings ongoing. This isn't over.

Here's what I want you to know as a KW client specifically: our listings never missed a beat. Keller Williams has a direct data agreement with Zillow that operates independently of the MRED feed dispute. While this was playing out in federal court and listings from other brokerages were disappearing from Zillow's platform, KW listings continued syndicating normally. If your home was on the market — or came on during this stretch — it stayed fully visible.

What does this mean more broadly?

If you're a seller, it means the question of where your home gets listed — and how fast — is no longer as simple as it used to be. A listing strategy that keeps your home off the MLS for any length of time is a decision with real consequences, and you should understand what you're agreeing to before you sign anything.

If you're a buyer, it means some homes in some markets are quietly being sold before they ever hit Zillow. The agents you work with matter more than ever when inventory is limited and not everything is visible on the same screen.

The takeaway isn't panic. It's awareness. The rules of the game are shifting, and knowing that — and knowing your broker has the right relationships in place — puts you ahead of most people.

➡ Search Lake County Homes

In March, there was a window. Rates had dipped, buyers were cautiously re-entering the market, and there was a real sense that spring 2026 might actually move.

Then inflation came in hot, and the window mostly closed.

The 10-year Treasury — which is the real driver behind mortgage rates — climbed from below 4% in March to nearly 4.7% by mid-May. Mortgage rates followed. We're back above 6.5% on a 30-year fixed, and analysts are noting plainly that at that level, the math stops working for a meaningful slice of buyers. Nationally, pending sales dipped. Purchase applications fell. One major MLS walked back a forecast of nearly 9% sales growth for 2026 and replaced it with something closer to 4% — and quietly revised their home price prediction from a small gain to a small decline.

If you want to see how these dynamics are playing out specifically in Lake County, I put together a full market breakdown earlier this spring: Lake County, IL Real Estate Market Report — March 2026 →

Here's what I'd tell you, though: the buyers still moving right now are serious.

When rates climb, the casual browsers disappear. The people left in the market aren't dabbling — they have a reason to move, they've done the math, and they've made peace with the rate because waiting has its own costs. If you're a seller, that's actually a useful thing to understand. You may have fewer showings. But the people walking through your door have been pre-filtered by a market that made it uncomfortable to be here without a real reason.

And if you're a buyer sitting on the sideline waiting for rates to drop — that's a legitimate strategy. It's also a strategy a lot of people have been running for two years now. The question worth asking isn't "what will rates do?" It's "what happens to prices if rates drop and everyone who's been waiting comes back at once?"

I don't have a crystal ball. Nobody does right now. But I'd rather you be thinking about the right questions than surprised by the answers.

➡ Instant Home Value Report

If you're looking for something to do next weekend, the Illinois Vintage Fest is back at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake on June 6th and 7th. 200+ vendors — vintage clothing, home goods, collectibles, antiques, artisan work — and it's free to get in. It's the kind of event that's easy to walk into for an hour and end up staying three, which is either a feature or a warning depending on your schedule. Good people, good stuff, and one of the better excuses to spend a Saturday in Grayslake.

➡ Illinois Vintage Fest — Lake County Fairgrounds

Bloomberg's Marcus Ashworth wrote plainly recently: "No more reliable safe havens."

After all, the S&P fell over 7% from the February peak. Bonds, even with less risk, are barely keeping pace with inflation.

So-called "diversified" portfolios have gotten hit from multiple directions.

Meanwhile, the world’s wealthiest have been setting records in another asset class.

Circumstances are always unique, but after the dot-com bust, it grew roughly 24% annually for a decade. After 2008, roughly 11% annually for 12 years.

Blue-chip art.

Why? It trades globally in multiple currencies, has scarce supply, and has shown near-zero correlation to equities since 1995.*

With Masterworks, 70,000+ investors allocated $1.3B fractionally across 500+ artworks featuring Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.

Accredited? You can invest in a diversified portfolio of postwar and contemporary art alongside two other real assets. From 2017-2025, the mix would’ve beat the S&P 500 by 3.1x.

See if you can improve your portfolio performance all in one diversified strategy.

Our subscribers skip the waitlist

^{*According to Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}

The fire pit burned down to coals sometime around 9pm. The kids were done. The yard was quiet. And I just sat there for a few minutes thinking about how fast it goes — the kids, the seasons, the market, all of it.

Nobody hands you a perfect moment. Not the right time to sell. Not the right time to buy. Not the right time to sit in the backyard and feel like you've actually built something worth coming home to. You build that by deciding, repeatedly, that it matters — and then by showing up for it even when conditions aren't ideal.

That's what I see in the clients who don't regret their moves. Not the ones who timed it perfectly. The ones who decided they were done waiting.

The listings war and the rate environment are real. The uncertainty is real. But uncertainty has been the constant since 2020, and the people who moved anyway are sitting on equity that the ones still waiting can only look at.

If something in this week's newsletter made you think — about selling, about buying, about what you're actually waiting for — reply to this email or grab some time on my calendar. The conversation is always free.

Until next week…