Jason Oppenheim didn’t mince words.
“I don’t understand [the Fed], they’re too wonky and too nerdy, and they lack all common sense,” he recently told Inman. “We should be down 150 basis points from where we are right now … And real estate is the sacrificial lamb of high interest rates.”
Oppenheim spoke to Inman while promoting Selling the OC — a sister show of Selling Sunset — on Netflix. The show is based around The Oppenheim Group’s Newport Beach office, and Season 4 premieres Wednesday (Nov. 12).
The returning cast includes Oppenheim, Alex Hall, Gio Helou, Polly Brindle, Austin Victoria, Tyler Stanaland and Brandi Marshall, and this season’s newcomers are Kaylee Ricciardi, Fiona Belle and Ashtyn Zerboni.
Ahead of the season, Inman conducted a virtual sit-down with the Selling the OC cast, where the conversation kept coming back to interest rates.
When asked about predictions for the industry, Oppenheim said the Newport Beach market has had a good run — but probably peaked about a year ago and is now getting a dose of reality as buyers pull out amid uncertainty. Listings are also sitting on the market longer, and price reductions are happening more frequently.
“I think we’re already starting to see the price reductions, even where we are, and I feel like we also start to see the trends later than the rest of the country, because we’re such prime, prime real estate,” Hall said.
Meanwhile the LA office — where Selling Sunset is based — has had three to four years of “misery,” Oppenheim said.
“The truth is we just need the Fed to lower interest rates about 150 basis points. And I think that we’ll all be OK,” Oppenheim said.
“Right now, there’s too much friction. There’s too many locked-up sellers and buyers that just can’t afford to buy. So that’s what I’m looking forward to, is just a more frictionless environment. And Los Angeles, they’ve got to get rid of mansion tax or fix it,” he said.
When asked about his best advice for agents, Oppenheim said, “For a lot of agents … it’s been a tough two or three years, I just basically tell them they have to wait it out. I mean, this is when you really work hard and you build, you know, a database, you build clientele, and then you’ll be rewarded in a couple of years when interest rates are lower.”
After giving a play-by-play of job growth, unemployment and inflation, he said, “If I can just rant on the Fed for 10 seconds: Always way too late … everyone with common sense knew that they needed to raise rates when people were getting, you know, 2 percent loans. You saw the price of assets going crazy.”
