Article by Irina Constantin, CEO & Co-founder VAUNT

The Fed raised rates a few days ago. First hike since 2023.

Today you'll see a hundred posts saying rates up, buyers gone, deals dead. Go look at a building that's already out of the ground and you'll see something else entirely.

When a developer builds, they borrow most of the money, and that loan isn't locked the way your mortgage is. It floats. The rate resets every month based on whatever the Fed just did.

So the developer with 300 units topping out in Q1 still has every buyer they had on Tuesday. What they lost is margin. Every month that building sits empty costs more than it did last month.

Then there's the twist: the 10 year Treasury drives a buyer's 30 year mortgage, and it went down after the announcement. So the loan the buyer takes out, and the long term loan the developer refinances into once the building is full, both went the opposite direction from what everybody assumes.

What got more expensive is time.

Which means the whole game on a new building is speed. How fast you call back the person who inquired Tuesday. Whether you can name the one channel that produced a signed lease instead of a tour. What happened to the 200 people who asked about the building in June and never heard from anyone again.

Construction loans come with a deadline. Fill it by this date or start paying to extend. Every week of slow follow-up is a real number, and that number grows every time the Fed moves.

The apartments are fine. The pricing is fine. The teams that get hurt this cycle are the ones who couldn't tell you where their pipeline stood the day the clock sped up.

We're probably one more hike away from this getting loud.

If you're running sales or leasing on a building delivering in the next 12 months, what's the first thing you're changing?

If you want to see where your pipeline actually stands, book a 20-minute call about your building.