US Real Estate: Pizzino Flags 2026 Peak, 2029–2030 Trough

Macro commentator Jason Pizzino, speaking on a recent collaboration episode, placed the US real estate cycle at its late-stage peak, drawing on Phil Anderson's roughly 18-year framework built from about 220 years of US real estate sales data. The current cycle began around 2011–2012, ran through a mid-cycle slowdown in 2020, and is now in what Pizzino calls the "winner's curse" second half, where major IPOs, large construction projects, and broad leverage all cluster near the top. He puts a yellow dot on the chart now and pegs the national-average trough roughly four years out, in 2029–2030, consistent with prior cycle bottoms arriving about four years after the peak.

Why it matters

The lead indicator he watches is Dr. Horton (DHI), the largest US homebuilder, which peaked in late 2024 after running up through the second half of the cycle. In the prior cycle, DHI topped in 2005, posted lower highs in 2006 and 2007, and was down roughly 60–70% by the time the stock market finally peaked in September–October 2007, giving a multi-year lead that real estate was rolling over before equities confirmed it. Pizzino thinks this cycle is shaping up to be less severe than 2008, with homebuilders carrying less land inventory this time, but he still expects a stock-market peak somewhere in the first half of 2027 if the DHI pattern repeats on its prior 27-month lag. Mid-cycle slowdowns, he notes, have historically been finance-led (the 2000 tech bust, the 2020 pandemic shock, the 2023 regional-bank stress) rather than triggered by land prices falling outright.

Market impact

Pizzino reads the cycle as broadly bearish for risk into the late 2020s: the US dollar tends to fall in the second half of the real estate cycle, with the DXY in a multi-year downtrend since 2022 and now capped below roughly 104–105, which he expects to roll over toward the 96–97 lows. Commodities typically peak after real estate, with gold potentially resolving in the first half of 2027 on a 16–19 month base count from its recent high; silver he is less sure on after its 2024 spike. On Bitcoin, he sees a plausible rally from current levels but expects diminished returns: a 100% move off a $57K low would only retest the prior all-time high, and a 200% move to ~$180K is hard to square with credit contracting and a rolling stock market. His base case is a left-translated Bitcoin cycle topping somewhere around 2026, possibly as early as 2028, ahead of the real-estate-cycle low.