Marin County Mortgage & Market Update — Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Good morning from Tiburon. Brent crude crossed $100 a barrel overnight — first time since July — and that single number is now driving almost everything that touches your mortgage. The 10-year is at cycle highs, the Fed meets in a week, and the odds of a hike just went past a coin flip. Here’s where things actually stand.

📈 Market Close — September 8, 2026

The Dow gave up 628 points coming back from the long weekend. Industrials and transports took the brunt of it, which makes sense — when fuel costs jump 40% in nine weeks, anything that moves freight gets repriced. Tech held up better, as it usually does when the pain is energy-driven rather than growth-driven.

Overnight strikes near the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent through $100 this morning. Brent is up roughly 43% in nine weeks. I want to be careful not to turn this into a geopolitics newsletter, so here’s the only part that matters for a Marin homebuyer: oil is an inflation input, inflation expectations set long-term rates, and long-term rates set your mortgage. That’s the whole chain.

🏦 Bond Yields & Mortgage Rates

The 10-year finally broke through 4.8% and is sitting near 4.83% — the highest since late 2023. Yesterday I told you the 10-year had been flirting with 4.8% for a week. It stopped flirting.

The 30-year fixed moved up with it, roughly 5 to 6 basis points depending on whose survey you read. Nothing dramatic day-over-day, but the direction has been consistent for two weeks now and the floor keeps rising.

Worth flagging: the 5/1 ARM is now above 7%. That’s unusual and it’s telling you something. When the short end prices above the long end on adjustable products, the market is saying it expects near-term policy to get tighter, not looser. If someone pitches you an ARM this week as a way to “save money until rates come down,” ask them to show you the math. Right now it doesn’t work.

I’ll repeat what I said yesterday because it’s more true today, not less: wholesale lender pricing is scattered right now. On any given morning I’ll see the same borrower — same credit, same down payment, same Marin property — quoted 25 to 40 basis points apart between lenders. On a $1.5 million jumbo, that spread is worth more than anything you’ll win arguing over the inspection report.

📊 Inflation & The Fed

The last CPI print, covering July, came in at 3.4% headline and 2.5% core. The August report drops this Friday, September 11, and consensus is looking for roughly 0.4% month-over-month and 3.4% year-over-year again. Given what energy has done, the risk on that number is to the upside.

The FOMC meets September 15–16 with the funds rate at 3.50%–3.75%. Fed funds futures are now pricing better than even odds — call it 52% to 60% depending on the hour — of a 25 basis point increase. Not a cut. An increase.

Chairman Warsh set this up at Jackson Hole in late August when he said the summer’s better inflation readings “do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved” and floated that the Fed may still have “work to do.” That was before oil went to $100. He’s now in a genuinely uncomfortable spot: energy-driven inflation is exactly the kind central bankers historically prefer to look through, but he spent August telling everyone he wouldn’t look through inflation anymore.

What this means for you if you’re buying in Marin: the “wait for lower rates” strategy has been wrong all year, and the risk is now clearly pointed the other direction. I’m not going to tell you rates are going to 8% — I don’t know that and neither does anyone quoting you a forecast. But the asymmetry has flipped. A year ago waiting cost you nothing but time. Today waiting has a real price attached.

🏡 Marin County Real Estate Market

Here’s the part that keeps surprising people: Marin prices are holding. Median sold price is running around $1.395 million, up roughly 2% year over year. Zillow’s broader home value index for the county sits near $1.50 million, up 3.8%. Rates have climbed all year and Marin values have not rolled over.

The change is on the supply side. Active listings are around 486, up nearly 24% year over year, with months of supply near 3.2 — the most selection Marin buyers have had since early 2023. Average time on market is running about seven weeks.

So the market has split. Correctly-priced homes still trade near ask, sometimes over. Homes priced off 2022 comps are sitting for two months and then cutting. If you’re a buyer, your leverage isn’t in the aggregate statistics — it’s in the specific listing that’s been up 45 days and whose seller has already moved to Sonoma.

🗺️ Marin City-by-City Snapshot

• Tiburon — View and waterfront still price at a premium, but jumbo buyers are winning concessions on anything past the 45-day mark.
• Belvedere — A handful of listings, nearly all super-jumbo. Rate moves barely register here; these deals turn on appraisal and liquidity.
• Mill Valley — Highest transaction volume in the county and where the extra inventory is most obvious. Best place in Marin to ask for a seller-paid buydown right now.
• Sausalito — Houseboats and floating homes need a lender who’s actually financed one. Most haven’t. I have, repeatedly.
• Corte Madera — Steady mid-market. Realistic pricing and the most straightforward financing in the county.
• Larkspur — Ferry-adjacent properties still move fastest; commute value is holding up better than people expected.
• Kentfield — School demand keeps a firm floor under pricing even as days-on-market stretch out.
• Greenbrae — Quiet, consistent, and genuinely good value next to Kentfield pricing.
• San Rafael — Widest price band and deepest inventory in Marin. Most negotiating room of anywhere on this list.
• San Anselmo — Lovely older housing stock, which means appraisal condition items. Budget for them up front.
• Fairfax — Most affordable entry into central Marin and still turning over at a decent clip.
• Ross — Very few sales, very high numbers. Super-jumbo only.
• Novato — The county’s volume market and the one place conforming and high-balance loan limits genuinely come into play.
• Marinwood / Terra Linda — Dependable mid-market demand, heavy on first move-up buyers.
• Strawberry — Small and tightly held. Priced off Tiburon comps more than Mill Valley ones, which catches buyers off guard.
• Stinson Beach / Bolinas — High fire-severity zone. Insurance kills more deals out here than rates do. Get a binder quote before you write, not after.
• Point Reyes / Inverness / Nicasio — Rural west Marin: acreage, wells, septic, sometimes no comps within five miles. Needs portfolio or specialty lending; conventional guidelines simply don’t fit.

💡 What Should Marin Buyers Do Right Now?

1. Lock. Do not float through next Wednesday. You have CPI on Friday and an FOMC meeting on the 16th where a hike is live. Floating an unlocked rate into those two events is a bet with bad odds and no upside worth chasing. If you’re in contract, lock today.
2. Skip the ARM pitch this week. With the 5/1 above 7% and the 30-year fixed at 6.73%, the adjustable product costs more and carries reset risk. That math may change. It hasn’t yet.
3. Spend your negotiating capital on a rate buydown, not the purchase price. With 486 active listings and 3.2 months of supply, sellers will do it. A 2-1 buydown funded by the seller is worth far more to your monthly payment than a $25,000 price reduction, and it’s the single most underused tool in Marin right now.
4. Get your insurance quote before you write the offer if you’re anywhere near Stinson, Bolinas, west Marin, or the wildland edges of Mill Valley and Fairfax. I’ve watched clean, well-qualified deals die on day 15 over a binder. Ten minutes up front prevents it.

📞 Talk to Michael Directly

No call center, no hold queue, no getting handed off to a processor three states away. You call, I pick up. We’re a small family-owned brokerage in Tiburon and we’ve been writing Marin loans for a long time — through better rate environments than this one and worse ones too.

If you’re trying to decide whether to lock, whether to write, or whether the quote in front of you is any good, call me. I’ll tell you straight, even when the answer is “wait.”

Call: (800) 239-1103
Cell: (310) 849-9124

Michael G. DiVita, Broker of Record | CA DRE #01372066 | NMLS #241655
DiVita Home Finance, Inc. | CA DRE #01818285 | NMLS #323700

Rates and market data shown are as of September 9, 2026 and are for informational purposes only. Rates change daily and vary by credit profile, loan amount, property type and occupancy. This is not a commitment to lend.