WFG Founder & Chairman Patrick Stone and economist Dr. Bill Conerly break down the forces shaping housing, lending, and title in the new quarterly conversation.

What does the Strait of Hormuz have to do with your next closing? In the Q2 2026 edition of WFG Industry Perspective, the answer turns out to be a lot more than you might expect.

In this quarter’s conversation, host Ken Perry of The Knowledge Coop sits down with Patrick Stone, Founder and Chairman of Williston Financial Group, and economist Dr. Bill Conerly for a candid look at the economic forces shaping the back half of the year. Recorded against the backdrop of rising global tension, the discussion opens with two very different forecasts for 2026: one in which energy markets stabilize and the economy lands at moderate growth, and one in which they don’t. As Dr. Conerly puts it, “That second path points toward a global recession.”

From there, the conversation digs into the questions our industry is asking right now.

On affordability, the takeaway may surprise you. With home prices up just 0.7% year over year, Pat makes the case that the real pressure point isn’t price, it’s the mortgage rate, and he names the level at which affordability stops being the obstacle it is today. The two also walk through what the Federal Reserve can and can’t do under new chair Kevin Warsh, why rate-cut expectations have shifted so dramatically, and what it all means for buyers sitting on the fence.

The discussion doesn’t stop at residential. Pat and Bill get into the reckoning underway in commercial real estate, where downtown office values have fallen sharply and “extend and pretend” is finally running out of road, even as retail stages a genuine comeback. They look at new construction headwinds, the role artificial intelligence is beginning to play across title and real estate, and the sobering rise of cybercrime as a service. And in one of the episode’s most unexpected turns, they explore what prediction markets might be telling us about where the world is headed next.

It’s a wide-ranging, refreshingly direct conversation between two people who have watched this industry evolve for decades, and who aren’t inclined to sugarcoat what comes next.

On where the industry goes from here, Pat doesn’t hedge: success, he argues, will be tied directly to efficiency, to taking time, effort, and cost out of the process. The firms that focus there will be the winners. The ones that don’t risk being left behind.

Whether you’re a lender, real estate agent, title professional, real estate broker, mortgage lender, investor, or industry leader, this is the kind of context that makes the headlines make sense. Watch the full discussion here.

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