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The housing inventory blues could soon be a thing of the past, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) entitled“Implications of a Persistent Slowing Housing Demand,” signaling a new era of lower prices and better deals for investors.
MBA chief economist and senior vice president Mike Fratantoni argues that supply could outpace demand due to changes in population dynamics, construction trends, and affordability challenges. He said in a press release:
“Over the past several years, growth in housing demand has slowed as new housing supply has entered the market in many regions. While affordability challenges remain significant, MBA’s research highlights the importance of looking beyond today’s market conditions to understand the long-term forces shaping housing demand. These findings can help industry participants and policymakers better prepare for future changes in housing and mortgage market dynamics.”
Demographic Shifts Will Lead to a Surplus of Houses
The paper—which was co-authored with several of Fratantoni’s MBA colleagues—found that after the 2008 financial crisis, limited new construction pushed up rents and house prices, resulting in a shortfall of up to 7 million homes.
The COVID-19 pandemic and extremely low mortgage rates further increased demand, driving housing prices and rents higher until a tipping point arrived, when the mass construction of multifamily housing in the Sunbelt slowed the pricing roller coaster.
This increase in new apartment buildings has eased the affordability crisis in some parts of the Sunbelt, though other parts remain woefully unaffordable. However, demographic shifts, specifically an aging population, lower fertility rates, and reduced immigration, could all play a part in slowing demand and increasing inventory in the next decade.
The paper’s authors project that nearly 23 million units will be added over the next two decades, with demand calling for 19.4 million, leaving a surplus.
“If construction remains elevated, supply growth could outpace demand growth, pushing home prices lower,” the report said.
Inventory Is Climbing
Signs of a shift in housing inventory, particularly in new construction, are now evident, according to Reuters. Sales of new single-family homes have fallen for the last two consecutive months, while the number of new houses for sale has increased to levels not seen since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
However, affordability is still keeping prospective buyers on the sidelines. “There are not enough homes on the market, and those that are listed are at mostly unaffordable levels,” Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, told Reuters. “The housing price bubble is still inflating, at a slower rate of advance than it had been, but home prices overall are still moving higher, except for some regional markets that had seen prices run up too high.”
A recent Bank of America Institute report showed that affordability remained the main obstacle for potential homebuyers, with 47% of consumers citing high interest rates as one of the main factors delaying their homebuying, up from 40% in 2025.
Inflation Will Keep Buyers Away
The implications of the increase in new construction homes for sale and the inability for would-be buyers to purchase them are particularly significant for small investors. This is likely to continue, with projects started over the last year yet to come to market, further contributing to a potential housing glut of new construction homes.
“Unfortunately, builders may have jumped the gun in assuming that their inventory problems were over, no doubt penciling in a better spring selling season than what has transpired,” Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander U.S. Capital Markets, told Reuters. “We could see a leveling off before the end of the year, but with demand for new homes tepid…it is beginning to look like we may have to wait for 2027 to get to a long-awaited improvement in the housing market.”
As global financial market analyst Fitch Ratings put it, when referring to the U.S. market, “inflation is pushing mortgage rates higher, decreasing affordability and eroding demand.”
What This Means for Small Investors
For investors looking to buy new construction homes at deep discounts, there has never been a better time to strike a deal with builders. According to the latest Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) survey, 35% of builders cut prices in June, up from 32% in May. The average price reduction was 6%, the same as the previous month.
In addition, 62% of builders used sales incentives to sweeten the pot for buyers (rate buydowns, finished basements, extra rooms, etc.). It marks the 15th consecutive month this share has gone 60% or higher. Rising material costs, high interest rates, and affordability challenges were cited as key reasons builder sentiment remained low about potential sales.
Final Thoughts
Pessimism amongst builders was reflected in May’s new home sales, which fell 7.3% over April’s numbers. According to Census and HUD data shown on HousingWire, 15% of sales were under $300,000, consisting of townhouses and duplexes on smaller lots—although homes with lower price points are less likely to open to negotiation.
Still, lower-priced homes are more likely to cash flow. The added benefit is that new construction is less likely to need ongoing maintenance and will be in high demand from potential renters.
Investors have to calculate cash flow based on potential rents in the area. Higher-priced homes could still work if rents are higher and builders are willing to negotiate. However, investors should be wary of any salesperson who begins a sentence by saying, “When rates come down…”
On Dec. 31, Berkshire Hathaway‘s (BRKA 0.96%)(BRKB +0.13%) CEO of more than half a century, Warren Buffett, called it a career. Even though the Oracle of Omaha is no longer involved in his trillion-dollar company’s day-to-day operations or oversees its $343 billion investment portfolio, his leadership lessons have left a legacy for successor, Greg Abel, as well as everyday investors.
While Buffett will fondly be remembered for his annual shareholder meeting candor, his long-term vision, and trouncing the returns of the benchmark S&P 500(^GSPC +0.81%), it’s his unwavering stance on value that really sets him apart.
Warren Buffett retired as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO on Dec. 31, 2025. Image source: The Motley Fool.
Warren Buffett’s favorite valuation tool recently made history (not the good kind), bringing his $187 billion warning to Wall Street squarely into focus.
The Buffett indicator is a glaring red flag for Wall Street
Whereas most investors rely on the time-tested price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio to quickly evaluate public companies, Berkshire’s now-former billionaire boss preferred the market-cap-to-GDP ratio, which is better known as the Buffett indicator.
This valuation tool, arrived at by dividing the cumulative value of all U.S. stocks by U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), was labeled as “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment” by Buffett in a rare 2001 interview with Fortune magazine.
Warren Buffett Indicator hit an all-time high of 239% last week, the most expensive stock market valuation in history 🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/NoIMxNRGkP
— Barchart (@Barchart) June 10, 2026
When back-tested to January 1970, the Buffett indicator has averaged approximately 88%. This is to say that the aggregate value of U.S. stocks has averaged 88% of the value of U.S. GDP. On June 1, 2026, the Buffett indicator reached its highest close in history of 238.5%, or roughly 171% above its 55-year average.
Previous instances when the Buffett indicator catapulted higher were all followed by substantial stock market sell-offs.
Image source: Getty Images.
Warren Buffett’s warning echoes louder by the day
As a long-term investor, the Oracle of Omaha always spoke highly of the U.S. economy, stock market, and American spirit. But beneath this unwavering long-term optimism, Buffett’s actions occasionally disjoined from his words.
In the 13 quarters (Oct. 1, 2022 – Dec. 31, 2025) leading up to his retirement as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, Buffett was a persistent net seller of equities. Berkshire’s consolidated cash flow statements show Buffett sold approximately $187 billion more in stock than he purchased over this period.
While some investors have postulated that he was building a war chest for his protégé, Abel, the likely catalyst behind this selling was Wall Street’s otherworldly stock valuations. No matter how much Buffett values a company’s competitive edge, management team, and/or capital-return program, he simply isn’t sticking around if he doesn’t feel he’s getting a good deal.
Shiller PE Ratio is now just 3.5% away from passing the Dot Com Bubble as the most expensive stock market valuation in history 🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/1ceOa3yhfs
— Barchart (@Barchart) June 1, 2026
Warren Buffett is right to be skeptical. According to the time-tested S&P 500 Shiller P/E Ratio, this is the second-priciest stock market on record (dating back to January 1871), trailing only the months leading up to the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
Every previous occasion in which the Shiller P/E has surpassed 30 was eventually followed by a 20% or greater decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average(^DJI +0.27%), S&P 500, and/or Nasdaq Composite(^IXIC +1.30%).
Buffett’s actions often spoke louder than his words, and his $187 billion warning to Wall Street echoes louder with each passing day.
Inflation has remained stubbornly elevated across the United States and Europe, driven by everything from energy costs to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. But in the Netherlands, central bankers pointed to an unlikely contributor: a Harry Styles concert residency that sent thousands of Gen Z and Millennial fans rushing to Amsterdam.
The pop superstar’s Together, Together tour made Amsterdam its only mainland European stop, with a 10-day residency between May 16 and June 5. The concerts drew fans from across Europe—and even the United States—fueling a surge in demand for hotel rooms.
In May alone, hotel prices in the Netherlands surged 21% on average, contributing 0.4 percentage points to the country’s monthly inflation rate—more than half the increase from April, according to Bas ter Weel, director of monetary affairs at the Dutch central bank. Overall inflation rose from 2.8% in April to 3.5% in May.
The spike was notable enough that the European Central Bank, led by Christine Lagarde, cited “concert-related hotel prices in the Netherlands” when discussing the acceleration in services inflation, though it did not mention Styles by name. The comments came ahead of the ECB’s June decision to raise its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 2.4%.
Other blockbuster tours—including those by Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift— have delivered noticeable boosts to local economies across Europe. But ter Weel said Styles’ residency produced one of the largest tourism-driven price spikes the Netherlands has seen in years.
“Harry Styles really breaks everything,” ter Weel told Dutch radio outlet BNR.
Gen Z spent thousands on hotels—and even houseboats—but proved their economic might
The surge in hotel prices was most apparent to young fans scrambling to find affordable places to stay. Some concertgoers, lured by some ticket prices dropping to as low as €50 ($57), quickly discovered that getting into the show was far cheaper than finding a place to sleep.
One TikTok user said she and her friend ended up spending 10 days on a canal houseboat—and were forced to shower offsite—after hotel prices climbed beyond her budget.
“When you secured the Harry opening night tickets but couldn’t afford an Amsterdam hotel,” she wrote.
Another fan posted on TikTok that she paid €900 (about $1,030) for five nights in what she described as a tiny “box” of a room.
The sticker shock reflects a broader spending pattern among younger consumers. One-third of Gen Z have said they believe they’ll never own a home—and many expect to delay or forgo other traditional milestones—but they’ve continued to prioritize experiences such as travel and live music, even as costs rise. At the same time, the generation has struggled significantly with financial literacy, scoring the lowest among all age groups in TIAA’s most recent financial literacy report.
Still, splurging on a concert trip doesn’t necessarily mean young people are neglecting their finances outright. Separate research has found the average Gen Zer began saving for retirement roughly 15 years earlier than baby boomers, suggesting many are balancing long-term financial planning with spending on experiences they value.
Ter Weel said there are two sides to the story from an economic standpoint. While the surge in hotel prices temporarily lifted inflation, it also boosted economic activity. Likewise, while many fans may have spent more than planned on the trip, the episode underscores how Gen Z’s spending power can have an outsized impact on the broader economy.
It’s been a rough week for mortgage rates, which are reeling thanks to new aggressions in the Middle East.
The ceasefire that began on June 17th is apparently no more, with major strikes exchanged between the U.S. and Iran over the past couple days.
That’s putting renewed pressure on oil prices, bond yields, and of course mortgage rates.
But despite all that, the odds of the 30-year fixed rising significantly higher from here remains pretty low.
That’s if you believe the odds…
Only a 28% Chance the 30-Year Fixed Rises Above 7%?
The latest odds from prediction market Kalshi reveal there’s only a 28% “chance” that the 30-year fixed climbs above 7.0% at some point this year.
For reference, the 30-year fixed is currently averaging 6.43%, based on Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey.
That number is sure to climb when they release their update today, but it’s only about 50 basis points away from being in the money.
Meanwhile, all I hear is people saying mortgage rates are going back to 10% or higher!
Or that they’ll be in the double-digits soon enough. Blah blah blah.
Then I think to myself, we can’t even break 7% and you’re telling me they’re going to 10%?
It seems that the high interest rate predictors are driven more by emotion than actual logic.
They want higher interest rates because they think it will fix things and stop prices from going higher and higher.
Perhaps, but are such rates actually warranted? It’s not the 1980s all over again.
Yes, we have an energy shock of sorts, but we are also a lot more energy independent today than back then.
The Fed also knows how to manage inflation a lot better today versus that time thanks to mistakes learned along the way.
So to think interest rates are going to rival those seen in the 1980s when the 30-year fixed briefly spiked to 18% might be a bit silly.
And it might also explain why even the odds to creep up even another 50 bps remains a long shot.
How Could Mortgage Rates Get Back to 7% or Higher?
Now just because the odds are low doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
There have been plenty of instances where the unexpected has happened and underdogs have cashed.
Kalshi uses Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) to determine the outcome and as noted, it’s currently around 6.50%.
In order for mortgage rates to climb another 50 bps this year, we’d need a lot of sustained hot economic data to come through.
The two key drivers of mortgage rates are inflation and labor data.
That means we’d need hot CPI, PPI, and PCE prints along with hot jobs reports for the next few months, perhaps with no let up.
Last month, inflation rose above 4% for the first time in three years, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but it was mostly tied to volatile energy prices related to the Iranian conflict.
Once energy and food were stripped out, core CPI was up just 2.9% from a year earlier.
Still elevated and above the Fed’s 2% target and possibly enough to entertain some rate hikes later this year if it doesn’t improve.
However, there’s also the labor market, and that hasn’t been so hot lately. The most recent reports weren’t ice cold by any stretch, but the Fed still has to balance inflation and jobs.
And if jobs remain weak, they might be limited in how much they can hike, meaning one or two 25-bp hikes could be it, despite inflation concerns.
The takeaway here is despite inflationary headwinds, much of it recently tied to the war, the economy doesn’t look so strong.
So even if there’s some upward pressure on interest rates, it could prove to be short-lived and also offset by rising unemployment.
Lastly, let’s not forget that mortgage rates are up nearly 0.75% since the end of February when the conflict began, so a lot of risk is already baked in.
That’s why a 7% mortgage rate, which doesn’t even sound all that unlikely, could remain elusive.
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 20 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.
Most of the conversation about AI in medicine focuses on chatbots that answer questions. But have you heard of Claude for Healthcare?
What Anthropic has quietly been building is something more specific: a set of structured, task-ready tools that connect to real clinical and administrative systems and handle the kind of work that consumes physician time without requiring physician judgment.
For physicians who have been waiting to see AI become actually useful in practice rather than just promising in theory, 2026 is worth paying attention to.
Disclaimer: While these are general suggestions, it’s important to conduct thorough research and due diligence when selecting AI tools. We do not endorse or promote any specific AI tools mentioned here. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal, financial, or clinical advice. Always comply with HIPAA and institutional policies. For any decisions that impact patient care or finances, consult a qualified professional.
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What Is Claude, and What Are Skills?
Claude is an AI assistant built by Anthropic, a safety-focused AI research company. It can read documents, analyze data, reason through complex problems, and connect directly to external platforms and databases to do real work inside them.
The feature that makes Claude particularly useful for clinical and administrative workflows is what Anthropic calls Agent Skills.
Under the hood, a Skill is basically a folder Claude can pull up mid-task, instructions, sometimes a script or template, all built around one job. Think of it less like a plugin and more like a checklist a new hire would follow: Claude reads the relevant one on the fly, whether the job at hand is digging through biomedical literature, working a prior authorization, or sorting through a stack of patient messages.
Skills work across Claude.ai on the web, the Claude desktop app, and Claude Code. They are not plugins in the traditional sense. They are task-specific expertise packages that transform Claude from a general-purpose assistant into a tool calibrated for a specific type of work.
In January 2026, Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, introducing a HIPAA-ready product with purpose-built connectors and agent skills for healthcare providers, payers, and health tech organizations. These are not generic AI features rebadged for medicine. They are built specifically for clinical and administrative workflows.
One important distinction before getting into the skills: the HIPAA-ready infrastructure and most of the healthcare-specific connectors and agent skills described below are part of Claude for Healthcare for enterprise customers, which requires a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Anthropic. Consumer plans such as Pro and Max are not covered under Anthropic’s BAA and are not intended for workflows that involve protected health information. Physicians evaluating Claude for clinical use should confirm the appropriate plan and compliance setup with their organization’s IT and legal teams before proceeding. Anthropic’s contact page is the right starting point for enterprise inquiries.
With that framing in place, here are five skills worth knowing about.
1.PubMed Literature Search
Claude for Healthcare also plugs into PubMed’s index (more than 35 million biomedical articles) so Claude can pull current research directly and help put together literature reviews grounded in that database rather than in whatever it happened to learn during training.
In practice, a physician can ask Claude to find recent evidence on a drug interaction, a treatment protocol update, or a clinical question they encounter rarely, and Claude pulls from a verified, indexed database rather than generating a summary from training data alone. The hallucination risk drops significantly when the model is pulling from an authoritative source rather than relying on memory.
For rapid literature checks between patients, preparing for complex cases, or staying current in a specialty adjacent to one’s own, this is one of the most defensible AI use cases available right now.
Where to get it: Available to enterprise customers through Claude for Healthcare. Once a BAA is in place, the connector is enabled at the workspace level via claude.ai/settings/connectors.
2. Prior Authorization Review
Prior authorization requests require pulling coverage requirements from payer policies, checking against clinical guidelines, cross-referencing patient records, and assembling documentation that justifies a treatment decision the physician has already made on clinical grounds.
It is time-consuming, fragmented, and does not require the physician’s clinical expertise to execute.
Anthropic built a customizable template for this exact workflow. Organizations adapt it to their own payer policies and internal review habits, and it’s designed to handle the cross-referencing that used to eat up staff time. Matching coverage rules, clinical guidelines, chart data, and appeal paperwork against each other. In a HIPAA-ready setup, Claude checks a patient’s clinical details against the relevant coverage criteria, then drafts a proposed determination with supporting documentation attached, ready for a human reviewer to sign off on.
The physician still reviews and approves every determination. The skill handles the assembly and cross-referencing work that currently takes hours manually.
Where to get it: Available as a customizable agent skill for enterprise customers through Claude for Healthcare. Contact Anthropic’s sales team at anthropic.com/contact-sales to discuss deployment.
3. Patient Message Triage
Patient portal inbox management is one of the less-discussed drivers of physician after-hours work. Messages come in at all hours, ranging from genuine urgency to routine refill requests. All of them require reading before anyone can identify the category.
For care teams drowning in patient portal messages, referrals, and handoffs, this gives them a way to work through the pile without reading every message cold. It can sort through these to identify what needs immediate attention, and to ensure that nothing gets inadvertently forgotten.
The triage skill does not respond to patients directly. It reads, categorizes, and flags by urgency, which is the cognitive work that has to happen before any response can go out. A care team then reviews a sorted inbox rather than an unsorted one. The physician still handles the clinical judgment.
Where to get it: Available for enterprise customers through Claude for Healthcare as part of the care coordination tools.
4. CMS Coverage Database Access
Claude can tap into the CMS Coverage Database directly (both Local and National Coverage Determinations) so it’s checking against the actual, locally-applicable coverage rules rather than a general sense of what Medicare typically covers. That’s what makes it useful for prior authorization checks and for building a claims appeal that actually holds up.
In practice, a physician or billing staff member can ask Claude whether a specific procedure is covered under Medicare for a given patient population, get a locally-accurate answer drawn from CMS’s own published determinations, and use that to inform billing decisions before they become denials. This connector sits alongside ICD-10 code lookup and National Provider Identifier Registry access in the same settings panel.
Where to get it: Available as a connector for enterprise customers through Claude for Healthcare. Enabled via claude.ai/settings/connectors once the enterprise workspace is configured.
5. Medical Reasoning and Calculation Support
This one is different from the four above. It is not a named skill or connector. It is Claude’s built-in reasoning capability applied to clinical calculations, scoring tools, and medical formulas.
Anthropic evaluated Claude Opus 4.5 on MedCalc, a medical calculation accuracy benchmark, as part of the Claude for Healthcare launch data published in January 2026. The model’s performance on this benchmark was reported by Anthropic as a meaningful improvement over prior versions, using Python code execution to verify numerical outputs.
A physician can ask Claude to walk through a GFR estimate, a CHADS2-VASc score, a Centor score, a Framingham risk calculation, or a dosing adjustment for renal impairment. Claude can perform the calculation and explain the clinical logic behind it in plain terms.
This differs from a standalone calculator like MDCalc in one specific way: the ability to ask not just for the result but for the reasoning, edge cases, or documentation language around it. That is useful for teaching, second-checking an unfamiliar formula, or drafting a clinical note that explains a decision.
One important note from Anthropic’s own support documentation: complex or mission-critical calculations should always be verified using specialized tools or manual methods. Claude’s reasoning ability does not replace clinical verification. It is a thinking aid, not a source of record.
Because this capability is built into Claude itself and requires no connector setup, any physician curious about it can try it directly at claude.ai without any institutional setup.
Where to get it: Available to any Claude user at claude.ai, including the free tier. No connector or enterprise setup required. For higher usage limits and access to more capable models, a Pro or Max plan is recommended.
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How to Set Up Claude Skills and Connectors: Step by Step
Setup works differently depending on whether the use case is individual or organizational.
For Individual Use (Claude.ai, any plan)
Go to claude.ai and sign in or create an account.
In the left sidebar, look for the profile or account icon at the bottom left corner. Click it and select Settings, or navigate directly to claude.ai/settings.
From Settings, select the Connectors tab, or go directly to claude.ai/settings/connectors.
Browse the available connectors. Free and paid individual users can connect general-purpose tools available in the directory.
Click Connect next to any connector and follow the authentication steps. Most take under two minutes.
Return to the chat interface. Claude will now use the connected platform when relevant to a conversation.
For medical calculation and reasoning tasks, no connector is needed. Open any conversation and ask Claude to walk through a scoring tool, clinical formula, or calculation directly.
For Organizations and Practices (Claude for Healthcare Enterprise)
Visit claude.com/solutions/healthcare to review what the enterprise tier includes.
Contact Anthropic’s sales team via anthropic.com/contact-sales to discuss a Business Associate Agreement, pricing, and compliance setup. This step is required before any protected health information is involved.
Once the BAA is in place, the organization’s IT or operations lead configures the Claude for Enterprise workspace through the Claude developer platform.
Healthcare connectors including PubMed, CMS Coverage Database, ICD-10 codes, and National Provider Identifier Registry are then enabled at the workspace level through claude.ai/settings/connectors.
Agent skills such as prior authorization review and patient message triage are deployed through Settings then Capabilities then Skills, with customization options to align each skill to the organization’s specific policies and workflows.
Physicians and staff access Claude through the shared workspace. The connectors and skills are active across sessions without requiring individual configuration from each user.
For anyone managing the technical setup, Anthropic’s Agent Skills overview explains how skills are triggered, what customization looks like, and how skills interact with connectors.
What These Skills Are Not
To be perfectly clear, none of these tools are diagnostic AI.
They do not replace clinical judgment, and Anthropic has been consistent in framing the design intent as supporting physicians rather than substituting for them.
The prior authorization skill proposes a determination for physician review. The triage skill sorts messages for a care team to act on. The PubMed connector surfaces research for a physician to evaluate. The medical reasoning capability is a thinking aid that requires physician verification.
That is exactly the point. The skills described here are useful because they handle the work that has been pulling physicians away from the parts of medicine that actually require them. Getting the compliance setup right before using any of these tools in a clinical environment is the necessary first step, and Anthropic’s sales and support teams are the right contact for that conversation.
For physicians who have spent years watching AI promise more than it delivers, these tools are a reasonable place to look again. The starting point is low friction. The potential payoff in recovered time and reduced administrative overhead is real. And unlike a lot of what gets written about AI in medicine, these are tools a physician can actually try today.
But what about you? What do you think of Claude and these skills? Let us know in the comments!
At Passive Income MD, we cover the tools, strategies, and practical AI workflow tips helping physicians build more time and financial freedom. We’ll keep tracking where AI goes from here.
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Disclaimer: This article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, legal, compliance, or professional advice. Claude for Healthcare features and pricing are subject to change. HIPAA compliance requirements are the responsibility of the deploying organization. Physicians and organizations should verify compliance requirements with qualified legal and IT professionals and consult Anthropic’s official documentation before implementation.
The information provided here is based on available public data and may not be entirely accurate or up-to-date. It’s recommended to contact the respective companies/individuals for detailed information on features, pricing, and availability.All screenshots, if any, are used under the principles of fair use for editorial, educational, or commentary purposes. All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners.
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The refreshed Chase Sapphire Reserve® now includes a $300 annual dining credit. Cardholders receive up to $150 in statement credits from January through June and another $150 from July through December for eligible purchases made at participating restaurants booked through OpenTable Exclusive Tables.
To qualify, you must:
Have an eligible Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
Dine and pay directly at a participating restaurant using your Sapphire Reserve card.
The statement credit is applied automatically, up to $150 per half-year.
Because only a limited list of restaurants qualifies, it’s important to verify eligibility before making a reservation. Chase periodically updates the participating restaurant list, which is why these additions and removals can have a significant impact on cardholders who use the benefit regularly.
How It Works
Chase has refreshed the list of restaurants eligible for the Sapphire Reserve $300 annual dining credit through OpenTable Exclusive Tables. The latest update adds 91 new restaurants while removing 64 others, bringing the total number of participating restaurants to 404, up from 377 just a couple of days ago.
Some notable additions include:
House of Prime Rib (San Francisco)
Fox & The Knife (Boston)
Ocean 48 (Orange County)
There were also some disappointing removals:
Di an Di (New York City)
Toro (Boston)
Las Vegas appears to have been hit especially hard, losing about half a dozen participating restaurants, including Nobu, Hell’s Kitchen, and Harlo.
You can browse the complete, updated list of eligible restaurants, including a filter showing newly added locations, using the NextCard Sapphire Reserve Dining Credit Map: https://www.nextcard.com/tools/csr-dining-credit-map. The site also tracks which participating restaurants sell gift cards that may qualify for the dining credit.
Chase representatives have indicated that cardholders with existing reservations at restaurants that were removed from the program may have a 60-day grace period to request a manual dining credit. This isn’t officially documented in the program terms, but it could be worth contacting Chase if you had booked a qualifying restaurant before it was removed from the eligible list.
Guru’s Wrap-up
It’s nice to see Chase continuing to expand the number of participating restaurants, although the number is still quite low at just over 400. But frequent updates mean it’s always a good idea to verify that your chosen restaurant is still eligible before dining.
If you already have a reservation at a restaurant that is no longer eligible, don’t forget about the 60-day grace period. You may have to reach out to Chase to request a manual credit if your purchase doesn’t automatically qualify.
Let us know if and where you have used this credit recently. I’m excited to use my next credit at Una Pizza Napoletana, but I need to secure a reservation first.
Student loan refinance rates have held steady throughout the first part of 2026 as the Fed has held interest rates steady. As of July 9, 2026, student loan refinance lenders are offering fixed rates as low as 3.64% APR and variable rates starting as low as 3.63% APR, depending on credit profile, loan type, income, and repayment term.
Credible is offering both the lowest variable rate loans starting at 3.63% APR and the lowest fixed rate loans starting at 3.64% APR.
For borrowers with private student loans especially, refinancing to lower your interest rate can save you thousands of dollars over the life of the loan.
💰 Today’s Best Student Loan Refinance Rates At a Glance
Here are the best student loan refinance rates today:
Lender
Fixed APR
Variable APR
Credible
3.64% – 10.35%
3.63% – 10.72%
Earnest
3.94% – 9.99%
5.88% – 9.99%
ELFI
4.29% – 8.44%
4.74% – 8.24%
LendKey
4.39% – 9.24%
4.14% – 9.19%
Splash
3.99% – 10.24%
4.74% – 10.24%
1. Credible – Credibleis a marketplace of student loan lenders that has some options you may not be able to find anywhere else. You can also get up to a $1,000 gift card bonus if you refinance through their platform. You can get variable rates as low as 3.63% APR. Read our full Credible review.
2. Earnest – Earnest is one of the best known online student loan lenders and they have been offering consistently competitive rates for years. Right now, you can get the lowest fixed rate APR at 3.94%. Read our full Earnest student loans review.
3. ELFI – ELFI is one of the oldest student loan lenders, and offers competitive rates, along with a bonus offer of up to $599 if you refinance a student loan with them. You can get rates as low as 4.29% APR. Read our full ELFI Student Loans Review.
4. LendKey – LendKey is a private lender that pools money from community banks and credit unions to offer lower rate student loans. They are also offering up to a $750 bonus if you refinance a student loan. You can get rates as low as 4.14% APR. Read our full LendKey review.
5. Splash – Splash is a student loan marketplace as well that offers some lenders that Credible doesn’t.They have a fixed rate offer starting at 3.99% APR. Furthermore, you can up to a $500 bonus if you refinance with Splash. Read our full Splash Student Loans review.
You can find a full list of the best student loan refinance lenders here >>
Why Should You Refinance Your Student Loan?
Refinancing replaces one or more existing loans with a new private loan — ideally at a lower interest rate.
Borrowers typically refinance to:
Reduce their monthly payments
Lower their overall interest cost
Combine multiple loans into one
Shorten or extend repayment terms
Refinancing can make sense for private loan borrowers or federal borrowers who no longer need federal benefits such as income-driven repayment or forgiveness. Remember, refinancing a federal loan will cause you to lose federal benefits like student loan forgiveness!
For example, refinancing a $60,000 loan from 7.50% to 5.50% over 10 years saves roughly $7,000 in interest.
Fixed vs. Variable Rates: Which Should You Choose?
There’s a lot of uncertainty that borrowers don’t like with variable rates, which can make sense, but in a declining rate environment, it also opens the potential for future savings. Here’s what to know:
Fixed rates stay the same for the life of the loan, offering predictable monthly payments. They’re better for borrowers who plan to repay over many years.
Variable rates can change with market conditions, starting lower but carrying risk if the Fed raises rates again. They can make sense for borrowers who expect to pay off loans quickly.
Most private lenders allow you to check rates without affecting your credit score. Always compare both options before signing.
What To Know Before Refinancing
Before refinancing your student loans, make sure you understand exactly what you’re signing up for.
Loss of federal benefits: Once refinanced, federal loans are no longer eligible for PSLF, IBR, or other income-driven plans.
Cosigner options: A creditworthy cosigner can unlock lower rates. Check if the lender offers cosigner release after a set number of on-time payments.
Term flexibility: Many lenders allow terms from 5 to 20 years; shorter terms usually mean lower rates.
Autopay discounts: Most lenders offer a 0.25% rate reduction when you enroll in automatic payments.
Fees: The best refinance lenders charge no origination fees or prepayment penalties.
How We Track And Verify Student Loan Rates
At The College Investor, our editorial team reviews student loan rates daily from more than a dozen major lenders. We verify data using official lender disclosures, regulatory filings, and real-time rate sheets.
We only include lenders offering loans to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. All rates are updated regularly and represent the lowest available APRs with autopay discounts applied.
Our coverage is independent and not influenced by compensation. While we may earn a referral fee when you open a loan through certain links, this never affects our editorial recommendations. Our goal is simple: to help you find the most affordable path to borrow responsibly.
FAQs
Can you refinance federal student loans?
Yes, but doing so converts them into private loans, meaning you’ll lose access to forgiveness and income-driven plans.
How often can you refinance?
There’s no limit – you can refinance multiple times as long as you qualify for better terms.
Does refinancing hurt your credit?
A small, temporary drop in your credit score may occur after the hard inquiry, but steady payments improve your score over time.
Do refinance rates change daily?
Yes, lenders adjust rates frequently based on market conditions and Treasury yields.
Is there a best time to refinance?
The best time is when your credit and income qualify you for significantly better rates than your current loans.
Disclosures
Earnest
Earnest Loans are made by Earnest Operations LLC. Earnest Operations LLC, NMLS #1204917. 300 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Suite 340, Oakland 94612. California Financing Law License 6054788. Visit www.earnest.com/licenses for a full list of licensed states. For California residents: Loans will be arranged or made pursuant to a California Financing Law License.
Earnest loans are serviced by Earnest Operations LLC with support from Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA) (NMLS# 1442770). Earnest LLC and its subsidiaries, including Earnest Operations LLC, are not sponsored by agencies of the United States of America.
These examples provide estimates based on payments beginning immediately upon loan disbursement. Variable annual percentage rate (“APR”): A $10,000 loan with a 20-year term (240 monthly payments of $101.46) and a 10.74% APR would result in a total estimated payment amount of $24,350.40. For a variable loan, after your starting rate is set, your rate will then vary with the market. Fixed APR: A $10,000 loan with a 20-year term (240 monthly payments of $101.46) and a 10.74% APR would result in a total estimated payment amount of $24,350.40. Your actual repayment terms may vary.
Actual rate will vary based on your financial profile. Fixed annual percentage rates (APR) range from 4.19% APR to 10.24% APR (3.94% – 9.99% with .25% auto pay discount). Variable annual percentage rates (APR) range from 6.13% APR to 10.24% APR (5.88% – 9.99% with .25% auto pay discount). Earnest variable interest rate student loan refinance loans are based on a publicly available index, the 30-day Average Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The variable rate is based on the rate published on the 25th day, or the next business day, of the preceding calendar month, rounded to the nearest hundredth of a percent. The rate will not increase more than once a month, but there is no limit on the amount that the rate could increase at one time. Please note, we are not able to offer variable rate loans in AK, IL, MN, MS, NH, OH, TN, and TX. Our lowest rates are only available for our most credit qualified borrowers and requires selection of our shortest term offered and enrollment in our .25% auto pay discount from a checking or savings account. Enrolling in autopay is not required as a condition for approval.
See disclaimers at: https://www.splashfinancial.com/disclaimers/
Splash Financial, Inc. (NMLS #1630038), licensed by the DFPI under California Financing Law, license # 60DBO-102545
Terms and Conditions apply. Splash reserves the right to modify or discontinue products and benefits at any time without notice. Products may not be available in all states. Rates and terms are subject to change at any point prior to application submission. The information you provide is an inquiry to determine whether Splash’s lending partners can make you a loan offer. To qualify, a borrower must be a U.S. citizen or other eligible status and meet lender underwriting requirements. Lowest rates are reserved for the highest qualified borrowers and may require an autopay discount of 0.25%. Splash does not guarantee that you will receive any loan offers or that your loan application will be approved. If approved, your actual rate will be within a range of rates and will depend on a variety of factors, including term of loan, creditworthiness, income and other factors. This information is current as of January 8, 2026. You should review the benefits of your federal student loan; it may offer specific benefits that a private refinance/consolidation loan may not offer. If you work in the public sector, are in the military or taking advantage of a federal department of relief program, such as income-based repayment or public service forgiveness, you may not want to refinance, as these benefits do not transfer to private refinance/consolidation loans.
Autopay Discount. Rates listed include a 0.25% autopay discount.
Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is the cost of credit calculating the interest rate, loan amount, repayment term and the timing of payments. Fixed APR options range from 4.96% (with autopay) to 11.24% (without autopay). Variable APR options range from 4.99% (with autopay) to 11.14% (without autopay). Variable rates are derived by adding a margin to the 30-day average SOFR index, published two business days preceding such calendar month, rounded up to the nearest one hundredth of one percent (0.01% or 0.0001).
Payment Disclosure. Fixed loans feature repayment terms of 5 to 20 years. For example, the monthly payment for a sample $10,000 with an APR of 5.47% for a 12-year term would be $94.86. Variable loans feature repayment terms of 5 to 25 years. For example, the monthly payment for a sample $10,000 with an APR of 5.90% for a 15-year term would be $83.85.
Bonus Disclosure. Terms and conditions apply. Offer is subject to lender approval. To receive the offer, you must: (1) be refinancing over either $50,000, $100,000 or $200,000 in student loans depending on the channel partner that is providing the bonus offer (2) register and/or apply through the referral link you were given; (3) complete a loan application with Splash Financial; (4) have and provide a valid US address to receive bonus; (5) and meet Splash Financial’s underwriting criteria. Once conditions are met and the loan has been disbursed, you will receive your welcome bonus via a check to your submitted address within 90-120 calendar days. Bonuses that are not redeemed within 180 calendar days of the date they were made available to the recipient may be subject to forfeit. Bonus amounts of $600 or greater in a single calendar year may be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as miscellaneous income to the recipient on Form 1099-MISC in the year received as required by applicable law. Recipient is responsible for any applicable federal, state or local taxes associated with receiving the bonus offer; consult your tax advisor to determine applicable tax consequences. Splash reserves the right to change or terminate the offer at any time with or without notice. Bonus Offer is for new customers only.
Editor: Colin Graves
Reviewed by: Richelle Hawley
The post Best Student Loan Refinance Rates for July 9, 2026: Credible Leads At 3.63% appeared first on The College Investor.
Yoevan Khemlani had already begun building his AI company in Singapore when he realized that all his customers were looking somewhere else.
Khemlani had started Interfaze, a startup offering a specialized AI model for backend tasks like web scraping, with a team of four in 2025. “As we were training the model, a lot of our customers who were exploring or trying the product were moving to the U.S., already based in the U.S. or selling to the U.S.,” Khemlani tells Fortune.
And so Khemlani moved to the San Francisco Bay Area last May, drawn by the U.S.’s huge customer base. “We saw the market was there and decided to move,” he says.
Asia once drew tech founders with its underpenetrated markets, lower costs, and rising wealth. Several cities, like Singapore, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur, tried to position themselves as up-and-coming tech hubs, potentially challenging San Francisco’s longtime dominance in tech.
But founders are now taking a second look at the U.S., both pulled by its massive market and easy access to capital, and pushed by regulatory scrutiny and fragmented markets in Asia.
Since 2025, global venture capital firm Antler has helped more than 30 Asian founding teams relocate to the U.S.
“Most of the founders we see in Asia these days want to build global businesses, and the attraction of being in the U.S. is unmistakable for that purpose,” Jussi Salovaara, Antler’s co-founder and managing partner of Asia, told Fortune. “Customers, talent and capital are all found in abundance there.”
The U.S. attracted roughly 68% of all startup funding last year, according to KPMG. Asia only attracted 12% over the same period. The difference is even starker in the first quarter of 2026, with the U.S. winning 80% of all startup funding, due to massive fundraising rounds for developers like OpenAI and Anthropic. Asia’s share dropped to 9.6% (even if funds were stable in absolute terms).
Push and pull
Asia’s, and particularly Southeast Asia’s, venture capital space is in a protracted slump. Venture funding to Southeast Asian tech firms fell by almost 80% between 2022 and 2024, from approximately $10.1 billion to $2.2 billion. The region currently accounts for roughly 0.5% to 2% of global VC investment; most APAC investment is concentrated in India and China.
The region also hasn’t offered lucrative exit opportunities for investors. “There’s been some large IPOs in Southeast Asia, but not as many as the ecosystem needed,” explains Salovaara. “That’s definitely impacting investor confidence.”
Southeast Asian IPOs raised $6.5 billion last year, a 76% jump, according to Deloitte. That’s still a sliver compared to IPO proceeds in the Chinese city of Hong Kong, at $37 billion.
Several Southeast Asian companies are trading below their offer price. JustCo, a Singaporean flexible work company, is already trading below the IPO price just weeks after its June debut. Foundation Healthcare, the first healthcare business to list on the Singapore Exchange in four years, also closed 7.9% below IPO price on its first day of trading on July 8.
In addition, Southeast Asia is actually a collection of several very different markets, meaning firms can’t rely on a single blueprint for the region. “When you invest in the U.S., you’re investing in the whole country, which is a huge market,” says Khemlani. “But when you invest in Southeast Asia, you have to pick which country you want to invest in. The go-to-market strategy in each Southeast Asian nation is very different.”
And though more capital is flowing into China and India, companies there still face less patient private capital, stricter listing requirements and lower valuation multiples than their U.S. counterparts.
For IndustrialMind.AI founder Justin Li, unfavorable market conditions back home was a push factor to move to the U.S. “B2B start-ups don’t have the best market access in China, as we’re mostly able to serve only Chinese customers and the local market.”
Li, an ex-Tesla engineer, built an AI engineer that can monitor production lines to detect anomalies and suggest fixes. Most of his customers are auto manufacturers from the U.S. and Europe.
Geopolitics might also be playing a role. Western firms may be uncomfortable with working with a firm based in China, particularly regarding business models that rely on sharing data. Even if executives are comfortable working with a Chinese startup, they’d need to navigate an increasingly complex web of restrictions and politics in both the U.S. and China, particularly as AI begins to be seen more as a strategic technology than just a product.
Others tout Silicon Valley’s vibrant founder community. “These whisper networks aren’t anywhere else,” Sanjil Jain, an Indian founder who relocated to the U.S. in April to build Drift, an AI-powered platform for robotics engineering, says. “You get to meet people, gain access to new technologies, and integrate them into your solution so you can offer something new.”
Jain has hired three Americans to join his team of five since the move. “If we were to look for the same talent in India, it would have taken us a lot of time to sieve out the exact profile or the craziness in a person who would want to build with us,” he says.
“But here, pretty much everyone is crazy about building new technologies.”
When does Asia make sense?
Despite Silicon Valley’s allure, Salovaara stresses that a U.S. relocation isn’t straightforward.
Last September, Trump raised H-1B visa fees from $5,000 to $100,000, sending shockwaves through corporate America. “Being Indian citizens, it’s not easy for us to get visas—we’re looking at year-long waits,” Jain tells Fortune. (Last month, a U.S. federal court blocked the administration’s highly controversial visa fee hike, ruling it an unauthorized tax.)
“What’s also challenging is achieving proper U.S. growth,” Salovaara adds. “Founders need to make some cultural transitions: In Asia, investors are very focused on revenue growth and profitability relatively early, while in the U.S., they pay more attention to your vision and the problem you’re looking to solve.”
He also suggests that some businesses are better suited to Southeast Asian markets, which tend to offer more investment opportunities around infrastructure and energy. He points to one Antler-backed example: Alternō, a Singapore-incorporated Vietnamese startup that has developed low-cost renewable energy storage using sand-based thermal batteries.
“If you’re building in Vietnam, it’s obviously going to be a lot more cost-effective compared to the U.S,” Salovaara says.
Antler’s guiding philosophy is that it should be possible for founders to build successful startups from anywhere in the world. “People can innovate from almost anywhere, and at a level they weren’t able to before,” CEO Magnus Grimeland told Fortune earlier this year. (Antler only opened its first office in Silicon Valley in 2025, eight years after its founding).
Salovaara is hopeful that more Asian founders will opt to build within the region. “In time, capital will become more evenly distributed between the different markets,” he concludes. “As ecosystems mature, they’ll also capture more talent and capital, so I hope we’ll begin to see more founders building from Asia for the world.” (On June 26, Antler announced it would be expanding its focus on China-outbound founders, and adding Japanese and South Korean founders into the mix.)
In the short term, however, Asian hubs still have a long way to go before they can compete with Silicon Valley.
“You can build from anywhere today, be it Singapore or the UK, but from a sales standpoint, it’s difficult to reach a global customer base from those countries,” Khemlani says. “From a venture perspective, it’s also very hard to raise capital in San Francisco if you’re still in Singapore.”
