Happy Sunday, and welcome to Benzinga’s financial advisor newsletter.

Today we’re talking about real estate and the hidden costs of homeownership. While a fixed-rate mortgage is often viewed as a shield against rising expenses, new data suggests the broader cost of owning a home continues to climb in ways many households don’t fully anticipate. Read on to see where these costs are coming from and what many financial plans are missing.

Plus, a look at all the top stories and market activity from this past week.

Advisor Spotlight: If you would like your company to be featured in our upcoming Advisor Spotlight, click here to send us an email.

Table of Contents

• Industry Chatter

• Weekly Market Recap

• Benzinga Newsletter Spotlight

• The Week Ahead

INDUSTRY CHATTER

Advisors: The $28,000 Expense Clients Never See Coming

For years, homeownership has been framed as a hedge against rising costs. Lock in a fixed-rate mortgage, stabilize your monthly payment, and gain predictability over time. But as many homeowners start to realize, costs tied to homeownership remain anything but fixed.

A recent report from Clever Real Estate found that the average homeowner now spends nearly $24,000 per year on housing expenses beyond their mortgage payment. When HOA fees are included, those costs rise to $28,000 annually.

What stands out is not just the size of those expenses, but how many of them continue rising long after the mortgage rate is locked in. From higher utilities, insurance premiums, and property taxes, the bills keep going up. Maintenance and repairs add another layer of unpredictability, especially for buyers in older homes.

For advisors, this highlights an important behavioral disconnect: many clients still mentally categorize housing as a “fixed” expense once they secure a mortgage. In reality, much of the operating cost of homeownership remains highly exposed to inflation, local policy changes, labor costs, insurance markets, and even climate risk.

That gap between expectation and reality can become especially problematic for many millennials and Gen Z homeowners who entered the market during periods of elevated home prices and higher interest rates, often stretching near the top of their approval range just to purchase a home. The mortgage payment may fit on paper, but over time, rising taxes, insurance renewals, utility bills, and unexpected repairs can quietly erode monthly cash flow.

What makes this especially important for advisors is that these costs rarely arrive all at once. They build gradually, which means clients may not recognize the pressure until its too late.

A client may technically “afford” the home today, but the more important planning question is whether the rest of the financial plan can absorb years of rising non-mortgage costs without forcing tradeoffs elsewhere such as lower retirement contributions, reduced emergency savings, growing credit card balances, or delayed investing goals.

For advisors, help clients understand that housing is less of a one-time purchase decision and more of an ongoing stress test within the financial plan. The mortgage may stay fixed, but the financial pressure surrounding homeownership does not.

WEEKLY MARKET RECAP

Eight Weeks Up, And Even A Hawkish Fed Can't Stop It

The bull market keeps shrugging off every reason to stop.

The S&P 500 — as tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) — closed the week on track for an eighth straight weekly gain. That’s its longest winning streak since December 2023, even as the Federal Reserve signals that the next rate move could be up, not down.

Minutes from the April FOMC meeting flipped the script: officials would back rate hikes if inflation stays sticky, after consumer prices jumped to 3.8% in April. Markets are now pricing in an 82% probability of a rate hike by year-end, with a full hike priced in by January 2027.

A year that opened with talk of cuts is now openly debating tightening.

A Manufacturing Renaissance Is Here, Thanks To AI

U.S. manufacturing, meanwhile, is running hot.

S&P Global’s flash manufacturing PMI hit a 48-month high in May. The driver is the colossal wave of Al infrastructure capex — hyperscalers alone are set to spend a combined $725 billion this year – pulling chip and equipment investment back to American soil.

Washington pressed that advantage.

The Department of Commerce committed $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding to nine quantum computing companies, with International Business Machines (IBM) the single largest recipient at $1 billion. IBM shares posted their best week since October 2002.

Other beneficiaries included GlobalFoundries (GFS), which received $375 million, alongside Atom Computing, Diraq, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS), Inflection, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum and Rigetti Computing (RGTI).

But beyond Wall Street doors, the mood kept darkening — widening the strange gap between a record stock market and a depressed Main Street.

The University of Michigan’s final May Consumer Sentiment Index landed at 44.8. That’s down from 49.8 in April and the lowest reading ever recorded in the survey’s near-80-year history.

Surveys of Consumers director Joanne Hsu pointed straight at the cost of living, as Strait of Hormuz supply disruptions continue to lift gasoline prices.

More troubling for the Fed, households now expect the inflation pain to spread well beyond energy: long-run inflation expectations climbed from 3.5% in April to 3.9% in May.

The week’s marquee corporate event was Nvidia (NVDA). The world's biggest company delivered another record quarter — $81.62 billion in revenue against a $78.86 billion consensus, data center sales nearly doubling to $75.2 billion, and second-quarter guidance at a staggering $91 billion, plus an $80 billion buyback and a higher dividend.

Eight weeks up, records on the screens, a four-year high on the factory floor — and the most depressed consumer in the history of the survey.

The market has decided the Al boom can outrun both a hawkish Fed and a fearful consumer.

BENZINGA NEWSLETTER SPOTLIGHT

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THE WEEK AHEAD

Marvell, Salesforce, Costco, Zscaler, Snowflake and Autozone to report earnings, jobless claims, GDP, PCE, and more

Economic Data

• Monday: Holiday (Memorial Day)

• Tuesday: Case-Shiller Home Index, Consumer Confidence

• Wednesday: No major reports

• Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims, GDP, PCE, Durable Goods

• Friday: Economic Indicators, Wholesale Inventories, Retail Inventories

Earnings

• Monday: Holiday (Memorial Day)

• Tuesday: Autozone (AZO), Zscaler (ZS), Semtech (SMTC), Digital Turbine (APPS), Box (BOX), Modine (MOD)

• Wednesday: Marvell (MRVL), Salesforce (CRM), PDD (PDD), Snowflake (SNOW), Synopsys (SNPS)

• Thursday: Dell (DELL), Costco (COST), Autodesk (ADSK), MongoDB (MDB), Dollar Tree (DLTR)

• Friday: No major earning reports

Click here for the full calendar of economic data and earnings reports.

Reminder, if you would like to be featured in our upcoming Advisor Spotlight and showcase your business, click here to send us an email.