The Fed only controls the overnight rate, the shortest term rate. If it loses its reputation for independence we may well see higher long term rates even if they cut the overnight rate to zero. That would be quite bad for real estate.

The next step if that happened could well be the puppetized Fed expanding the balance sheet to buy long term bonds. That would probably be bad for everything. Except perhaps gold.

This is interesting - and the fact that I hadn’t thought of this tells me I should absolutely not invest on margin :)