For Sale real estate signs are viewed outside a condominium complex, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Cocoa Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) Real estate agents are a hopeful bunch by trade. They have to be. Every March, they dust off their lockboxes and tell themselves that this spring will finally break the spell. Buyers will return. Sellers will list. The market will swipe right again. But that hope has been crushed for a second consecutive year —  this time  by a war in Iran that has sent mortgage rates soaring. The numbers tell a truly depressing story. The National Association of Realtors had forecast a 14 percent jump in existing-home sales for 2026. Zillow predicted a more modest 4.3 percent bump . Both forecasts now look like fiction worthy of a cryptocurrency white paper. Experts have already conceded that 2026 will resemble 2024 and 2025, two of the slowest years on record.…