Latest / The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick / Industry News: Road to Housing Bill Moves Forward, Wells Fargo Backs 3D Printed Homes, and Immigration's Impact on Construction Labor - TLP166

Transcript

Industry News: Road to Housing Bill Moves Forward, Wells Fargo Backs 3D Printed Homes, and Immigration's Impact on Construction Labor - TLP166 · The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It does raise this question of a potential regulatory issue that nobody was really thinking about.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't thinking about, hey, you know, we we should be concerned about the government shutting down our ability to build this thing.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody even considered it really.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the bill has passed, but it did not remove what is now a forever stain on this particular product type that, hey, you know, this could be a hot button at some point that the government could just decide to push.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's going on, everybody?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the land development podcast.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Ryan Glick.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have an industry news episode for you today.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And joining me as always is Charles Covey.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going, Charles?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's going good.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've got uh a few different things we're gonna get into today.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, I think what's on a lot of our minds lately has been the road to housing bill that was just passed in the House.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now it heads back to the Senate.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna be talking about that.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna get into something we've we've had guests on the show in the past who have built 3D printed homes, but we haven't really talked about it that much.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got an article today where we're gonna talk about Wells Fargo and some mortgage incentives they have now created for 3D printed homes, which is a first.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, we're gonna get into the topic of immigration and the impact that immigration enforcement has had on the construction industry.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's something we haven't we've talked about in the past.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't talked about it as of late, but there's definitely an impact there.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna dig into that as our third topic today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, with that said, let's go ahead and jump right into article number one, which comes to us from multi-family dive.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Headline reads House overwhelmingly passes amended road to housing bill.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: From the article, the House passed the amended 21st Century Road to Housing Act on Wednesday, May 20th by a vote of 396 to 13.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sponsors include Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, and ranking member Elizabeth Warren.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So a bipartisan uh effort all the way through.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: The provision that would have forced build to rent operators to sell their homes after seven years is gone.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you remember, that was something we talked about a while back where it was going to be a big thing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So there must have been enough lobbying that took place that uh there was no that that was basically stripped from the bill that the House passed.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Section uh 1001 still bars large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, but it now carves out new rental housing and homes that need major renovations.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh industry groups estimated the original forced sale rule could have cut the BTR pipeline by 40,000 to 72,000 units a year.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a real win for the rental builder market.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Other pieces of the bill reduce duplicative uh inspections under the Choice and Affordable Housing Act, and a requirement that HUD publish zoning and land use best practices under the House Supply Frameworks Act.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now it heads back to the Senate for final approval.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this is something it was this is obviously the big topic of the last week or so.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: But what are your thoughts on this, Charles?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Anything in here surprise you?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know we've been talking about this some over the last uh last couple of months, but what are your thoughts?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, from uh the feedback we were getting, you know, lenders were essentially saying, hey, anything BTR is a no-go.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just completely shut down.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't even bring it to us until we have clarity.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody assumed that we would get some clarity, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Things would get get sorted out.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's too much money in that space being being driven uh towards BTR, and there's too many of those groups have a lobbying presence.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just seemed likely that that would get solved.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and for good reason, right?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not good for Americans either.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just big dollars, you know, moving legislation.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not good for Americans to uh to put the brakes on that particular product type.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So looks like the looks like the cooler heads prevailed there, everything got sorted.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how how it even happened in the Senate version, I'm not exactly sure, because it did seem even a bit on the ridiculous side.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's not done yet, Senate still has to confirm it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But all of those groups who were opposing have essentially decided, hey, it's not a perfect bill, but at this point, this is pretty good.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: All things considered, it could be a lot worse.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's give our support.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody is supporting that, association of home builders, everybody else who might have a significant lobbying presence.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's really no, there's no lobbying roadblocks, it appears, at this point, and so should flow through the Senate pretty easily.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I Trump hasn't mentioned any issues that he has with it that I know of, so should get should get uh should get signed by him.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: This was a really interesting one from a BTR standpoint because it does raise this question of uh a potential regulatory issue that nobody was really thinking about.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't thinking about, hey, you know, we we should be concerned about the government shutting down our ability to build this thing.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody even considered it really.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, the bill has passed, but it did not remove what is now a forever stain on this particular product type that, hey, you know, this could be a hot button at some point that the government could just decide to push with legislation with legislation and completely change our world.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's gonna be on the mind of especially lenders and investors in that space for a little while, uh, which is concerning.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a great thing.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Projects will still get built, but I don't I think it does cool the momentum in that space a little bit, which I it's unfortunate.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's uh I'm glad you brought that up because I think that that is the piece that was on my mind because I remember when this was first announced, and they had the mention of, you know, forced sale of, you know, some of the rental units, and then, you know, the different restrictions that have largely been lifted on the bill that was actually uh passed in the House.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of uh a lot of mainstream uh podcasts and a lot of mainstream, just consumers in general, were applauding it, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because then in the mind of a lot of consumers, they think that institutions own 95% of all the houses in the country.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what people believe.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: They believe it's it's a massive amount, is owned by these big uh big companies.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know if this is gonna make its way back to those same podcasts and people and if it's gonna be raised up and people are gonna make noise.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so you bringing up the fact that it could be used as something in the future um also struck in my mind as well, because I think if consumers are thinking about it, then it it could be something where they raise, they raise a stink about it as well.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, also important to bring up there's a there's a debate on whether the bill even does much, which is kind of funny.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a lot of legislation.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: They spent a lot of time and money and effort and and brain power on this.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And dude, do we really accomplish much?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's debatable.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a couple of elements.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: The the one that I think is notable that might affect some of us in a positive manner is the innovation fund.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a$200 million carve out that gives a grant program for local governments that are, you know, let's say a city is gonna be able to demonstrate measurable increases in housing supply, you know, like they're gonna streamline their permitting processes, they're gonna, you know, encourage density, they're gonna do some of these things.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are, there are grants for that, which we all know is needed.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the issues amongst the uh this process all the time and how that drives up costs because it's hard to get deals done and hard to get them through the uh the red tape and the paperwork of entitlement.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that in theory could be a program that if it works really well, maybe that's something they can go back and increase more dollars.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because we talk about often, hey, you know, we we need change.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for the federal government to affect change at a state and local level.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a way that they can actually do that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's a big step.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: $200 million in the grand scheme of things is not a big chunk of money.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a proof of concept and they can prove that it works, that's major, major.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because now, now, like, hey, if we can dump a billion dollars in this and it's truly, truly impactful and we have a test program that shows it, maybe that's meaningful uh on a bigger scale.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see how that plays out.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you worked out in DC for for a little bit uh back out of college and did, yeah.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I wonder if you know, I don't know if you know this or not, but I want to know who names these bills because every bill is named, regardless of what's in it, it sounds like the best bill ever.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if you ever vote against that bill, you're like trying to harm people, basically.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is this is certainly not this is not coincidence at all.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, so typically the way this this works, a lot of the work that goes into the bill, both language and name and all this stuff, is done by the staffers of the committee members, typically.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So let let's say a not just committee members, but let's say a member of Congress, he he wants to he wants to put something together.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe there's some encouragement from other leadership.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we want you to go tackle this thing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You go do this thing.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're the housing guy, go put this together.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And generally it's on one like that's this large, it's not gonna be just one person.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be several members that will pool efforts.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're not doing it, they're just pointing at their staffers, you know, me and whoever else was in that office and like, hey guys, congratulations, new project.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to figure out how to put this thing together of 500 pages of stuff.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it becomes this whole process that takes time of figuring out what needs to happen in the legislation, what deals do you need to make, what things need to go in there to get the votes necessary.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you didn't really want to put this particular thing in there, but if you do, it gets 20 votes.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to do it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that balancing element.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a they they say when you go to DC and you kind of you you you're participating in the process, it's they say you learn how the sausage gets made.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and it really is kind of that way.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole bunch of stuff that gets thrown in and ground up, and at the end you've got you know the sausage that is a uh a bill that can become law.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a fascinating process that is very, very inefficient.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm hoping that maybe AI helps that process along now.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine it would have been extremely helpful when I was there.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's always been interesting to me because yeah, they you you read the you read the bill name and you're like, man, this sounds this sounds good, you know, and then then you go see what's in it and you're like, yeah, this is not good.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's some things in here that aren't so great.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But you nobody could nobody could pass a bill that had a a name that was you know accurate to the crap that's in there necessarily.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you you've got to make it, it's gotta look good on the 10 o'clock news.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you it's hard to get momentum.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's certainly, certainly a very intentional process.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's go ahead and move on to the next segment, which is from the comments.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when I saw this get posted, I had to pick it because it's like it's a pat on my own back for this.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So of course I had to.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so this one comes to us on LinkedIn from Grayson Glaze.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, listened to every second.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So good that I simply stopped attempting to multitask here at the office and went all in.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Top podcast to date for 2026, lock and load, no excuses.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: In addition, Ryan has a gift of hosting, sharing with my LV students.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Encourage here in uh, I think it's the wrong word there, but here in moments, I will return off in first class.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I'd love to see that.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, congrats, Ryan.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Great compliment.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a I like I said in response to that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, the show is a work in progress.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always trying to find ways to get better at things.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, you know, I was thinking about this a little bit, and this was in response to my episode I did with Nathan Cox.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he and I, kind of like you and I, he and I, we connected really well on it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so it went back and forth pretty smoothly.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I've noticed just in time, for those of you who are interested or maybe not interested in what I'm explaining here, but when you first start out and do this, you're you're recording these episodes and you have a list of questions and you're asking questions and interviews and stuff.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And but as you get further along, and now being at, you know, this is episode, I think, 166.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we've done so many of these, you get to a certain point where you stop relying on your question list and you just have a conversation.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's when you start to have a conversation, is when people enjoy the episodes more because it feels less stop and go, stop and go.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a fluid conversation.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it's still a work in progress, but uh I really appreciate the comment here from Grayson.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Really do.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right, with that said, let's go ahead and move on to article number two, which comes to us from CNBC.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Headline reads: Wells Fargo to offer mortgage incentives on 3D printed homes with icon.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: From the article, Wells Fargo just announced that it will write mortgages on Icon's 3D printed homes and they're throwing in a discount to make it happen.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Buyers get 50 basis points off the rate.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's about$2,000 in upfront credit on a$400,000 loan.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wells Fargo will also lend to builders who want to buy Icon's Titan Printer, which goes for about$899,000, or you can lease one with a$5,000 deposit and a training program.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Icon has built more than 250 homes and structures since 2018, almost all in Central Texas.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Mueller in Austin, Wolf Ranch in Georgetown, and Hill Country Town of Wimberley.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wolf Ranch in Georgetown is the largest 3D printed home development in the world.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Traditional lenders have stayed out of this category because they weren't sure how the homes would appreciate or whether they could ensure the loans.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Wells Fargo's head of home lending said they don't expect appreciation to behave any differently than a stick-built home.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Icon CEO Jason Ballard called it the signal that the technology is ready for prime time.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to pull this one in today just because it's I don't know, I feel like this the concept of 3D printed homes, except for people that probably work in these businesses, it kind of comes and goes as far as the hype about it, and then the hype goes away and then the hype comes up.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never really known or I'm not sure what to think about them.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: If if they are, are they going to end up having a big place in society and everything?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we talked about the the fact that they're built with kind of a concrete mix, and you've talked about this in the past and how that's less that's not really replaceable.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like trees are replaceable by replanting trees and everything.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you see this, do you think this is a big deal that Wells Fargo is now stepping in and doing something like this for the first time on 3D printed homes?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's it's impactful.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it impactful enough to move the needle dramatically?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge here is really not the financing, although that's an element to overcome.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge is that we're trying to fit us uh a round, you know, square peg and a round hole, I think is the term that my dad would have used.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually been involved in in large-scale 3D printing for a very long time and was doing some experimental stuff, you know, the size of a the size of a house or or slightly smaller.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think the largest printer I had was maybe 20 feet long.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we're doing some really big stuff before it was very good, and the quality of the equipment was pretty rough, uh, very, very much experimental.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this was maybe 2016, 2017, 2018.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been following this for quite a while.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the challenge that we have here is that the the premise is really good, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say we can do a concrete home pretty quickly.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't take a lot of manpower.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: We just put the machine out there.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you can keep the concrete fed to it, it just squirts out concrete, kind of like icing a cake, and it just squirts it out in layers until you're until you're done.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just the walls.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to put a roof and you've got to do some other elements.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: The real challenge here is that we're trying to make that 3D printing live in a world that is designed entirely for stick-built, either wood framed or metal frame.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: The electrical systems, the plumbing systems, all of those things are designed to go in a two by four stud wall.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where every single component lives.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all designed specifically to do that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's how people are trained.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So here you've got a different scenario where none of those components work in this scenario in this situation.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how do you go back in and put in your electrical and your plumbing and any of the other elements that have to happen?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you do you go back and build another wall in front of your concrete wall?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's very wasteful, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it can be done.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've got a two by four wall, but you didn't really save a lot because now you've got to create a redundant situation to fit the components that we have.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So truly, you need to redesign components to make this work a little bit better.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And there are ways to do it, but we're not quite at enough scale to justify redesigning all the components, right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: 250 homes, you know, is is, you know, over the entire existence of icon is not enough to have all those major manufacturers of those components create a whole line for it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the issue that we've got to get to enough scale to where you can create all the components that now really make it something that is efficient and effective.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not there yet.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I have hopes that it could be at some point.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think the premise is good, uh, but again, we've got components that live in a completely different world.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's tough to make everything fit.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I wonder too, um, you know, we're living in an interesting world right now with uh, you know, you think about robotics as well.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've had a lot of talk about certain jobs that are be taken being taken by AI.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you think about the concept of taking AI and putting it into robots, like there's many companies building right now.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how long until some of those robots are able to go onto some of the construction sites?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I bring that up because it's gonna, it's gonna be an interesting thing to talk about on our next topic.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: But also one of the big selling points of the 3D printed homes is it takes less labor to build those walls and everything, right?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a machine that's basically building all those walls that might take a certain crew a certain amount of time to build, which they don't need to do anymore.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder how some of that changes as some of these, you know, robots are able to do some of those jobs.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I maybe we're a ways off before that, but man, the stuff sure seems to be going pretty fast right now.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Austin is certainly the hub for this, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've got Elon right down the street going to be building a billion robots or whatever number that they came up with.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got Icon and some other people that have been doing the modular and 3D printed version.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a there's a world in the not too distant future where a robot or a crew of robots is there 24-7 on the site, and they're just there to place the components as they're printed around and as it as the walls go up.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you think about this scenario, you could do it with very little labor.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Most of this could be automated, and it you could do that at scale.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think we're that far.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's in the next half a decade, I it would, it would, uh, it would seem likely.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the next couple of years, seems like I don't think the robotics are quite there or the components that we mentioned earlier.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it could happen.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I could absolutely see this happening.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could also see it going the way of modular where it just doesn't ever quite get enough traction, which would be which would be unfortunate.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll keep an eye on this.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh interesting to come up, and uh we'll we'll talk about it as more things come up with 3D printed homes and some of the robotics for for that uh matter.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: With that said, let's go ahead and get on to our third and final article, which comes to us from Fortune.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is this one here, I just want to make the note before we jump into it is obviously I think with every article, they're all opinion pieces for the most part.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's data in them that should be fact, um, but this one's definitely an opinion piece.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh headline reads America is suffering a shortage of construction workers and sabotaging its ability to fill vacancies by wiping out the industry's immigrant backbone.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you can you can tell it's an opinion piece just by the title.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: From the article, the Trump administration's immigration enforcement is hitting construction harder than any other industry.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Researchers estimate roughly 35% of construction workers are immigrants, and somewhere around 15% of the workforce is here illegally.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: In countries where ICE has run raids, construction employment among illegal workers dropped 7.5%, and overall employment among likely illegal immigrants fell about 4%.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: On the supply side, construction needs to hire 349,000 more workers this year just to meet demand were already short.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when illegal workers get removed, the open jobs are not getting filled one for one.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Researchers found that only about one of every two vacated positions end up filled by an American-born worker.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Construction job growth tells the same story.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Permits were down 7.4% year over year in March.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Residential construction jobs were down 1.5% year over year in April.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, Charles, what are you seeing and what what are your thoughts on this and what we've been seeing just in the industry in general with the uh immigration and the impact on uh construction?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I think we need to look at the context.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are are there challenges today with having enough people to do the work that needs to be done?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But this has been the case for the last three, four, five, six, seven decades.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: My dad tells stories, you know, when he was working in uh in the agricultural space in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, as that area was growing, he would talk about, you know, seeing these raids happen.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: ICE was very active.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is back in the late 70s, early 80s.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a thing for a very long time.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody that's been in construction or in agriculture or in those spaces that had a lot of migrant workers uh or a lot of potentially illegal workers, they've dealt with this same situation.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go back to the numbers, uh, and I know it's all over the media today, but if you go back to what the numbers say, let's go first Bush administration.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: He had two million deportations during his administration.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, set that's second Bush, Bush Jr.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then we go with Obama.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um he had uh in his two terms, he had about three million, so averaging about 1.5 million uh per term.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Trump did about 1.5 million in his first term.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Biden did about 1.4-ish million in his uh his term.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then Trump's on pace to come in pretty close to those numbers around that 1.5 million deported during his term.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is all the same as it's been.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like the numbers have hardly moved.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Bush was was slightly actually no, but that's actually combined to two terms.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Bush was lower, then it picked up a little bit for Obama, but then it's been consistent for the last, you know, the last number of years.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're really not seeing a big change.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is business as usual, if you want to say.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that uh I don't think that the media is portraying that accurately.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're making it seem like, oh my goodness, it's the worst it's ever been.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like ice is everywhere.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're, you know, they make it seem like a bigger thing than it is.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, you know, that's how the media tends to work.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is a thing that is getting eyeballs on their stuff right now, and so that's what they're going with.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the numbers say that this is about the same rate of deportations as it has been for the last number of decades.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, we still have a problem, but we've had a problem for a long time.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So is it different today than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think, personally, that there should be a whole different approach.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Approach here rather than just snatch and grab and throw them back into whatever country they came from.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: There should be a much more thorough process that is faster in order for people to have their path legally.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right now it takes years, two, three, four years.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a challenge.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need people here.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: We need people building.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: We the the numbers show that the typical young American graduating high school isn't gonna do the job, which is unfortunate because they can make a lot of money doing the job.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of them don't want to go into the blue-collar trades.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need the people to do the work.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they're gonna come from other countries.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: We need to help them get here.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: We need to help them be here legally.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: We need to help them be in a position where they can pay their taxes and do all the things that everybody else would do.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the process that needs to happen.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, that's not been the focus.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I saw this article, I mean, the first thing that came to my mind was kind of like you talked about, was the just the media portrayal.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we think about the fact that the number of uh deportations that have happened over all those prior presidencies has been relatively similar.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: The big difference with this current term for Trump is that is the publicity around it.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the number of people that were organizing against it that weren't organizing against it, you know, when it was happening under Biden or Obama or even uh George W.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Bush.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It it's been much more publicized.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and again, more people on social media going out and following the ICE agents around and, you know, publishing that footage and everything.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then obviously there were there were some issues that have happened and some mistakes that were made by some of the ICE agents, which got a lot of publicity and really uh you know put a damper on a lot of things.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's interesting hearing you say those numbers.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know those numbers, and so just seeing that it is consistent from those, um, it it does make you realize that you know, maybe we're not in as bad of a spot as it's being portrayed, especially in this article.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And even some of the developers I talk to, because that's one of the questions I ask every once in a while, is about you know, how you know, how has the workforce been?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And most of them that I've talked to re recently, everything's been fine.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're not they're not short on workers.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that has to do with the economy and where we're at and the amount of building that's taking place.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: If things went way up, then they would need more workers.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: But where we're sitting right now, it seems to match.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's regional probably, so there's probably some places where it's harder to find people and everything.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But um, anyway, that's that's kind of what came to my mind when I saw this.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I'm I'm following exactly.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I agree.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the media has blown this out of proportion.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need the people here, but I think we need to find a better way for them to do so legally.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be my hope that somebody can uh somebody can fix this.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a challenging problem, right?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is a big government machine, and you know, the a perfect example, the the Trump Golden Visa was supposed to be this big solution.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can pay a million dollars and get a golden visa.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's been six or seven months, and they've awarded none because they can't get the paperwork done.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there's 300 and something applicants, and they haven't been able to that's that's$300 million.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're asking to write a check for a million dollars, and the government can't get the paperwork done in six months.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a big machine that moves very slowly, and that's just one example of uh how difficult it is to create a new program and implement that in a uh timely manner.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think last thing I'll add on this too is uh I think when when Trump first talked about this too, the the idea was, hey, let's go after the, you know, the criminals are here, you know, people who are here illegally who are criminals, and and obviously we don't want them in the country if they're uh, you know, if they're committing crimes, especially violent crimes.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that was the initial kind of thought.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think things kind of switched a little bit, or maybe they didn't.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to tell like what's really happening because what's put out there, you don't know if you can believe what's put out there.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that also has caused some problems too, is if that's who we were going after, and maybe initially we were, and then the focus shifted to like this article is saying, they just go to construction sites and grab people.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if those people aren't criminals and everything, and I think a lot of people would say, well, if they're here illegally, they're a criminal.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I get that for sure.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the question is, yeah, how do we how do we handle this in reality?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And how many people actually did come here over the last, you know, eight years?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how many people came here illegally?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds, I mean, I've heard numbers all over the board, and I I doubt that the majority of those people are working in construction.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like it's I don't think it's just gonna in impact the construction industry.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of service industries are are impacted as well.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You you look go back to the basis of this, I think, was the the articles that we were seeing in the news that we were seeing that you know these Venezuelan gangs were setting up shop here.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were literally getting dumped out of Venezuelan prisons and told, hey, go to the US, you can get in there.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Going to the US, setting up shop, taking over apartment complexes, like that's pretty serious.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want those guys gone.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Please mobilize ice, put the National Guard on it, whatever you got to do, get those, get those dudes out of here.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Terrible.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't want that to snowball into a thing that now impedes our ability to uh to get things built and to do things we needed.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's some amazing people that want to be in this country and work hard, and that's what the country was built on.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those opportunities are really special, and I think that's something that uh there's a core fiber of what the United States was built on.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to be able to uh to to offer that over the next 10, 20, 30 years, a system that is that is much more efficient, that allows people to do that in a legal manner uh and do it efficiently and quickly.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would love to know what you guys listening in think about this.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you have any thoughts on what you think should happen from an immigration standpoint uh in this country, yeah, just comment down below if you're watching this on YouTube and let us know what you think.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely interested in that.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Charles, that is a wrap for this episode.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Any parting thoughts before we uh wrap up?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I like throwing a kind of sort of controversial topic in there.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not because we need controversy, but because we want to have topics that are interesting and we want to see both sides of the discussion.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So really encourage you guys to throw comments in there, you know, whether you think that you disagree or agree with the information.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to get more of a debate about those things.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love that polarity that we get with some of these topics, and we'll continue that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right, guys.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that is all for this episode.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not already subscribed, please click that button.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have you back for the next one.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, we will see you back tomorrow on our next interview episode.