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‘You’ve been screwed!’ Dave Ramsey’s blunt warning on buying a home today · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

0:06
You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
0:10
I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
0:13
Well, financial expert and guru Dave Ramsey warns in a recent uh interview that young hopefuls are locked out of the housing market.
0:24
He says corporate America has screwed you.
0:28
Well, what do we make of this?
0:31
And quite frankly, how do we survive the housing market in 2026?
0:37
Especially for young people, the average age that people are buying houses now is creeping up and up and up.
0:47
In fact, the average age or the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S.
0:52
has risen to an all-time high, generally reported between 35 and 40 years old.
0:59
That's driven by high home prices and interest rates.
1:02
During COVID, especially, we saw an absolute spike in the cost of houses.
1:07
It's it went out of control.
1:09
In fact, housing skyrocketed.
1:13
I just watched a special on a community out in California, and uh they were saying that housing prices are absolutely unaffordable, like even for wealthy people.
1:24
It's gotten to the point where people just don't want to buy houses anymore in certain areas because buying a little trailer in in this one town, and I forget what the town was, but they said uh in this little town, it used to be a quiet little town, and houses were halfway affordable, but now to buy a single wide trailer in this town, you're looking at a minimum of 1.5 million dollars for a trailer.
1:52
I mean, it's absolutely crazy what home prices have done, not to mention taxes.
1:59
Look at what taxes have done too.
2:02
And speaking of taxes, did you see the New York governor recently begging people to come back from Florida?
2:09
You remember a few years ago, she was like, if you want to leave, then go.
2:13
If you don't like the taxes, then leave.
2:16
Go.
2:16
We don't want you here.
2:18
Four years later, she's practically on her hands and knees begging people to come back from Florida.
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Uh, saying that they need the tax revenue.
2:28
We need wealthy people to come back to New York because we're running out of tax money, we're running out of revenue.
2:35
Well, you dummy, what do you think is gonna happen?
2:40
I mean, you literally trash people, tell them if they don't like high taxes, then get out of Dodge.
2:46
And guess what?
2:46
They did, they left.
2:48
They're like, okay, fine.
2:51
We will leave.
2:53
They went to Florida where taxes are much better.
2:57
In fact, in some cases, they're non-existent.
3:00
And uh it's it's it's wild.
3:03
You know, people are they're they're getting wiser.
3:07
We'll put it that way.
3:09
And that's part of the hidden lightness, and that's what Dave Ramsey is pleading with people to do.
3:14
Basically, he's saying, you need to get smarter.
3:18
As young people, you need to really get your stuff together because corporate America has, in his words, corporate America has screwed you.
3:29
And he's not wrong about that.
3:32
So young Americans are getting shut out of the the housing market altogether.
3:38
At the same time, rising debt levels uh are climbing.
3:43
Affordability pressures are uh are hitting families hard.
3:49
That's why I'm I'm with Ramsey on this.
3:52
Get out of debt, stay out of debt.
3:56
Um we happen to be a debt free.
4:00
That wasn't an accident.
4:02
It was hard work.
4:03
It was it took years of discipline and just being uh being very, very tedious with how every single dollar was spent.
4:15
Uh again, I I wrote a book about it.
4:19
I wrote a book talking about how we went from almost losing our house in about 2013 to now we're completely debt-free.
4:31
We have a paid for house, we have paid for cars, we literally have zero debt, nada on very basic income, no benefits.
4:42
We have zero benefits.
4:45
We don't get health insurance, we don't get retirement as part of our pay packages.
4:53
And to be quite frank, our pay is not that great.
4:59
And so I wrote that book, Tithing Your Time, Treasure, and Talent, a practical guide to biblical budgeting and investing to talk about how we can do this on very little income.
5:11
You don't need a massive income to be able to live.
5:17
And especially now, the way inflation is.
5:21
Look at what gas prices are.
5:23
Our gas is $4 a gallon and climbing.
5:28
I think it's going to continue to climb.
5:29
I'll be honest.
5:32
I I don't think uh I don't think this war is gonna be done in the next week.
5:39
I think it's gonna drag out the Iranians are gonna drag this out, uh, the regime, and that's their goal is to put so much financial pressure on the entire world that the United States begs for for mercy and finally just says, you know what?
5:56
We're gonna end the war.
5:59
And so under this climate, people are having a hard time surviving before.
6:07
And a lot of people are not surviving now.
6:10
Layoffs are starting to hit.
6:12
I've been warning for a while that the economy is is uh showing signs while it's resilient, it's showing signs of slowing down in certain sectors.
6:22
Artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence is replacing a lot of jobs.
6:29
And so the jobs that are open, unfortunately, a lot of people aren't grabbing a hold of them, and they pay really well.
6:37
You know, the blue-collar jobs are paying very, very well.
6:40
Mike Rose been uh Mike Rowe's been talking about this for years.
6:45
And he's like, look, there is right before our very eyes a dramatic shift that's taking place in America, and if people don't wake up, they're gonna be in trouble really, really quickly.
6:58
There was just a recent special that was done on people talking about education and paying back school loan debt.
7:07
And it was this viral clip of of this young woman talking about how she's been responsible.
7:13
She's been paying down her debt.
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She has 80,000 of college debt, which is nothing now.
7:20
It's nothing to get 80,000 worth of debt.
7:25
And at high interest rates, you know, six, seven, eight percent interest.
7:31
A lot of people are paying the bare minimum because they think that these quote lower payments are a gift that the banking industry is given them.
7:41
And people fall for it because they're just not educated.
7:45
When it comes when it comes to how banks manipulate people.
7:48
And so they think, oh my goodness, I could I could consolidate my debt, take all my student loans, wrap that into one payment, and I can have a low monthly payment of 187.
8:04
And so they pay the bare minimum.
8:07
And this young lady was coming back, and she was like, she was in tears.
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And she said, my principal has actually increased.
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I owe more now than I did last year.
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And she said, nobody ever warned us of this.
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Nobody told us of this.
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Well, the thing is, people have been warning.
8:28
Lots of people have been warning, but young people are uh conditioned to believe that that's the American dream, right?
8:36
You go to college, you you spend four to four to fourteen years in college, uh, you go on to get your master's degree, then from there, if if you're really good, you work on your PhD or whatever it is, and you just you you stay in this perpetual cycle of school, and at the same time, they blink, and now they're 30 years old, and they've never worked a real job a day in their life, making an actual sustainable income.
9:09
And so they're shocked to find out that wait, now I have this massive amount of debt, and I got to start paying that back, and I have zero in savings, and the American dream.
9:22
I'm using my famous air quotes here.
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The American dream is to buy a house, have a family, settle down, all that stuff, and you gotta own property and you have to have this beautiful home and in you know, a beautiful neighborhood.
9:38
And people buy that.
9:39
They buy that that lie, that myth that that's the American dream, and that's the only way you're gonna make it.
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That that's your house is the best asset that you can hold.
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And they wind up broke forever.
9:57
They end up digging a hole that they
10:00
Can never dig themselves out of.
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And that's exactly what Dave Ramsey's talking about.
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And I believe he's right about this.
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Now there are a couple different options, and I'm not saying that he's right and he has the only right answer because I don't believe that.
10:18
I think there are plenty of other options.
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I also believe that home ownership is it's not necessary.
10:26
You don't have to own a home.
10:29
I know people who rent homes and they feel so small and insignificant.
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And they'll say things like, I never dreamed that that I'd be stuck here renting a house.
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I'm like, are you kidding me?
10:43
You're renting a house.
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When you have a roof that goes bad, you don't have to drop 30 grand to fix it.
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I do.
10:52
When you have refrigerators that go bad, and they will.
10:56
You have appliances that go bad.
10:58
You have uh buckled concrete that goes bad.
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You have in our case this past winter.
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We I mean we had a lot thousands of dollars of damage that's not covered by insurance.
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We have a shed that blew away.
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We had a really bad windstorm while we were away visiting my in-laws.
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I had neighbors sending me a picture, and they're like, your entire shed is in our tree.
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I kid you not.
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I have pictures that I when they sent me the pictures.
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I just I was in kind of disbelief, but then I was like, nah, that kind of stuff happens.
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So we're in the process now.
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We're we're building a new shed.
11:37
We I had to have a bunch of gravel brought in.
11:40
Uh, we have to fix the driveway, the driveways in bad repair.
11:43
We have uh a section in the house that's rotting out that's got to be replaced.
11:48
Yeah, I I could I could go on and on and on.
11:50
We have thousands and thousands of dollars, and I just put thousands of dollars into one of my vehicles, and it's in the shop right now for another major repair.
12:03
You know, this is life.
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I'm not complaining here.
12:06
Um, don't mishear me.
12:09
But this is life, and this is the stuff that we need to be prepared for.
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We've got to be prepared to write a check and fix things, and when things break.
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Now, I I've been talking about one of my cars that has well over 200,000 miles on it.
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That's the one that's in the shop, by the way.
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I have a wheel bearing that went out.
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And it's just normal wear and tear.
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It's original wheel bearings, and it's gonna happen.
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I I know this.
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Been around vehicles my whole life.
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These kind of things are normal.
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It's routine, but boy, is it costly.
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And you better be prepared for it.
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So, what's happening with the housing market is that houses have just skyrocketed during COVID.
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The the value of homes have skyrocketed.
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And then the interest rates skyrocketed at the same time, making it very unaffordable for first-time home buyers.
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So here's what Dave Ramsey had to say about this.
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He joined Fox Business's Cheryl Cassone on the Fox Business In-Depth special, hitting home, rebuilding the dream to break down the financial realities facing first-time homebuyers, and why many are falling apart.
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So Ramsey pointed out the record high consumer debt.
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And it is, it's we have credit card debt that every single year, in fact, probably every month, it reaches a new high.
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And it's that compounding effect where compounding works in the opposite direction.
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Compounding can be either really good or really bad.
14:00
It can work in your favor or it can work against you.
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Look at what the US national debt is doing.
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You're gonna see it pretty soon.
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If we don't get a grip on this, pretty soon you're gonna see in one month, you'll have a trillion dollars added to the national debt just because of um uh your interest.
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So here's what Ramsey said.
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He said, I'm afraid I have to tell you the truth.
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Corporate America has screwed you.
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Car debt is an all-time high, student loan debt is at an all-time high, and of course, credit card debt is at an all-time high.
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So he said those pressures, those combined pressures are leaving a lot without a lot of people without financial flexibility.
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They can't even think about entering into the housing market.
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First of all, their credit scores are trash.
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But secondly, they don't have any disposable income.
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Like they have nothing.
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A lot of people don't realize you have to put a pretty significant down payment down on a house.
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20% is pretty normal.
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I mean, you should put at least 20% down.
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A lot of people are like, wait, what do you mean?
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What do you mean that I have to have money up front?
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Isn't that what the loan is for?
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So a lot of people just don't know.
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And Ramsey said, quote, when you're drowning in personal debt, you can't afford to buy a freaking house.
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I he's not wrong.
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So there's also he pointed out to the post-pandemic housing surge.
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That's another factor that's pushing first-time home buyers.
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Uh, the the age higher and higher.
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Now 35 to 40 years old is the median age for people to buy their first-time house, first-time home buyers.
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So they said our message to Gen Z and to millennials is clear.
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Uh, clear this debt, get rid of the stupidity, and chop up the cards and work your way through it.
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Once you do that, you can get there.
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Now I know that's not easy.
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It's it's not a message a lot of people want to hear, but he's not wrong.
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Debt is an anchor if not used properly, which most of us don't know how to use it properly.
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Uh a lot of people don't or don't want to.
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In my case, I just don't want to.
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Uh, but that debt is an anchor and it holds us back.
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Well, we're coming up on a break here.
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Uh, we'll talk more about this after the break and talk about the hope and what we can actually do.
17:03
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It's getting harder and harder for people to buy houses, especially as young first-time homebuyers.
19:42
And Dave Ramsey says corporate America has screwed you.
19:46
He's talking to young people and saying basically that they taught you that it's uh the American dream to look cool, to have the cool car, to uh go to
20:00
School, go to college, not really have a plan, and just get the degree and the job will follow.
20:06
And so young people are racking up debt like never before.
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That's a fact.
20:13
Credit card debt is at an all-time high.
20:17
Consumer debt, all-time high.
20:20
Uh college loan debt, all-time high.
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And we just keep breaking record after record.
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That's not something we should brag about.
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That's not a good thing.
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And so the question is what is happening with the housing market and how do young people respond?
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Because there are a lot of young people who feel really trapped right now.
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And if you know me at all, you know that I don't like the lie that young people are lazy, that they don't want to work.
20:52
I just don't think that's true at all.
20:55
The evidence is overwhelming that shows that young people actually really are hard workers.
21:02
And there's kind of a double-edged sword here because while they're hard workers, uh poverty is really, really devastating for people.
21:14
It is a tough life to live in poverty.
21:18
And there are certain areas in the United States, uh, West Virginia and Kentucky boast some of the poorest counties in the entire United States.
21:29
And there have been some documentaries, recent documentaries that have been done on those areas, those towns that were old mining towns, coal mining towns, and the mining has dried up.
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And now what's left is a whole lot of poverty and a whole lot of drugs.
21:50
People who are just trying to cope, trying to get by, trying to survive, and it's tough.
21:56
It's really tough.
21:58
The housing crisis in America, the fastest growing group of people who are homeless, it's families with kids.
22:08
And it's increasing exponentially.
22:12
Yeah, it is a very, very big problem.
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And we can either pretend that it's not happening or we can talk about it and do something about it.
22:21
I think it's a lot more productive to actually do something about it.
22:26
And so the question is, what?
22:28
What do we do?
22:29
How do we keep young people out of homelessness?
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How do we keep young people away from drugs, away from the temptation to get into drugs?
22:39
Now, what do we do?
22:40
We've it's a very complex ecosystem here in the United States.
22:46
And to just pretend like this isn't a problem, I think is a really big mistake.
22:53
And so we have to acknowledge that the housing market is uh it's very difficult, it's very challenging, and people need places to live.
23:01
Uh, you know, and it's not as easy as just going out and saying, well, just go find a cheap place to rent.
23:07
There are very few cheap uh places that are cheap and affordable to rent.
23:15
Rent has skyrocketed along with home prices, and it's very, very unaffordable in a lot of areas.
23:25
And so what are the options?
23:27
Well, we'll talk about the options in a little bit.
23:29
First, I want to talk about what's actually predicted to happen within the housing market in 2026.
23:36
Here's an article that just posted earlier this month on March 20th.
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This is newsweek, and the article is the housing market going to crash in 2026.
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What to know?
23:50
It's by Suzanne Blake.
23:53
Uh, it's a very good article.
23:56
And she says this after years of elevated mortgage rates and tight inventory, many Americans are wondering whether the U.S.
24:03
housing market is headed for a major downturn in 2026.
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While some buyers are holding out hope for a crash similar to the 2008 housing crisis.
24:17
Now, first of all, why would buyers hold out hope for a housing crash?
24:24
Why would they want the market to crash?
24:26
Well, it's really quite simple, actually.
24:31
Anytime the market crashes, whether that's the stock market or the housing market or the auto industry, remember, I keep I keep saying, let the auto industry fail.
24:46
Let it crash.
24:48
Let car manufacturers go out of business who are ripping off their customers by building lousy cars, lousy quality cars, charging a fortune, marking up prices, dealers, dealerships, and dealer groups that are that are marking up cars astronomically without actually giving anything to the customer, and then ripping them off on their financials, the money that they lend, they mark that up with super high interest rates, well above the rates that that banks and credit unions are given.
25:30
They're ripping off the American people.
25:32
When people are ripping off the American people, let it fail.
25:38
Let the auto industry fail, let that market crash, because then it will correct itself.
25:47
Only then will the prices come down.
25:50
Same with the housing market.
25:52
When you have when you have things that are superficially expensive, like there's not really much of a reason.
25:59
And it's kind of what happened with the housing market.
26:02
There were some fundamentals that pushed the prices of houses up.
26:07
There were some fundamentals that were involved that contributed to that.
26:12
But generally speaking, the prices were superficially jacked up.
26:20
All right, when that happens, the market eventually will correct itself.
26:27
The American people feel pain, the consumer people, uh consumers feel pain, people stop buying, they stop purchasing for a time.
26:35
Then the banks start getting hungry or greedy, depending on which way you look at it.
26:43
And the banks start getting desperate because now they have a whole bunch of repossessions on their hands or foreclosures in the case of houses.
26:53
And they're sitting on all this inventory that they just have to dump.
26:57
They're just desperate to dump the inventory.
27:00
So then they sell houses, foreclosed houses, or repossessed cars for dirt cheap, just to get rid of them.
27:12
And then people are like, well, hey, if I can buy a cheap car, cheap house.
27:19
I'm not going to buy a brand new one.
27:20
I'm not going to, I'm not going to build from scratch, or I'm not going to buy a brand new vehicle.
27:24
And people figure this out.
27:27
And then the cost has to come down.
27:30
It's the only way that they're going to sell vehicles, or the only way that they're going to sell houses.
27:36
And so people are hoping for a crash.
27:39
And I got to tell you, I took advantage of the 2008 housing crisis.
27:44
When that housing bubble popped, and the cost of houses plummeted, and the interest rates plummeted.
27:54
My wife and I, who are not even looking to buy a house.
27:58
We're like, this is the deal of a lifetime.
28:02
And we bought our house under those ideal conditions.
28:06
We bought at a dramatic discount.
28:10
Same with the stock market.
28:11
I talk about this all the time.
28:13
The war right now has caused the stock market to essentially crash, or what appears to be a crash.
28:22
It's not really a crash.
28:23
It's just a it's a market correction.
28:25
It's responding to the war.
28:28
And all the uncertainty that surrounds it.
28:32
And I've been saying this for a long time, and I stand by it, and I've been doing it.
28:37
I practice what I preach.
28:39
Now is the time to buy.
29:04
So they're selling after they've already lost 20%, 20% of the value, and they're just they're selling like crazy.
29:15
That's what's referred to as trying to catch a falling knife.
29:19
You don't sell on the way down, you buy on the way down.
29:25
Look at what Tesla did when everybody was mocking Tesla and talking about how terrible it was, and it's just making fun of Tim Walls, making fun of people who had uh who own Tesla stock.
29:39
You know, I hope it, I hope they lose all of it.
29:44
Elon Musk showed the little graphic with a Tesla driving off a cliff, and he superimposed that on Tesla stock, and he was like excited about it.
29:58
He's like, man, what an opportunity.
30:00
Opportunity for people to buy Tesla stock.
30:02
And then look what Tesla stock did.
30:04
It absolutely went insane.
30:08
Like it just took off.
30:11
Tesla went down to uh what was it?
30:14
Like 200.
30:16
I mean, it really drove off a cliff about a year ago.
30:20
That was about a year ago.
30:23
It went down to 200, just a little bit above 200 per stock.
30:30
And then it shot up.
30:31
Let's see.
30:32
I'm I'm looking at a chart here.
30:34
Uh a year later, just shy of a year later, 500 per stock.
30:44
I'm telling you, if if people would have been buying on that dip, which is exactly what Elon Musk said to do, people would be very, very wealthy right now.
30:56
It's still at 385, right?
30:59
You know, right now it's at 385 per stock.
31:03
So it's come down a little bit, but uh it'll go back up.
31:08
It'll keep gaining.
31:10
But that's that's why people are hoping for a similar clash crash in the housing market to 2008, so that they can buy at a discount and buy houses for a decent price.
31:21
However, recent forecasts from Zillow and Realtor.com suggest a different outlook.
31:29
Experts told Newsweek that the housing market will likely experience slower growth and shifting buyer behavior rather than a nationwide collapse.
31:39
So again, it's part of this idea.
31:43
Nobody knows when the market is gonna when it's gonna go down.
31:49
And that's something Warren Buffett talks about this.
31:52
He's like, people try to time the market and they try to figure out okay, where's the very tippy top?
31:58
Because that's when I'm gonna sell, and where's where's the very bottom because that's when I'm gonna buy, buy the dip.
32:07
So Buffett says, you have no idea.
32:09
Nobody knows.
32:10
Literally, nobody knows.
32:12
And if they if they say they know, they're lying.
32:16
Nobody knows when there are going to be these wild market swings.
32:20
So his advice, just hold steady, just keep buying a little bit at a time, or if you see the price really drop, buy a little bit more.
32:32
Just keep doing that.
32:34
So the housing market, and Dave Ramsey has talked about this too.
32:37
This idea that there's going to be some big housing bubble, and people are predicting it as if it's gospel fact.
32:46
He's like, it it's not gonna happen.
32:50
He said, I've been in real estate for virtually my whole life.
32:53
He's like, now, could it happen?
32:56
Yeah, it's there's always a possibility.
33:00
But Ramsey says, based on evidence that he's seeing, he's predicting that there won't be another housing bubble like there was in 2008.
33:09
He also predicted that there's gonna be like kind of this stagnation for a little while, but then the market's gonna like slowly crawl back up, the the value of houses will keep creeping up.
33:22
That's what's gonna happen.
33:23
That's what people are predicting, just based on history and people who are experts in in this field.
33:31
So again, nobody knows for 100% sure.
33:36
But the point is this.
33:38
If people are waiting around waiting for that opportunity, think about 2008.
33:45
If people are like, yeah, every 10 years the housing market is gonna have this big crash.
33:50
If people waited till 2018, what happened to um housing prices?
33:57
Look at two years later, we had a worldwide pandemic, and it caused housing uh the the prices of houses to skyrocket.
34:10
So for those people sitting on their hands, and there were plenty of them, people are just waiting, waiting for the next big crash.
34:17
I'm gonna buy the dip.
34:20
They were in for a pretty big surprise.
34:23
So Ramsey says there's a better way.
34:26
You know, the better way is get rid of your debt, get rid of that ball and chain that's tied around your waist, and have disposable income.
34:36
And if you truly want to buy a house, be patient, invest your money, put it to work, and buy a house whenever you make sense financially.
34:51
He said, if you're waiting for interest rates to come down in this geopolitical climate, anything can happen.
35:00
Did anybody predict the war in Iran?
35:03
I literally don't think anybody predicted that that was gonna happen.
35:08
That was a shock to the system.
35:10
That's why the markets were so shocked.
35:12
That's why the market responded, it basically hemorrhaged because people were shocked.
35:18
They were like, wait, what?
35:20
We're at war now.
35:24
So, yeah, what do you do?
35:25
Um, what's happening within the housing market?
35:27
This year, the national home values are projected to rise modestly about 0.7% by the end of 2026, while existing home sales are expected to increase roughly 4.4% compared with the prior year, according to Zillow's latest home value and home sales forecast.
35:49
Easing mortgage rates and a growing number of new listings are helping to bring supply and demand into closer alignment, according to Zillow.
36:01
That shift is expected to keep price changes relatively stable overall, even as affordability remains strained in many regions.
36:13
So the market is basically holding steady.
36:18
Yeah, the housing market isn't, it's it's not growing exponentially, it's also not dropping, it's not plummeting.
36:25
So it's kind of steady, it's even keeled.
36:30
So, what does that mean for young home buyers?
36:32
Well, if you're waiting for that deal of a lifetime, you might be holding your breath until you pass out.
36:40
That doesn't mean that there aren't deals out there and that you shouldn't be looking for them.
36:44
In fact, I just looked the other day.
36:46
I was looking for just kind of a fun uh, I don't know that I'm gonna do it, but just in my mind, sometimes I dream about things that I can't or shouldn't do that that would be fun for the family.
37:01
And I was like, man, I wonder if there are any uh cool cabins close to where I live, like just a cool cabin by a creek.
37:08
And so I just did a quick search, and lo and behold, I found the perfect one.
37:15
I'm not saying I'm gonna buy it, but uh it's a steal.
37:18
There are deals out there all the time, there are deals.
37:22
But the biggest thing is we got to get our money under control.
37:27
We've got to teach us to young people.
37:29
Well, we're coming up on a break here.
37:30
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37:35
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39:00
Is the housing market gonna crash?
39:02
Is there a reset?
39:04
Uh what do young people do?
39:05
Should they wait around?
39:06
Should they buy now?
39:08
What in the world is happening with the housing market?
39:11
Well, according to experts, they say that the market is not headed for a crash.
39:18
And again, we never know for sure anything could happen.
39:22
Literally anything could happen.
39:24
Nobody would have ever predicted um a let's say pandemic that had a massive influence on the housing market.
39:33
Nobody, I think uh in their right mind could have predicted that we were gonna start a war in Iran.
39:40
That had a big impact on the global economy.
39:44
And so who knows for sure?
39:46
But what people are predicting, what the best experts in the real estate field are predicting is that we're seeing somewhat of a reset that uh inventory.
40:00
Is starting to come back.
40:01
Remember how there was a major shortage of houses in the United States.
40:05
That was helping to drive the price of houses up.
40:10
Mortgage rates are hovering around 6%, a little bit above 6%.
40:17
Prices are not moving a whole lot right now.
40:21
That's kind of a good thing.
40:24
So we're seeing more of a stagnation instead of a collapse.
40:30
So I want to read a little bit more here, excuse me, from Newsweek article.
40:36
And they say, unlike the mid-2000s housing bubble, today's market is characterized by stricter lending standards and persistent supply shortages in many areas.
40:49
While price growth has slowed and inventory has improved in some regions, none of the major sources point to the kind of oversupply or risky lending practices that occurred shortly before the 2008 crash.
41:03
Now, that's a great point.
41:05
You remember 2008, banks were kind of cooking the books, so to speak, and they were stretching it so that more people would actually qualify for loans.
41:17
People who had no business buying a house were qualifying for loans.
41:22
And then they would default on their payments.
41:25
So many people were going into foreclosure.
41:28
And it just started to spiral to the point where I think the uh cap was out of the bag, so to speak, and they couldn't get a grip on it.
41:37
The banks had lost control, then they needed bailed out by the federal government.
41:42
Uh again, need in my air quotes here.
41:46
Uh it's one of those things.
41:48
I would have let the banks fail.
41:50
They're the ones who put themselves in that mess, let the banks fail.
41:56
Uh some of the major banks.
41:58
So instead of getting reprimanded for really risky practices, they got essentially a bonus.
42:08
They got gifted with a government bailout.
42:12
So at the expense of taxpayers, the very, you know, the very people the banks were ripping off, we then paid for their bailout.
42:22
So I think this is part of why people have such a distrust for the government in the way that they spend our money.
42:30
They do absolute terrible things.
42:33
And uh it's it's just senseless.
42:36
So Zillow's housing market forecast for 2026.
42:41
They predict a relatively steady housing market with mild price growth and a slow rebound in sales activity.
42:51
Uh they expect home values to rise by about 0.7% year over year by the end of 2026.
43:00
Uh existing home sales are forecast to reach 4.24 million transactions in 2026.
43:08
And that increase is due to moderately easing mortgage rates.
43:14
So that'll bring some sidelined buyers and sellers back into the market.
43:22
Uh Kevin Thompson, who's the CEO of Ninei Capital Group, he says this.
43:31
I don't see the housing market crashing anytime soon.
43:34
It's actually stabilized more than people think.
43:38
We're starting to see homes that sat for months finally move, which tells me the market is clearing just at a slower pace.
43:47
Rates have come down slightly, but more importantly, people are beginning to accept that today's rates are more normal than what we saw over the last few years.
43:56
That shift in mindset is what's helping things open back up.
44:02
So that's a great point.
44:04
Uh people are accepting the fact that a 6% interest rate isn't that outrageous.
44:12
That's actually kind of normal.
44:15
And that's exactly what Dave Ramsey has been saying for uh literally for years.
44:21
He's been talking about this since COVID even even started.
44:24
And he said, look, you know, high interest rates, you can always refinance.
44:32
If or when interest rates come down, you can do a refinance on your house on your house, and you can lock in that lower interest rate.
44:41
My wife and I did that.
44:43
In fact, not only did we get a lower interest rate when it came down just a little bit.
44:50
I mean, it wasn't a ton, but it was enough that it made sense to do it.
44:53
But we also refinanced from a 30-year note to a 15-year note, and then we paid that off very, very aggressively.
45:05
So, you know, just do things that work to your favor, and I would recommend not waiting around for all these great bargains because uh you never know what's going to happen for sure.
45:20
But all signs are pointing that the housing market is pretty stable, and there's not going to be this major collapse that a lot of doomsayers say is going to happen.
45:30
And so if you're financially in a position to purchase a house, go ahead and do it.
45:37
Purchase a house, and then you can refinance later if or when the interest rates come down.
45:45
I know when we did it, we got locked in at a at a 4.0%.
45:50
I know people that were locked in like somewhere around a 2%.
45:56
So I don't know if those rates are ever going to come back again.
46:00
It's anybody's guess.
46:03
But we've got to be financially stable.
46:07
And that's the point that Ramsey's making.
46:10
You know, we've got to get stability back among young people.
46:15
They've got to stop spending in his words.
46:17
He he's not as nice with his words, but he said, stop making stupid decisions.
46:22
What he means by that is stop spending, spending, spending like it's going out of style.
46:27
Stop buying the brand new 80, 90, 100,000 pickup trucks that you don't need.
46:35
And be wise with your money.
46:39
Don't get seven different college degrees that you're never going to use and rack up all that debt that you will have to pay back.
46:49
And another thing is taking off right now, and I I think it's actually pretty cool.
46:54
My kids actually are kind of into this, and um I'm okay with that.
46:59
It's the whole tiny house movement.
47:02
It's it's the tiny little cabin or the uh the little log cabin that people build.
47:12
People are getting very, very creative with these tiny homes.
47:17
And what they're finding is what young people are finding that I think is really important, is that size of a house doesn't much matter.
47:27
You know, if you're using your house properly, yeah, and properly is a very subjective term, so don't uh get the daggers out when I say that.
47:39
But if you're using your home properly, or at least in an ideal world, you're sleeping at your house.
47:48
You just sleep there.
47:51
Right?
47:52
It's it's a place to lay your head down, cook your meals, things like that.
47:57
Other than that, unless you're disabled or uh have reason to stay holed up in your house, you probably should be out.
48:08
Get outside, work, work outside, play outside, take walks outside.
48:19
Spend as much time as humanly possible in the outdoors instead of being strapped to the internet, strapped to a computer, locked up in your house.
48:28
And I think that's part of what's gotten Americans pretty complacent.
48:33
Is that we had this big movement, this big push to buy the big house, get the, you know, if you have anything under 3,500 square feet, you're you're kind of the loser that has the little shack, and you're gonna be looked down on by all your friends.
48:47
Well, who cares what people think?
48:50
First of all, secondly, the bigger the house, the bigger the footprint, the bigger the footprint, the bigger the cost to maintain and keep up with your house to repair your house.
49:03
Think about a roof repair on a 1,500 square foot house versus a 3,500 square foot house.
49:11
You know, the price differential is astronomical.
49:16
So a lot of people are migrating to these experiences.
49:19
They're they're living off the grid.
49:22
People are getting very intelligent, very smart with uh with how to wire their houses to put solar panels up and to live off grid.
49:34
I think it's fantastic.
49:36
I think it's great.
49:39
That doesn't uh make people dependent on the national grid, which is failing.
49:47
Or they're jacking up the prices of the electricity to unbearable rates.
49:56
I've been talking about that, right?
49:58
And it's it's on the minds of Americans.
50:01
The cost of electricity is absolutely skyrocketing.
50:06
And it's going to continue to do so.
50:07
I've got news for people.
50:10
Electricity ain't getting cheaper.
50:14
As demand increases.
50:16
Actually, there's just a story.
50:18
They're about to put a uh a power super highway in through Pennsylvania, like just north of where I live.
50:29
And I think it's going to span across the entire state.
50:32
It's actually going to span across a few states.
50:37
Yeah, here we go.
50:38
I just looked it up.
50:39
This is uh the power super highway.
50:44
A massive power grid uh expansion.
50:47
They're they're planning this power super highway across Pennsylvania, driven by AI data center demands.
50:54
Key projects include a 1.7 billion dollar 200 mile line from West Virginia to Perry County, a massive 4.5 gigawatt natural gas plant at former Homer City coal site, and 6.8 billion in PPL grid updates or upgrades, raising concerns over you ready for this, consumer costs and land rights.
51:23
This is our new reality.
51:25
This is where we are.
51:36
So we have a failing power structure in the United States.
51:42
It's failing and it's failing fast.
51:44
And at the same time, we're having a massive demand, and Democrats want everything to be electric.
51:51
I mean, literally everything, and that's putting a huge demand, or at least potential demand on our on our current grid.
52:03
So what are they doing?
52:04
They're expanding, they're upgrading, they're spending billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars just on one project.
52:12
How are they gonna, how are they gonna power it?
52:14
Well, natural gas.
52:16
Huh.
52:17
What's happening to the price of natural gas?
52:20
And I'm not talking just since the war in I uh Iran.
52:23
What's been happening to the price of natural gas over the last year?
52:29
Anyone who has natural gas knows you feel it, you see it, you're aware of it.
52:36
It's increasing exponentially.
52:38
So the cost of living is getting higher and higher, and it's going to continue to do so.
52:43
So this whole idea that you have to buy this massive mansion to be somebody is just complete nonsense.
52:49
So there are plenty of options out there.
52:51
If people want to be home buyers or build your own home, uh, it's almost better to be a landowner and to build whatever you want.
53:01
Build it with your own hands, learn.
53:03
Go out and and and do it.
53:07
It's actually not that hard to do in 2026.
53:14
You know, you can do it with limited knowledge, and you can learn for free.
53:20
The internet has so much free information for how to build and even tapping resources with other people, getting friends, talk to other people who've done it before.
53:30
You can build on the cheap.
53:34
I mean, but by cheap, I'm not talking like $10,000, but for a fraction of the cost of what it costs to purchase a $500,000 home.
53:47
Yeah, you can do it for a fairly reasonable amount.
53:53
If you build with your own hands and if you build exactly what you want, where you want it.
53:58
Yeah, there are plenty of options out there.
54:00
So I'm actually hopeful.
54:02
I'm hopeful for where the housing market is going.
54:06
I think that young people are gonna begin to shift unless they completely make themselves helpless, which I don't think they're gonna do.
54:14
I just I see too much evidence to the contrary.
54:17
I think that young people are gonna begin to shift away from these massive energy inefficient homes to smaller homes with a smaller footprint where they're incredibly resourceful and they're self-sufficient, and they produce their own electricity and they get their own water, they drill their own wells, and they're just completely self-sufficient.
54:41
And I think that's a good thing.
54:42
It's a good thing for the environment, it's a good thing for the economy.
54:46
It's a good thing to allow young people to be able to take all that money that they would have sunk into a massive mortgage and start to invest that and actually build a retirement.
54:58
So I'm excited.
54:59
I'm excited to see where this is going, but Dave Ramsey's right.
55:03
You know, corporate America has has uh they have definitely screwed the young people, they've screwed them over, and it's time young people realize it and and just take control and start to take initiative to turn things around.
55:18
And they owe it to themselves, honestly.
55:21
Young people deserve to live happy, healthy lives and uh, you know, to to re-imagine what the American dream is.
55:31
This whole idea that you have to have these massive mansions and these $100,000 cars in order to be happy, it's just not true.
55:41
It's a hundred percent false, and we've got to be part of shifting that narrative.
55:46
You know, talk to your kids, your grandkids, take them outside and let them dream, let them daydream.
55:52
Talk about housing, talk about what they're gonna do when when they grow up.
55:57
You know, there's so many options out there.
55:59
Uh it's we can't be pinning ourselves into a corner.
56:05
We can't allow young people to pin themselves into the same corner that some of us were pinned into when we were younger, and uh, you know, to kind of crash their whole life that's ahead of them.
56:16
Help them get started on the right foot.
56:19
It can be done.
56:22
And it's not, you know, it's not rocket science, it's not only for a select fleet few.
56:28
It can be done.
56:29
That, my friends, is the hidden lightness.
56:31
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56:39
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56:41
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56:48
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