Wall Street's Grip on Homeownership: Navigating Real Estate Investment and Legislation | In-Depth Property Insights

Ever wondered how the big guns of Wall Street influence your chances of owning a home? This week, Brian Laflame and I tackle the thorny issue of hedge funds snapping up single-family homes and the legislative tussles that could change the game for individual homebuyers and small-scale investors. As we dissect the pros and cons of corporate ownership of residential properties, we also address Airbnb's role in reshaping local housing markets — a hot topic adding spice to an already complex conversation.

The dialogue gets even richer as we shift our focus to the broader housing market and the specter of price gouging within its confines. Drawing parallel lines to Martin Shkreli's infamous tactics, we debate the potential effectiveness of bills designed to regulate real estate practices. Then, zooming in on Seattle's latest housing legislation, we dissect the implications of duplexes and ADUs on the community fabric, and how changes from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA in lending guidelines could ripple out to affect your loan qualifications. Trust me, these are insights you don't want to miss as you navigate the currents of real estate investing.

Capping off this insightful session, we reflect on the changing landscape of homeownership in America. From REITs to fractional ownership models, we discuss how technology and investment trends are reshaping what it means to own a piece of the pie. Through personal stories, including my own real estate journey, we illustrate the nuanced decision-making that property investment demands today. For those about to set sail on their own real estate adventure, we're here to offer experienced insights and heartfelt guidance, because whether it's your first home or a savvy investment, the journey is as important as the destination. Join us for a conversation that's about more than just properties — it's about your dreams, your future, and the legacy you want to build.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Oh, oh, oh and Merry Christmas everyone, One and all. It is the one and only Saint Nicholas. It's actually me, it's Aaron Marlowe. But, anyways, hello, merry Christmas to one and all. I am here with my co-host, brian Laflame, and we are here to talk about Wall Street possibly leaving the real estate industry. Not, if they have their way with it, brian. What do you have to say about this, my young chap?

Speaker 2: 0:54

One thing I want to say thank you for clarifying that this was indeed Aaron Marlowe. I thought I was on the wrong podcast for a while.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Oh, I knew you were easily fooled, Brian, Easily fooled.

Speaker 2: 1:04

So yeah, today we're going to talk about a bill that was introduced by Jeff Merkley from Oregon and Representative Adam Smith from Washington Aaron and I are in Washington and from Washington that would ban hedge funds from purchasing single family homes. It's just single family homes for now, but it would ban hedge funds from purchasing single family homes and would force them to sell off the single family homes that they have at 10% of their entire portfolio every year for 10 years until they get to zero.

Speaker 2: 1:36

For some color on this right now or now. Right now, the latest numbers we have from June 2022, the Urban Institute estimated that hedge funds owed 574,000 single family homes. If we want to put that in perspective, as of November of this year or, excuse me, as of November of this year, realtorcom says that we have 754,846 total active listings in the market, so 500, something 500 plus as of June 2022, and they haven't stopped buying. As of June 2022, hedge funds owed 500,000 plus single family homes. There is of November, so this is December 23, right before Christmas. I don't know if you could tell from Santa, but last month we had just over 750,000 active listings for a country of 330 million people.

Speaker 2: 2:27

That's insane. That doesn't count. The active listings take into account houses that are on the market without offers accepted and houses that are on the market with offers accepted, just haven't gotten to closing yet. So that's not. We don't even have 754,000 homes for sale. We just have 754,000 homes that haven't quite yet closed. That is big news, huge news, huge news, yeah. What do you think about that Realtor?

Speaker 1: 3:00

Well, I've been pondering this for a while now because I think you know I was talking about it in our previous podcast, about how Wall Street, these big, large companies owning these rentals and just the idea of a company being able to own several we're not even talking about, does it? You know? Because we're not talking about a mom and pop owning, you know, a portfolio of 20 properties, 70 properties. We're talking about companies that own hundreds of properties. You know apartment complexes, but we're not even talking about the apartment complex space. We're talking about the single family home.

Speaker 1: 3:44

The red financial single yeah, the single family properties that traditionally, with the American dream, were to be purchased by you, the homeowner people that wanted to purchase these properties to live in, you know.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Now, of course, there are plenty of investors out there that purchased, you know, had the idea to purchase single family homes to rent out as well, you know, and there is always that option and there's always the person out there that wants to rent a single family home, and completely fine. But I think part of the issue here is, I think the market has gotten over saturated, over inflated due to the fact that a large part of it has been bought up by Wall Street and Wall Street having these deep pockets to just go in there and power through and outbid any other investor and being able to just take up these large amount of portfolio of single family house, where traditionally this was a sacred space for homeowners and small mom and pop investors to really kind of make their way through the field. I think this is a good thing as far as being able to control and limit. Now, I mean I think this kind of goes hand in hand on a bunch of other stuff going on. You know, there's certain areas not to go off on a tangent.

Speaker 2: 5:17

Here too it's your podcast, man tangent.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Yeah, well, you know there's different parts of the US that are kind of putting some limits on Airbnb right now. You know and there's the whole idea is Airbnb such a good thing for everyone? You know there's pros and cons to Airbnb and how it works. I see pros and cons on both sides. I've stayed at Airbnb quite often, you know. So I like staying at Airbnb's. But listening to how people who have owned Airbnb's and what it does to the community around who owns these Airbnb's it's there's arguments on both sides. You know Now who owns mainly Airbnb's. That's a completely different thing, because that's not. We're not talking about these big corporations owning these long term rentals. You know that are in the single family space. So getting Wall Street out of the single family game and letting the homeowner have a more fighting chance and the first time home buyer having a better fighting chance to get into home ownership, I think it's a win for everyone. I think Wall Street has plenty of other avenues to find where they can put their money in invest it. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 6:49

I mean, I think it's genius for hedge funds to be able to do this. You get an asset that you can control the appreciation and depreciation. If you go in and buy a bunch, you can price control that. You buy a bunch in a single area, you get a dividend every month of rent and you get a dividend of rent by charging people. If you control the market whatever you want for a thing of basic necessity, which is housing, it gets genius by them. It's evil genius. They get an appreciating asset, they get dividends every month and then, just like we talk about every day, to our single family home buyers and mom and pop investors.

Speaker 2: 7:24

This is the path to wealth for almost all millionaires Real estate, this is how people get started, or what they fill their portfolio with once they've started, and so I think it's genius by them. I think it is horrible for the market allowing money to come in and do something like this. I think that's why we have a regulated capitalistic society. This is where government steps in with regulation. We have in Tacoma measure one in.

Speaker 2: 7:54

November last year, that or this year, excuse me that there's a kind of bird's eye view of what it was. It would limit the ability for landlords to evict their tenants for nonpayment, and I think, that the city of Tacoma was thinking about these hedge funds when they did this.

Speaker 2: 8:15

The reality is, most investors are you and me. Mom and pop. They owned a house. They moved up when their kids, when their family, grew, but they didn't really want to sell their house yet because they wanted to keep it in the family. They wanted to pass it down to their kids. Maybe it was the market to sell, for whatever reason, and then they become landlords of their house. Most own one to three rental properties. It's the retirement plan, it's a modest living that will help them generate wealth.

Speaker 2: 8:41

They're not these hedge funds. Right now, we have historically low housing inventory still Not the lowest ever, but still close to it. We have historically low vacancy rates and rentals and in purchase in the purchase housing market, so we don't have a lot to give people. To put in perspective, like I said when we intro this, as of June, hedge funds owned about 500 and was in over 540. Where did I write that down? Yeah, 574, about 574,000 homes. And then, for reference, realtorcom says that in November of 2023, which is last month we had a total of 754,846 homes in the market for sale. This is that's crazy numbers. Imagine what it would help affordability and availability in housing for the people that we work with most of the time for some home buyers. We talked in our last podcast about what's going on with interest rates and broke down a little bit the what's and the why's and how. Housing inventory doesn't get better in a low interest rate environment as rates go down housing inventory goes down with it because sellers become buyers.

Speaker 2: 10:01

If you get out of your 3% or 4% mortgage to go to 5% or 6%, you're a net zero in the inventory space and over a third of all home buyers are first-time home buyers, so it is new buyers entering the market without a house to sell to add to it. So they're worse than a net zero.

Speaker 2: 10:17

And about 93% of first-time home buyers will mortgage their home. They don't pay cash for it and we see purchase application data continue to increase, so we can see this wave of demand that's coming. If we could find a way to get supply to meet that demand, that would be incredible. You know a little bit more about what Seattle and other surrounding cities are doing with ADUs being able to short-play your property and being able to add some affordable housing inventory by building on your own lot and selling it off. You can talk about that, but there's one solution. The other solution is how about we just get, how about we don't jack up prices for everyday people, everyday people's basic necessity of living, by having hedge funds come in and purchase some of these?

Speaker 1: 11:03

It's like that guy who was oh, I think we lost Brian for a second. Let's see if we get him back. Folks, now I'm wondering what Brian? Hey, brian, we lost you there for a second. You were, you're about to say oh, you saw them in the background. Okay, well, just to let everyone know that was hanging on to every word you say. You were about to say it was like when I was talking to, and then it cut out.

Speaker 2: 11:44

So I don't remember I said so much and said no. It was like. I don't know if you guys remember Martin Sibley, or whatever his name was. Who bought what did he do? He bought DeraPrim, the rights to DeraPrim, some life saving medicine 2023, 2022, something like that 2021 and jacked the price way, way, way, way, way up. So you had this medicine that was on the market. It was this price. He comes in and buys it, has a monopoly on it, jacks the price way up.

Speaker 2: 12:13

He was on TV, he was just this real smug looking guy like, yeah, sorry, I own it now, that's what you're gonna pay. And he had taken the core for it.

Speaker 1: 12:18

It's similar to that.

Speaker 2: 12:20

This is. It's not the same because it's medicine, but housing is a very real need and it is a basic necessity that is being advantageous and basic necessity that is being vanted about and strings are being pulled to where we sit across some people every day and say I'm really sorry, housing prices are going to this because of this and now your payment is this, and we can or cannot afford it.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I think it's I think it's great.

Speaker 2: 12:43

I don't think the bill is gonna pass. I mean there's too much lobbying money in it, but I think it's a great start.

Speaker 1: 12:47

I think it's almost certain the bill won't pass. Yeah, and that's what I. That's what I'm really afraid of, but like, not even afraid of I just it's. I'm not trying to be pessimistic here, I just I feel like that's just how it's gonna be. You know what I mean? Yeah, just realistic. There's too much money in it.

Speaker 2: 13:08

And eventually this is the introduction of it and this is a solution that's been presented I think people can get behind and then the voice of the people will end up speaking, and it will. Some form of this will eventually pass, not soon enough, not as soon as we would like, but this form of the bill, this first iteration, is not gonna do anything. Except for people like us talk about it and get it out of the public mind square.

Speaker 1: 13:32

I completely agree, but I mean at least we're, you know, bringing more of people aware of it.

Speaker 1: 13:39

One cool thing and maybe we can dive more into it as more research comes to light on it, because it's pretty new.

Speaker 1: 13:45

I know it's passed local, locally here, and cities have so long to fully adopt the interpretation to enforce it in each in any given city right here. But there is the legislation in the Greater Seattle area right now for, or the law for, the middle housing right now. So we've got some cool things going on where in a lot of areas you can, in single family residence, you can build duplex so cool, yeah. And then they also have an ADU bill so you can build an accessory dwelling unit almost like on any lot. As long as now there I mean, obviously there are certain obviously like restrictions with like you have to have the size to literally put it in there, but they've almost uplifted almost any restriction where there were once one to not be able to put one in there. Now you can put them in there. So there are. Really. This area is trying to combat just the density of everyone living here and not enough space to put people in homes.

Speaker 2: 15:00

Yeah, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and FHA are have updated their guidelines too to allow more income from ADUs. When somebody applies for a loan and a house has an ADU on it as well. So that means if you own a home and you wanna build an ADU and then you sell that house, you could have potentially more people qualified because it can use some of that rental income from the ADU.

Speaker 1: 15:23

I saw that and I saw and maybe you can speak on that and I don't remember what the specific numbers were, but it was almost like someone could get qualified for something, even if they were saying the potential was they intend on building versus they'll get qualified for more if it already has one there. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 15:43

I don't know about that. Honestly, too, my buddies are really, really, really smart lending guideline guys. I'm not that I know where to get that information, but on the spot nah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:55

So, we have investors that are starting to look into this more that we're, and we're trying to research it more, because the problem with it is there is the general regulation now. So all of the counties are like, okay, great, this is the guidelines and these are the rules. Basically, anywhere where there's residential, you can now build a duplex and potentially build a fourplex. Depending on some other guidelines, it's like very generalized, but now it goes down to the city levels where they have up till certain timeframe to adopt that. And then one thing that will sort of one caveat that kind of takes you out of the race of being able to count towards this is if you're on septic, so you need to be hooked up to get there to be able to take advantage of this middle housing.

Speaker 2: 16:57

That was fast, yeah, yeah. And even if you put another septic in or upgrade your septic to fit more, I know my house has the main house in ADU and we have a septic for each.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Right, yeah, so I think there and this is just so soon a lot more is gonna be talking about it, and it's so soon that the news hasn't really been. This isn't on the forefront of it, but I'm sure the general news in the local Seattle area is gonna be talking more about this when it's fully adopted, which I'm trying to remember, if that's gonna actually be July of this year or July of next year, so it's either 2024 or 2025, but the news will actually pick up on it once it's actually solidified everywhere.

Speaker 2: 17:38

I think so and it's kind of. I mean, we like it because it's our job and we chose it as a career, but it's kind of boring. Unless you are looking to buy your cellar house, unless you're in that spot in life, then it makes sense, Then it's important to you and you're interested in it. So I can see why the news isn't picking most of this up, because unless you're buying or selling, nobody really cares. We care because we help people who are buying and who are selling. So we have to know this information. But yeah, I think it'll be more widely spread as it catches on more and people have these experiences they could talk about. Well, I did this and this is how it helped me.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Exactly exactly. So we're just I'm gonna be looking into it a whole lot more for all my clients as it becomes more relevant and more clients need to adopt it. I have a few investors that are really wanting to actually starting to take advantage of it now, but there's some a lot of investors are like well, I don't wanna buy anything now when I can't really actually take advantage of building something on a lot till a year from now.

Speaker 2: 18:37

So how much of that? Let's talk about this a little bit. How much of that screams I'm gonna buy when rates go down? If there's something we can impart from this podcast, these lives, it is act before everybody else does.

Speaker 1: 18:52

I know, I know See something come out of the pipe.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Take advantage of it now and get out in front of it. It's like when Gretzi said skate's where the puck is going, not where it is where it's going. So if you see this coming, people are gonna be able to increase the value of their houses with this legislation. Let's go get on it.

Speaker 1: 19:14

Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:17

There was some. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Yeah, I completely agree. So there was someone that I was talking to a while ago that talking to. There was someone that I was talking to a while back that was looking to buy in the Seattle area. For a while kept falling up with them and then just randomly they told me the other day when I followed up with them again. They just surprised me out of nowhere and they're like, hey, we just spur of the moment, we bought three hours away. I'm like, oh, how does that work with your work situation? They're like, yeah, we have to suck it up Cause so they're commuting like to work now. Yeah, I'm like three hours.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yeah, I'm like is your work situation ever gonna change? And they're like probably not.

Speaker 2: 20:11

And I went to Oregon this earlier this week for some work stuff and I was like a three hour drive and driving there and driving back with traffic. I was in the car for seven hours just that day. Oh no way.

Speaker 1: 20:23

Yeah, yeah. So I and I can easily do three hours cumulatively with everywhere I'm going. You know, between all the three counties that I cover King, pearson, zulomish, especially if, like, I really try to get it to where I'm not like zigzagging, you know, if the client takes me to the Olympia, then back up to Snowmish and then back to King. But I mean, I can't imagine that being like you're commuting three in and three in and that's six total. You know that's.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Every day and during rush hour. There aren't enough podcasts in the world, man.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't, I wouldn't have. No, that doesn't sound like a Christmas gift to me, I don't know, but you know what it probably works for them hopefully.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, so how do you think this hedge fund control of American Homes Act is going to it's what it's called is going to. How do you think it's going to work its way through? Because it's not getting a whole lot of publicity outside of people like us.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Yeah, I don't think it is. I don't think it's getting a whole lot of track. I mean, I think a lot of us are getting excited on it at the same time, like it's like an exciting thing to hear, like almost like a wishful dream, but like it probably won't go through yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:34

You know, Not right away, three years away from it starting to come to see.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Yeah, but I think this is like the first shot at trying to first crack at it, you know, because, like this is what has to happen with legislation Nothing ever gets passed on the first round. Like you take multiple shots, that's something, until you hit the target, you know. So I think they're going to have to do a couple of rounds, and we know how Congress is, especially on both sides of the aisle. They're going to go back and forth on something like this and they're going to be multiple renditions on it. People are going to compromise on both sides. They're going to throw random stuff in it that are nothing to do with resident. You know one side is going to be like, well, I want to throw something in.

Speaker 2: 22:13

Put pork in for us something yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:14

Yeah, yeah, you know they're going to, you know, lobby something with you know, with food, you know, and they're going to throw that in there too, you know. So, yeah, I don't know, this one's probably not going to get passed, but the sheer fact that we're here where they're finally taking their first crack at it in its 2023, says a lot, because we have these huge startups or not startups, I shouldn't say startups huge monolith companies, like not even just fully real estate companies, right, but we have other I'm not going to name them but tech companies that have also kind of gone off and created these companies where you can hold stock in real estate, like REITs, right.

Speaker 1: 23:07

I don't know if you've heard of REITs.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Real estate investment trust.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Yeah, it's almost like they're training a lot of millennials, or even the generation after not sure what that's called yet but the generation below millennials, if we've crossed that threshold.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Gen Z. Gen Z.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Yeah, gen Z yeah, I don't know why I forgot that term, gen Z below.

Speaker 2: 23:31

The eight Tide pods. No wonder they called them Gen Z. That's the last time.

Speaker 1: 23:35

I think they're training them to be like well, it's this tough to buy real estate and it's this expensive. It's not really attractive anymore to own a home and you don't want that permanency. I mean, it's almost like they're training them that the American dream isn't attractive anymore to go after and actually mean something that's not attractive anymore and it's more attractive to rent and be fluid in not owning something and it's more attractive on more quicker results on cryptocurrency and getting higher return on investment a lot quicker on stuff. So how about, instead of owning a home, how about you just own portions in these trusts?

Speaker 2: 24:22

That and fractional ownership. Jeff Bezos started a company I forget the name of it off hand a fractional ownership, which maybe that's the way the market will go. It's going to be. Something has to change.

Speaker 1: 24:32

But then that here's the thing at the end of the day, you're not in that home. You know what I mean. Here's the thing at the end of the day, I'm living in the home. That's also an investment for me. You know what I mean. It's appreciating for me, but I also get to participate in it being my dwelling.

Speaker 2: 24:54

It's the unique value of real estate. You buy a car you get to use it, but it loses value right away. You buy a house you get to live in it. You get to make it the way that you want it to. You need to build memories in it. Christmas morning is coming up for people to celebrate that. You get all of these incredible and tangible benefits while this increases in value. That's unique to pretty much real estate.

Speaker 2: 25:19

You can people invest in things like sneakers that go up in value or baseball cards. You can get just like a stock. You can get some value out of that, but you can't really use it. If you use the shoes, they're going to go down in value. Real estate is different that way and maybe that'll be important to people, maybe it won't, but I don't think that that part of it ever goes away of. I have to live inside somewhere. I mean there's a lot of van living, but not I'm most likely going to be living inside, and if I'm going to be living inside, it is almost always not always, but almost always in my best interest to own the thing I live in so that I can both live inside and benefit from the appreciation and the amortization of houses growing in value and paying down.

Speaker 1: 25:59

Yeah, I completely agree and I think you know it's just like I've been saying, it's yeah, you are. I've even taken a sip of, I've got my water and I've got my Dr Pepper zero right here, anyways, because I already drank my coffee. So I think it's just a different. The problem is it's not just a different generational thing, but it's a completely different time that we're living in right now, which is I progress of society.

Speaker 2: 26:31

It's going to go one way or another.

Speaker 1: 26:33

I totally get it too, like I understand. I tell this, I sympathize with people like it's harder to buy now than it was when I bought in 2014. You know, that's just that's how it is, but in some, in some aspects, you actually have less competition right now currently, very right now, like very present right now than I did in 2014.

Speaker 2: 27:00

You know, so like.

Speaker 1: 27:02

That's just like there's. There's pros and cons to every market when it comes to home ownership, and there's pros and cons on both sides of the aisle, whether you're a buyer or a seller, you know so. Not every market is always going to have. It's one completely one sided, where everything's in favor of the seller and everything's in favor of the buyer, and this is why I always bring it home to like. It's so important to just start your real estate journey, whether you're buying and selling, talk to someone that you know, like and trust, to just go over all your options and figure out what the next first step is. When should you start that process? You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 27:43

Yeah, there's. You said it was easier to buy a house in 2014 than it is now, and you can go back almost any time in history and say it was easier than now and I don't see how that's not going to continue. People wait until 2025, 2026 because they have a certain narrative about the market, are going to regret it. People have waited until 2026 because they have to go to school. Like changes, job changes, real estate ownership doesn't make sense to them right now. That's fine. That's a lot of people in society.

Speaker 1: 28:11

And we get it. Yeah, and that's a lot of people like you just said, yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Real estate went up a bunch in 2020, 2021 and continue to go up in 2022. And, despite a lot of naysayers, it also went up in 2023. People didn't think that we did, but it also went up in 2023. And some people like, well it's, eventually it has to go down. I can't keep going up. I'm going to throw a stat out at you. Between 1943 and 1947, real estate prices compounded 118%. Do you know?

Speaker 1: 28:40

what they did after that.

Speaker 2: 28:42

They continue to go up for 43 years in a row. Between 1974 and 79, prices compounded 93%. You know what they did after that? They went up for 10 years in a row and then had one year of negative 1% appreciation, down by 1%, and then went up for another 14 consecutive years, so 24 out of 25 years. They increased Real estate went down in 2007,. Three thousand 11. Sure, of course it did.

Speaker 2: 29:09

But then it went up from 2012 all the way through 2013, 23 and is showing no signs of letting up, and we will always be able to look back in the past and say I wish I would have then. You don't have to go. You can look at it now and look back and say, instead of I wish I would have then I'm so glad I did that. How glad are you that you bought your house in 2014?

Speaker 2: 29:30

Oh, so glad Was it a stretch where you kind of surprised like, oh my gosh, I'm taking on a mortgage and buying.

Speaker 1: 29:37

Now I think every time you buy, any time, you're buying your first home, unless you're my clients, like in my that, by the way, shameless plug you can go check out my video testimonial playlist on YouTube and they're my most recent video testimony. You can check them out on there. Unless you're my clients there where they bought at, where they've been renting after 32 years and they've owned a business, where they're making millions of dollars from that business and they're buying luxury property as their first property.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Hold on. Yeah, I want to talk about those people.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Yeah, you know this story. I worked for that man when I was in high school.

Speaker 1: 30:24

I know you did. Yeah, I'm not. I don't want to out their name on here.

Speaker 2: 30:27

I don't want to out their name either because you don't, they don't know me from high school, but what a small world that I was like. Wait a second, because I'm in my 40s, so high school was a long time ago. That's how long this man has been building this business. We're not saying like he's been putting his money to that and he did any do well for himself. I'm so proud of them, I think they.

Speaker 1: 30:46

I think that was such an amazing story.

Speaker 2: 30:49

And.

Speaker 1: 30:50

I was so honored to work for them and help them buy their first house and I'm so glad that that so real quick they were. They were referred to me by their daughter, who was a past client of mine, so I helped her daughter and her husband buy and sell Like, I think, at the beginning of the pandemic In locally in the area as well. So again, that's one thing. I just love the stories that we collect along the years and the people that we work with and who we can connect with. But I think that was so amazing that it's just such a small world that you worked with him way back in the day, you know and he's a great example.

Speaker 2: 31:27

If you know what? Maybe it does make sense to wait, because I'm building a business. Maybe it does. Yeah maybe it does. We're not saying everybody should buy.

Speaker 1: 31:35

What we're saying is Everybody should look at the option of it and then decide if it's best for them, exactly, exactly, and that's what he did, and that's what he told me that he did. But then I have plenty of other people in my video testimonials that are more like. Like, like you just mentioned, when we bought, you know, my wife and I were, I think, what was I? I think I was 24. I want to say, when I bought my first house and yeah, I think I would mention, like you was like oh my gosh, this is a big investment. You know, like needed crush numbers, like make sure we're doing this right.

Speaker 2: 32:10

I'm a real adult now.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Yeah, like you know, I was proud of that. You know I was I all of a minute on here, guys. I bought my home in 2014 for $282,000. I could put it on the market today for $640,000 and All you did was live just yeah, I mean I've done some minor updates. My, my foster dog has chewed up my back deck a Little bit, but I love him so much so, if you are going to be adopting this dog.

Speaker 2: 32:47

Just know that his cuteness goes.

Speaker 1: 32:49

Oh, he's already adopted, so hopefully they didn't hear this, but you know.

Speaker 2: 32:56

This is why you get an inspection when you buy a house or get a dog.

Speaker 1: 32:59

We're gonna dog. Yeah, no, um, you know what's interesting that that we had? He was so popular he had he had 14. No, no, no, he had Like 19 foster applications. We went through like three People back-to-back, one to see him and we had a like a line behind it, right. So it was like the third person would, thankfully the second, no, the, the first couple of some. They fell in love but they weren't ready to adopt yet. Because they Weren't ready, they were still mourning the the loss of the previous dog, right.

Speaker 1: 33:32

It was like six months ago, second person that was wanting to adopt him. They were kind of very wishy-washy on it and their whole idea. They they're like Well, we really want like this whole like, can we just like bring him home to try him out for a couple weeks and see if we want to adopt her or not? And it's like that's just not the way the adopt, you know, in the adoption process.

Speaker 2: 33:52

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1: 33:54

So. But then third, third people came over, fell in love, instant connection. I'm like, yep, they're the ones super solid, and now we're babysitting them through Christmas while they're on the holiday break.

Speaker 2: 34:04

So this is the best deal ever for you. Yeah, so my daughter still gets this foster dog through Christmas.

Speaker 1: 34:11

You know he's in our Christmas photo, which is here. I'll put it real quick on the screen for you all see that good boy.

Speaker 2: 34:19

Look at that good boy there you go, there's tango right here. Oh Can. I tell you that hold on, go back to that picture. We're gonna talk about me because obviously yeah this picture happened.

Speaker 2: 34:30

I had this plate of potatoes. So for Thanksgiving I do shirt and tie, of course, and so that's a blazer Because it's a very formal holiday and the best of all the holidays in the history of the world, and then I do like sweatpants because I'm gonna do some work at that table. So this is after dinner and I was eating a plate of mashed potatoes and my sister came up and hit the bottom of it right into my face. Oh man, I mean, somebody got a picture of her right after that. So she had just like Create like pie to me in the face just before oh man, that's awesome Well.

Speaker 1: 34:59

I thought it was good for the thumbnail, for sure.

Speaker 2: 35:02

Yep, it was. It was hilarious.

Speaker 1: 35:04

That was good. Well, everyone again, we just want to remind you have a merry, wonderful Christmas and a happy holiday season, you know. Again, just to bring this home. We don't know if this will go through likely not, but you know this would. I think this would be a really good thing for the real estate industry as a whole, for especially a big win for home buyers and home sellers, so just anyone looking In the single family space and renters looking to become buyers too. This will help everyone, including renters. If you want to help Rental prices in the long-term game, if you want to help affordability for first time home buyers, um, stabilize the market better, um, I think getting wall street out of out of the single family space is a huge win and Congress taking their first crack at it, I think, is a good sign, and now let's see how many cracks it takes.

Speaker 2: 36:01

Call your congressperson, erin, we're gonna put the. So this bill is on like 14 pages long.

Speaker 1: 36:06

Uh can we put show? Okay, you pull it up and I'll put it up on the screen.

Speaker 2: 36:10

Yeah, um, all right, you ready. Well, I can I push. Can you put show notes in like and where we put the podcast or not? Comments, like you.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Can I what sorry?

Speaker 2: 36:22

can you put? Can you we can just put links into the like where the podcast is gonna be? I can.

Speaker 1: 36:27

Yeah, so everyone, I can put this um, I'll put the uh. So on the youtube channel I'll put the links in the description. Now all the other social media sites. They don't like links in the description. They kill our reach and you guys can't see them. But you will see the link in the comments everywhere else, yep so we're gonna provide the link to this bill.

Speaker 2: 36:50

Call your congressperson. That's what you can do. Call your congressperson and tell them hey, what is this bill called? Again, it is called like the hedge fund get out of housing bill or something in hedge fund control of American Homes Act. Call, call your congressperson and say, hey, this should pass. I want you to vote yes on this. Call them. Call them. Even though they call them, we'll put the actual bill link. It's only 14 pages. Like Aaron said, there's gonna be a lot of pork that's added. It'll probably be a thousand and 14 pages by the time. We can split it on. But the crux of it is let's help home affordability in a way that is sustainable. Let's have families purchase single family homes. Let's have single men and single women and single whatever gender you are, the ability to move into something that is yours. Either that or the ability to pay affordable rent, because jacking up a rent when you own all the houses on the block is pretty easy to do.

Speaker 1: 37:43

Yeah, no, super easy to do, barely an inconvenience. Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2: 37:48

So we will. It barely inconvenience me to raise your rent. Yeah, If you're a TV, Mr Scrooge. Yes, let's be Bob Cratchit. This and what's the other guys name Tim.

Speaker 1: 37:59

Tiny Tim, tim, tim, tim Tim. Yeah, yeah, so thanks guys.

Speaker 2: 38:04

We'll put those links in where Aaron said the well, so that you guys can call your congressperson.

Speaker 1: 38:08

And a little help from your congressperson. Yeah, 100%, 100%. Well, again, happy holidays everyone. One quick reminder Brian Laflame here, local Washington state mortgage lender, through movement mortgage, and I have no slogan for Brian, but I'm just gonna make one up on the spot. With the power of, through power of home ownership, he'll help move your mortgage to cement your dreams into home ownership. Nope, that was terrible.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Yeah, that was a lot of time. Like nobody's eyes are meeting.

Speaker 1: 38:47

And Aaron Marr here, your local realtor in the greater Seattle area. I serve buyers and sellers and King Pierce and so much counties. I get call, text and emails every day from people just like you looking to make your move in the greater Seattle area or buy or sell houses here in the greater Seattle area. So whether you're looking to make your move in nine days or nine months, give me a call, shoot me a text, send me an email or my favorite schedule let's zoom meeting with me. All of the information can be found Below in the description. And until don't schedule on Christmas, though I'm blocking that out and until next time I hope to be showing you around town. See you, guys, on the next podcast. We're probably not gonna do one next week, so we're gonna see you next year. Folks have a great day and happy holidays.

Speaker 2: 39:53

All right, all right.