The Hidden Housing Crisis Nobody Wants to Talk About

This episode dives into the real state of the U.S. housing market, uncovering early warning signs that many buyers and investors are overlooking. From rising foreclosure risks and FHA loan pressure to affordability challenges and shifting inventory trends, we break down what the latest housing data is really showing. Housing analyst Melody Wright shares insights from past market cycles and explains why today’s conditions may signal deeper changes ahead. If you’re watching real estate trends, planning to buy, or investing in property, this conversation offers a grounded perspective on where the market could be heading. 

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Transcript

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we have the silver tsunami that you know for whatever reason nobody wants to acknowledge or talk about and I'm not I don't wish these folks uh what's in their future but it's in my future too it's just the reality and you know Harvard has said that by 2035 15.6 million people um will leave us and then by 23rd like 2050 it's another 26 million and again they own the majority of the homes and they own the majority of their rentals so you take a city like San Diego or you take a city like Atlanta it's a owner occupancy is very low in our major metropolitan cities and so that means a lot of inventory is gonna be coming to market welcome to the foreclosure.com Video Podcast I'm thrilled to introduce our guest speaker today Housing Analyst Melody Wright Melody it's always a pleasure to speak with you same and it's my pleasure to be here I'm really excited about today Tim me too I'm beyond excited I really think uh with everything going on in the world this is uh important subject to to talk about so before we jump in can you tell the audience a brief background of your real estate history yes so I'll try to do this quick I fell into mortgage by accident in 2006 cause that's how everybody gets into this business um and it was just at the wrong time or the right time some might say um yeah we had like one profitable month or something like that and you know I went to a party where they were celebrating uh so we were owned by GM at the time and they were celebrating the highest profits that GM had ever had wow because of us and so balloons were falling from the sky there was a life size Lego house yeah I've described this before but but you know essentially and then virtually the next month we started writing down millions and millions of dollars and so it was just wild and so I wrote that I I started in a corporate finance department and so I was always with the executives doing you know strategic initiatives things like that and so uh I really didn't have a life I rode that crisis out uh by the end of it you know we had to uh file bankruptcy we were a top five originator and servicer GMAC and I I sort of managed that but then they said to me because you know you remember what happened with the consent orders and all of the just drama back then around foreclosure um my servicing president kind of tapped me and said you've got to go fix this mess it's a dumpster fire you know we had 65,000 foreclosures at the time that I was managing and not moving you know cause the states had been on hold I mean it was just and Fanny and Freddie kind of came to us and said if you don't get your seriously delinquent moving uh we're gonna pull your servicing which would have tanked the bankruptcy auction and cost thousands of people their jobs so they sent me on the road I just went all over the country into these default firms and um just just went loan by loan and managed them and my Fannie Mae rep won an award that year because you know surely it was what she did that uh got that moving but it was moving to successful whatever that sex success successful resolution was going to be which many times might not be foreclosure but you know what people don't remember or think about is that living under that threat is is really awful and so it doesn't do the barber any good to extend it for too long but anyway after that I went off into other non banks trying to implement DOD Frank trying to share the lessons that I had Learned the funny thing was nobody was interested and um you know the technology wasn't getting any better and so I left thinking well maybe I can affect the industry through creating technology and then I realized they're just not interested you know the the technology companies have the monopoly and they don't really uh you know those core systems go back to 1968 in the early 70s and people don't even know the code anymore so you can't change it so I spent several years just doing wrap around solutions but then while I was there I I have a background in academia that's why I had to go get a job at a mortgage company to pay back those student loans but anyway you know I and I studied macroeconomics when I was in grad school and so um one another president said you gotta tell me when rates are about to rise and so I just jumped in to understand what the heck was happening uh could it make sense the stock market was up you know things like that and that's when I joined social media I was always a hater of social media I could not stand it and you know and joined only because I couldn't find my favorite economist anywhere else like they were talking on Twitter and then that's uh you know around 2023 everything that I heard people saying about the housing market was wrong I was just like what you know and so that's when I went out on the road drove all over the country to really assess these housing markets myself I started tracking 85 markets I'm looking at listings every week and looking I don't use AI because you that that's what I Learned during the GOC as well the great financial crisis is that you have to look under the covers or but if you just look at aggregate data you will never find solutions you have to look at what's actually happening under the do those loan level reviews do those city reviews to see what was going on and I gotta tell you what was going on was nothing like what I was uh uh what was people were saying and so that's how we got here wow okay well it sounds like you know default well I do I I do know default very well and I'm young enough this is the the the important thing Tim I'm not saying I'm young but but I'm I was young enough during the crisis and so I'm one of the few left like I'm one of the few people who understand this the default industry at all and most of the people that are in it now are working for places with large portfolios but they had very small portfolios back then and that's your big non banks like rocket and and nation star of Mister Cooper whatever you want to call them and so these people don't have this expertise and at the same time as you may know the attorney firms have been defunded because they didn't have foreclosures and the way that they get paid is called milestone billing and so they don't get paid till you really get to that successful sale um so they've lost a lot of knowledge as well so we are gearing up for um it's going to be it's going to be just like last time in terms of people that were running the show did not really understand foreclosure did not understand default and so I I believe it's going to be messy again wow yeah well sorry a lot of information I'm trying to digest no I'm sorry no it's it's great it's amazing I mean I I I I appreciate that that background because it it does kind of show shows how we got here so let's let's kind of see let's let's dive in a little bit further I know you've called this the perfect storm what are the key forces colliding right now that make this cycle different than anything you've seen before for the oh man you know partly I would say so the biggest deal I think is that we've missed how much speculation was in the housing market and and it's not just from one cycle it really started in the late eighties and so but you know and it's when they started they changed housing in the uh CPI you know that that measures inflation to treat housing as an investment I mean our whole culture is around treating housing as an investment so at the same so in 2012 I stood at these auctions I was there when institutional investors came in and bought up a lot of those homes those people are now fire selling I met with one of those was in a room with him biggest one last uh fall and he said as soon as leases are up they're rehabbing and and selling them and so you that's why you're seeing in markets like San Antonio Tampa Atlanta where they have big presences you're seeing price drops already cause they don't they don't care they're just like what can I sell yeah put it on the market yeah um so so you've got so this speculation is is has is going to rinse out of the system cause what's different well property taxes and insurance just got out of control and so this doesn't make sense for the institutional investors to do anymore it doesn't make sense for the mom and pop investors to do anymore it doesn't make sense for the boomers who are holding on to all of these assets and so they own the majority of the homes they often have second third fourth homes they also have these big rental portfolios but people aren't making money doing long term rental they're not making money doing short term rental there's too many of them you know we got plenty of hotels we're not traveling like we did in 21 with like 20 of our family members you know but but Tim people went out and built like those houses as if that was what was gonna be in the future like that 20 20 members of a family would stay in one Airbnb well that's not how we roll so in the US you know we did when we couldn't see each other for a long time but that's and so you know you've yeah and you've got you know you've got tourism down and and you know so we and so there's that and then at the same time everybody has this uh I call it the inventory shortage myth um I just was at a housing policy conference where every single person there believed it that was in Florida right in Florida and what do they do they look back and they say well see all these years we didn't build it's like because you overbuilt that that's what happened and then also at the same time the speculation every you could not turn on a TV without seeing some fix and flip show and so all these speculators went into the market but so at the same time people built like crazy they built multi family like crazy they built houses like crazy and and they believe I so I've traveled all over the Sun Belt and every single one of those Sun Belt cities I thought every single Californian and New Yorker was coming to their city and so they didn't build starter homes either like a lot of what they built were was luxury like luxury in an exurb with a zero lot line like I mean you see this stuff all over the country just doesn't make sense and it's in the exurbs but what you're seeing right now is kind of people coming back in from the exurbs and we're gonna see more of that as prices get more affordable in the cities so the builders pain is only just beginning you might have seen some of their results that came out this week so there's that and then here's the big one that no one in the so we can talk all day about unaffordability and that's the property taxes and insurance just getting way too much I mean we I still oversee some servicing books and what we just had to advance in excess of what we did last year for property tax and insurance very significant I don't know if people know that but servicers have to pay that money and so and when you're in when you're delinquent uh that means a servicer has to put that cash out and so um you know that's that's what happens wow um yeah and so I you know and the big one that is again nobody wants to talk about is really our demographics and you know unfortunately we have not been birthing babies like we used to um yeah you know it's it's it's under it's we're not even really at replacement rate anymore um and then we have the silver tsunami that you know for whatever reason nobody wants to acknowledge or talk about and I'm not I don't wish these folks uh what's in their future but it's in my future too it's just the reality and you know Harvard has said that by 2035 15.6 million people Tom will leave us and then by 23rd like 2050 it's another 26 million and again they own the majority of the homes and they own the majority of the rentals so you take a city like San Diego or you take a city like Atlanta it's a owner occupancy is very low in our major metropolitan cities and so that means a lot of inventory is gonna be coming to market and what we saw last year was rage de listing where people pulled it all off because they couldn't get the price they wanted and it most of the and that we're also seeing cancellations because those property inspections are coming back in because people haven't been able to afford to do repairs for the past couple years and so like that this is a perfect it's all happening at the same time but the what why people why we haven't so in some areas like this is happening much faster um in the and you know in some areas there's holdouts like so the Midwest for instance has has been holding up because all the investors went there when they couldn't afford when you weren't cash flowing anymore in the south put it that way because everything was too expensive so we're just now topping that corner are topping that are you know what I mean rounding that quarter yeah you know ha ha ha but in the northeast they're just they're very delusional and they have not accepted the demographic situation so something I've been tracking a lot are those uh probate notices and the pre probate notices and yeah because that is a rate it's not we've never you know we've always talked about in the industry home price appreciation or you know home sale you know looking at different factors but we're going to have to start looking at the death rate in these cities because um this is gonna have a huge impact on the housing market and by the way you know Charles Schwab did a study and they said you know 70% of inherited properties get sold and it's gonna be worse because these kids can't afford these mansions yeah wow that was a lot that's well no I mean that's it is a lot but I can validate the silver tsunami inventory aspect you know me and my three closest friends we've all had to list our family's houses our parents'houses in the last three months since the beginning of this year because of death and wow and I'm you know just reaching I'm my late 30s about to be my 40s so I'm starting to see that around my peers as well so wow well I thank you for that confirmation just yeah I know I love all the anecdotal I can get because so a few people are talking about it and and like you were just saying how it's how it's different locally I I have a a lot of my family is on the west coast of Florida so I have my eyes on the Naples Fort Myers Port Charlotte market and then I'm here on the East Coast so watching the Tri County Dave Brower and it's delusional in comparison and you're already starting to see it on over there give it those markets were hit by a couple hurricanes that I think sped that process up oh it definitely did yeah where over here I think people are still you know even friends and family are are a little delusional on what the price is cause they're looking at what you know cause the prices in Florida it's different than maybe Austin for example it didn't peak until I don't think maybe the end of 2024 and then it's just kind of stayed yes you know stagnant I guess so yes it's actually amazing to watch Tim because you saw the listings come like that's the funny thing cause the listings aren't exploding in Florida anymore cause you know they just haven't been sold and they're they're high I mean Miami freaks me out every time I look at it but um so you know but that's the thing people are holding on they're delusional and until there's some sort of empathy's uh to get them to wake up they're gonna hold on and rage delist and so you know that's why and it's just taking it's taking a very long time but I think this uncertainty around the war I think you're going to see more and more people start coming to market well yeah and you you hear everything going on with the unemployment market yeah and unemployment what's gonna happen in the yeah you know with jobs and then right alone AI and how that's gonna right things but exactly right let me bring let's let me take a step back you you warned about FHA related issues what's happening beneath the surface and I'm sorry why in this why isn't this getting more attention it's kind of wild so again we have to point to narrative like I mean if if this were 2006 and there was a book of mortgages that was 13 over 13% delinquent I don't care how big it was you'd be talking somebody would be talking about it um but what they did so we we crossed the Rubicon in 2023 in June and that's when you seasonally start to see delinquency pick up and I noticed it no one said a word and so what happened we had to get through an election year so they rolled out this very aggressive advanced slow modification where people could just keep going back there was no limit the only limit was 30% of your UPB so just imagine you did 18 months of the forbearance already but then you couldn't pay again you go and say I can't pay they say no problem we're gonna do a partial claim we're gonna put that on the back of your mortgage to be paid off when you pay off the the loan or sell the house and they just kept going back back and back and then fraudsters got it a wind of this and they just wouldn't pay at all for the first year but that's these so that's FHA has doubled since the GFC and this is your subprime this is your government back yeah wow yes this is so it's it's about roughly depending on what month between 13 and 15% of the market your private is only 3% but it's already 12% delinquent too so you're looking at 15% of the market that is already over 10% delinquent and what they've been doing on the Fannie and Freddie side is selling aggressively and I'm hearing it's happening on the sly in FHA 2 but but they're selling their non performing loans so it makes them look great and then the Fed only tracks delinquency uh in its main schedule at the commercial banks which they Learned they they are not in mortgage like they used to be and then the Fed also will use like uh echo facts but they're not capturing for instance uh I think a lot of these loans that have been sold off to hedge funds aren't reporting to credit I had that confirmed for me at a conference two years ago there's smaller servicers and and I and you may know this I don't know but if you're in the industry and you've ever seen one of those credit reporting files I mean you know that it's they're not accurate anyway and so you know it's it's some it's just a situation where you know credit scores were inflated speculation was was out of control and the government was pumping subprime so guess where we're headed yeah no you were yeah no please continue oh on the Fanny book I should mention so I mean I can't believe I'm having to have this conversation to him like there's parts of me that still don't believe this because I worked so hard you know to first survive the crisis keep people's jobs and then change the industry and so to have to be talking about this is insane so when you I look at things like the Fannie Mae book is at the same DTI that it was in 2008 I mean the same and and you know after 2008 it went down but now we're back up at the same level I'm just like oh my gosh come on now but you know the industry's done a very good job of crediting quality gospel singing they never mentioned that in 2021 they removed the DTI threshold out of DOD Frank so no anyway so mortgage is in way more trouble than people think because and one another reason that is is that Fanny and Freddie so on the FHA side at least they record the partial claims like they'll record them on public record Fanny and Freddie do not their payment deferrals and that was their solution and so most people don't even know these exist him'cause you remember you remember Covid I mean we were all like yeah crazy you know and somebody said you didn't have to pay your mortgage or hey you're not gonna have to pay all this back nobody's paying attention they're just signing the dotted line so so many people are coming to the closing table and be like wait what I've got a whole another lean on the back of my lawn so yes it's a it's it's it the picture that is out there is is nowhere near the actual reality wow yeah I'm I'm a little speechless yeah yeah in Tampa there's already there's 32,000 underwater mortgages in Tampa Hillsborough County already yeah that's not insignificant for a city of that our county of that size so yeah that's and that's that's where the conference was right Tampa so you're at yes see and I'm sure there was a lot of um inventory sitting oh yes yes I went to a cell center with a pal yeah and he he he he did the secret shopper thing I just can't lie I'm I'm I it's like a big it's one of my biggest I I've been talking about this for the past two days because I was in a room full of liars but I I you know I just can't lie and so but he did the secret shopper kind of thing and we went in and I mean this that guy that sales guy just lied lied and you know they're the the Hammers are still swinging Tim they're still swinging yeah and it's crazy to me yeah it's not but Tim I mean Florida has is I I as I think you know cause you've listened to some of my shows I spent you know in 23 I was down there like living there yeah and and just driving the whole state and it was just it was unbelievable I mean I basically did what I did in 2012 processing those defaults I bizarrely Tim they just built right back in those same areas that got hit so hard it it's nuts it's nuts well I mean here's some other well something else to dive into is we're starting to see sub to subject to financing show up in bankruptcies so of course yes what does that reveal about the true condition of the recent home buyers so you're like one of two people that I can have this conversation with you know um and the industry refused to listen to me I mean I was screaming from the rooftops like the sub 2 is a bigger deal than you think like Pace Morby has like he had a ton of followers you know yeah yeah and and at first they were recording the deeds but then most of them stopped cause they didn't want to do on sale and just like you say and thank you again thank you Tim uh we're seeing it in bankruptcies why because default has been suppressed and so you're not running title the only and FHA is actually starting to call the due on sale clause because they do actually run a what's called a skinny title you probably know every every year and they're finding it but yes that's where we started finding all this crap was in bankruptcy it was like hmm uh sorry investor you're not in first position I hate to tell you yeah and that's that's not the sub 2 thing but that's what we were also finding is like you had multiple lanes go on properties at the same time um because of the recording delays you know LA County had a year long recording delay so if you were smart you could figure it out how to if you had your credit run at exactly the right time you could get multiple loans on one house easy back during Covid wow yeah yeah especially in places like LA how much of today's housing stress stems from affordability versus all the hidden cost the the insurance the taxes the upkeep the buyers didn't plan up plan on having yeah I I think I think a lot of it is the property taxes and insurance but the I mean honestly the replacement cost but you know what you're starting to see are videos like TikTok videos of people just being like I have to move I can't afford these taxes and insurance anymore but you know for their younger generations they can't get a job to afford a house I mean you can't I mean our median household household not individual our household median income in the United States is somewhere around 85 thousand dollars I mean you can't afford a 500 thousand dollar home on that no and and so you know like they can't afford house so it's kind of like for I would say those who can afford it um it's becoming too unaffordable right because of those increases taxes property tax yeah insurance and electric now electricity all on top of that but then those who can't just can't get work to a job that is going to make that purchase make sense and so I think for different sectors of the population the unaffordability has probably impacted you know a little bit differently but now it's just overall way too unaffordable due to all of those things I agree I know I think you're feeling it in any you know income bracket that you're at because a lot of people yes you know they're gonna have their fixed expenses based off their salary but yes you know the fixed expenses seem to keep going up and yes and then for the taxes down here in in in Florida is almost like a cruel joke you saw people that were like desperately buying in 2021 2022 you know FOMO buying is what I call it because they yes they just go in there and you know totally and I just got married so I remember the time it was just crazy we'd show up to a listing and there'd be 60 cars outside you know so they were taking they they take any off they you know you you couldn't put an offer in fast enough to get it and it got to a point where it was like this is wild and I don't think a lot of those people were anticipating the the the cost and taxes right cause right big increase and then all of a sudden with those major hurricanes hitting back to back to back yes that just you know I don't I think that blindsided a lot of people down here oh absolutely and yes then you add in the whole fact that people have to go back to work now so people are leaving uh it doesn't make sense it's almost to rent a home unless you bought it you know way before then you can't rent a home and at a at a at a and and make money you're losing money every month so absolutely no we're definitely seeing that especially you know something I find interesting is there's a lot of neighborhoods in Florida that are H H O a that have high H O A's you know all the different maintenances and stuff oh that's a whole another story those those those price appreciation aren't the same as I just call them more HOA friendly neighborhoods where um where I think more younger families were moving into where there the biggest demand was you know people that needed a home and as you mentioned earlier with all the boomers that aren't moving um it's definitely created a a I don't know what you call it but frozen it's frozen yeah it's frozen it's frozen yeah completely frozen I mean how can we have the lowest sales since 1995 last year and have increased population by 20% that's that's exactly it it should this should be blowing everyone's mind I've never even mentioned that in any article I'm always thinking I was like well what 1995 what was the population in 1995 all we've been talking about exactly all the amount of immigration and free immigration exactly exactly what is that what does that actually you know exactly what does that actually look like it it it's insane like that no one is acknowledging this and and it's just like I I mean it just tells you that since the GFC you know I feel what I actually feel is they just figured out how to do things better and and how to really keep the narrative going so people would not understand where we were um and so yeah it it's those HOA's too become really aggressive uh you know they will foreclose they will I can't tell you how many properties we lost because we didn't get the notice of the you know the first for the them trying to foreclose and they'll do this and the attorneys will get involved you know they'll I mean yeah we're all of the all of the things that we saw back there we're gonna see again and of course there'll be a regulatory response and all of that you know I call it the 2011 playbook that I mean we're probably gonna start to see that fairly soon but I mean it it seems like uh yeah I don't know if that's gonna work the same as it did last time no it's not who's the buyer who is the buyer yeah if the institutions are fire selling who's the buyer no and like you said yesterday they're not the boomers it's not the investors it's not the institutions and it's not the younger demographics because they can't afford it you know so it's like the people who actually need it can't afford to buy a house that's right shelter they can't afford to buy shelter it's now a commodity right but let's go build 10 million more of these so everybody's property goes price goes to the floor I mean like this is it just it's just so crazy to me it's so and and yeah I'm a you know I am a free market gal like I don't want a whole bunch of regulations and stuff and I and I want people who want to be responsible investors to be able to invest but this I mean so just the government manipulation in the market has just has really uh done it a disservice and and you know and they basically fueled speculation and so this I mean an 800,000 dollar loan limit conforming loan limit I mean who what are we doing there like I mean that's insane like shouldn't be okay your conforming loan limit is x percent of the median income in your local in your county that way you wouldn't have all these massive speculators coming in and buying everything up you know so yeah I did it yeah it's it's a little frustrating to sit and talk to um politicians um because they you know that they want to rearrange the deck chairs versus you know you gotta you gotta get off the boat man like they it's going down like you need to you've got to rethink what you're you know and it can't just be build build build like that's not gonna make that's not gonna do anything no so it's never seems it's all out to builders yeah yeah and I mean it seems like the builders are having to do a pull a lot of um cards out of their sleeves just to get the houses sold and how that's affecting their the profits on those it's and that's right and that's what I always I can't remember who I was talking to but they were saying you know everybody's handcuffed to their to their rates what happens when all those when they do drop rates all those people are gonna also list you know so that's a whole another factor I don't think people are even thinking about the boomers that have 2 3 homes that I don't even know it's it's it's like the never think the other side of the equation like at this housing conference all they talked about was there will be millennial demand okay where's this magic demand I agree if home prices were affordable then I think there would be millennial demand you know but uh how are we how are we gonna how they can't afford it so it's not coming until those dynamics change and you know one of the builders I was actually impressed he was a regional I think um get got up at the conference and said after a presentation that was all you know Sunshine and whatever he's like you know how can you tell me that this is this will happen and I take the risk of actually building for this supposed demand like it's it was it was interesting cause you don't typically the builders are you know what I mean like it was but it was yeah so um but I think you know you kind of feel sorry for the builders at some point but I don't because they didn't do their due diligence like that's what really frustrates me and and like I said I you know or I think I told you but at the conference I I offered to take anybody who thought there was a shortage on a tour across the United States the United States even the northeast because I'll show you the vacancy no takers no takers they don't they don't wanna see it they're they're investing they'd rather stick their head in the dirt and pretend nothing's happening so we titled the presentation shaking Off the sand and we had an ostrich with it it's head in the sand see I like I can visual I can see you and all the people's faces right now and I'm just like oh it was not pleasant let me just say I thought I I really thought one of them might kill me the way he was God at me but it was it was like and I know of course I know but you're going against their their interest so I mean people are people are very territorial in that aspect they don't wanna believe that's gonna affect their pocketbook you know exactly and so this next question I think kind of rains in on what we've just talked about in some ways but the how does rising unemployment trends especially among younger buyers translate into real pressure on the housing market oh right and this is not your ordinary recession this is not like you know uh this is the white collar recession uh and when I say of course I know we're not in a technical the NBR hasn't called it one yet I think we're probably there you know but yeah um but yeah this is white collar these are the people that did buy these are I mean these are your technology workers that moved to Dallas you know moved to Austin moved to Charlotte moved to Nashville moved to Florida and and they're losing their jobs so this isn't just like it's not like you know like the mortgage industry yes those technically they're white collar but they get very low paid you know unless you're a realtor I mean that's a whole different thing but but like so so it's not like that if it's it's really well paid individuals I mean cause I I was in technology and Tim I know what those people were making I mean we couldn't get workers which is you know this is how it happens partially why we had to we we we would sometimes use offshore developers and I think now more so than AI that's actually what's happening is you're you're using offshore development teams um just because you know they're they're way less expensive and so you know but so yes I you know this is going to put massive pressure you're already hearing about it people having to move back and you know they get a very nice Severance package typically I mean we're at the stage still where people are getting Severance we're gonna get to the stage where you don't really get any Severance but um and so they can wait they can wait like I just down the street from me very nice home on a college campus a old university so beautiful uh I saw the moving van but I didn't see the house for sale sign until after the moving van had left well what happened you know you just saw them you know decrease the price decrease the price decrease the price and then they delisted it and it because they couldn't sell it and but so some people out there can hold on how long can they hold on well that when that Severance runs out and and interestingly I've had two people contact me this week uh on my sub stack to say hey I'm so sorry I'm gonna have to unsubscribe because I lost my job that's the first time that's happened to him wow yeah and the those people that are reading your substacks are the people who are looking at the data you know on a right granular level I think you know yeah and so you know you know I try to put a lot of meat in the free version you know oh that's I was gonna I was literally gonna say your free version is is amazing you know like yeah you like 85% of it seems like it's the free version so I mean yeah and I well and I I only put stuff below the fold cause I don't wanna you know I don't wanna short change my pain cause no no I mean you have to it's like it's yeah you put a lot of blood sweat and tears in it a lot of blood sweat and tears yeah and it's interesting what you just said about not the pension what'd you say about the Severance the Severance yeah because I I have an insider into a big tech company that just laid off a lot of people and I probably shouldn't say this out loud but it is Oracle and what some of the effort they're doing there to the it just seems like it's just the beginning the snowball is just starting to roll yes and uh yes I mean every day you're starting to see big tech layoffs 5 10% meta I think yesterday is a 10% yeah again I mean again yeah what percent are we out now like yeah exactly and then what I always interesting is like the UPS the Teamsters like the biggest union in the like so like these are huge these aren't small companies these are monsters and like you said you know and um I'm I'm pretty well I'm pretty savvy in AI but I didn't really start even getting into AI until 2023 yeah um so to see how much AI has progressed in the last three or four months is just blown my mind like what you can do with just a prompt in comparison it's it there's I mean even anybody in digital media you know digital marketing I mean the the these jobs are gonna get affected and and we over hired in 21 in 20 you know we use the so I this is what I think you've got to step out of your perspective and look you know just move a little bit to the side and we were all working for the government I mean that's who we were working for because they got those PPP loans then those loans got for my company got it I didn't know that I didn't really know what was going on you know I was like but they shut down our foreign all kinds of stuff that you're seeing happening right now um actually at some of these companies taking away you know parent leave and I mean just but we over hired back then because the government sent out all that money to these companies and then forgave it they just forgave it they just forgave it yeah I mean and like looking at like some of the potential defaults that could have happened back then oh 2020 what what would have happened to the United States the world if that they didn't do something right right everybody thinks of like what you know look at how much that's affected but you also have to realize that also like the default rates were I think you know three or four times worse we had like 8 million people get for parents it was way worse it was three or four times worse than the you know 2008 yep from my yep my understanding so like it needed to happen but you're right it threw off everything and and there is some kind of ebb and flow to foreclosures oh yes it almost needed in some certain sense so just yes kick the can and kick the can until a black swan event happens and it just takes every the legs under everyone that's that's where I think we're potentially heading unfortunately and it's hard to have that conversation with anyone I feel like I'm a complete pessimist these days when I'm just realistically just being like I'm just trying to warn you I'm just talking to you about these things because people are telling me like I I'm not I'm I'm just being I'm just listening you know and just trying to look outside of my own perspective right exactly listening yeah trying and and and we have to be the spokespeople and this is what I think because no one else is saying it and you know I just kind of feel like that is my purpose is that to educate folks and you know at first it was to educate people please don't fall for the Yolo FOMO reality distortion field and go out there and buy something without doing a property appraisal or yeah you know an inspection um and and it was like it was more coaching around hey you know please don't participate in this market and only do it if you I mean you just you've got a years worth of reserves like you are just solid you know but nobody does that in America but now it's going to be transitioning it's going to be transitioning to counties the counties are gonna get wiped out because they went and they spent like drunken sailors they got that American Rescue Act money and then they did their little population based on the hype that everybody was gonna move there and they did this oh we're gonna get X amount of property tax we're gonna be rich forever forever now they're all going bankrupt yeah and they did really stupid things like build hotels in the middle of nowhere bankrupting cities based on this kind of crap but go ahead where are you going sorry no I was just gonna say you said drunken sailors I was like do you read Wolf Street yeah yeah yeah yeah he always says that I it's it's funny because we are such a consumer nation that it's like yeah and spend spend spend it's really interesting because a lot of the videos I was watching of your whole you know just to kind of educate myself further on your perspective was like during November through February and you look at what happened since the end of February the it's just a it's completely different there's a whole another layer of things that to think about like you know exactly the price of gas and how that's gonna affect things this year and yes food fertilizer I mean real real real things that people need to survive is connected and it's and it's an and if if so if you're a lady and men too but if you use lotion or facial moisturizer like go get them urea is in like eucerin I mean this is and so all of these things no one has even started to truly calculate this and under like right now we're in the restocking inventory phase where companies realize what's about to happen and they're just trying to you know stock up as much as they can um and I'm not telling people to be crazy but just you know get 2 instead of one every time you go or whatever like just be prepared cause this is about to get really ugly it's really interesting my my wife used to work for a company that bought um electronics think of like a you know like a Costco for island based countries and I remember them talking about well after the pandemic there was issues with supply chains and so they got a great deal on buying a year's worth of TVs right so they bought that because it was such a good deal but then the whole trends stopped right and then you're sitting on all this inventory right something my dad used to tell me is inventory is not like wine it does not age well so exactly exactly and I saw that first hand and how that affected you know that small you know yeah micro aspect of of their economy but anyways it I I do feel like that's coming and you know something I want to really dive into is because you you made this um the centerpiece of of the Perfect Storm is the Silver Tsunami is it's basically already underway how significant of an impact could this generational shift have on the supply and price on I guess yeah on a shorter term but also you know cause even looking out five years yeah yeah well we have to yeah I'm working on a demographic study right now myself I cause I I need to I need to do it myself I can't use other people's data that way I know what I know what I really am saying you know um but I can tell you that I know people who have done their own demographic studies and believe that we're gonna this is going to increase inventory by about 35% each year until 2050 yes now I I can't say till till basically the end of uh 2050 I mean it's just gonna keep rolling and so I now again that's not my study and I can't vouch for it and I think it's more back of the envelope it's probably not looking at well okay let me do the net with how many people are coming into the housing market um but I will tell you that I I I what what is so not understood is how much vacancy is out there like it is massive I mean just down my road um and so people like we have 15 million vacant homes 14.9 in this country and that's not even the seasonal ones there's 3 million seasonal ones and so you can just drive down the road and what happened like we're here where I am because we were a top four location to move to um you had fixing flippers buy up a whole bunch of homes but then they ran out of money and they couldn't flip them and so now what I had a lot in Florida lately where there's exactly like half jobs done half jobs abandoned jobs and the prices are still crazy you're like wait and and right right it's just it's like mind blowing but I I I I can so that's everywhere it's all over the country and and so um we're not just talking about their primary home that's the problem we're talking about their rental portfolios too and there is not good data I mean I have been digging and digging trying to get this data um so I'm I'm gonna have to go to the state levels and that always takes a little bit of time but so I I don't want anyone to walk away and think that I believe that that that number is completely accurate but I it is going to have a massive impact and I promise I'm working on one and I will get the numbers I believe soon yeah um and you know it's not like everybody's always they're saying things like well you know uh the average age are uh is going up for death or whatever was the more tail you know um but actually that's not true and and so it it it even got younger during Covid you know like the age of so yeah I think the death rate age or what age was that death rate I'm sorry I was like what no no I I I knew what you were saying I just wanted to make sure that yeah the death rate age exactly because it came down after Covid yeah because yeah yeah that's it and it's not like getting in current like by 10 years or five years I mean you're talking very like months and we're so unhealthy but I'll give you I'll give you a little data for you because my father was in a I guess a seasonal place right and um in 2021 when they bought there was you know something like 70 or 80 properties in the neighborhood by by 2024 there was zero properties available zero properties now within the last and really this happened since the end of last summer now it's back up to there's 60 properties in that neighborhood and when I talk to the main broker what's going on you know other than it being seasonal and people that are buying and mostly as a second home for people she said the Canadian buyers used to be a third of the buyers in this neighborhood they're not buying they're not and they're also listing whether what's going on with the currency or political perspective that's their own economy's not doing great yeah exactly and it's affected trying to sell the home because it's like you just keep in having to lower it and the season's done down here in in in Florida April it's over it's over yeah April everybody went back after you know after Easter so yup you know trying to and trying to talk logic into people like even how to how to sell the property it's just it's interesting you know but then again I've friends that are in an area that's in a home being more of like a for family it's selling rapidly right so it's you know so those two everybody who's has kids they're desperately looking for homes and they're willing to throw everything they have at it just so they can get into a home to say they have a home but it's like this doesn't make financial sense if you're doing the numbers so it's like are you just doing it just because it's you're supposed to or is it you doing it keeping up with the Joneses you know yeah it's like a big mile marker in somebody's life I mean housing is so personal it's so personal it's so personal it's hard conversation to have with anyone it really and I don't I mean I mean you know I except I talk to you I can't talk to my family about this like I couldn't I I I have family members where I could have told them exactly what was going to happen and it did and I would try here and there to like just mention or share something the resistance was and I'm just like you know what you know I'm here if you need me well I don't know if that's an older demographic but I feel like they're a little bit more trustworthy of what the government is saying right now yes where I you know I think we're at a point where it's just like I don't know but anything that doesn't that's not what you're saying is following the opposite it's not true yeah yeah it seems like whatever you're saying is the opposite of what's really happening exactly but why are you saying that in the like there's a reason you're saying it why are you saying that that and that's that's we're it's funny I you know I mentioned that I studied Russian in college and I studied Soviet propaganda and I have I mean this is we're living in yes I mean this is this is I mean I started to feel like I was in Soviet Russia the last big mortgage company I worked at like like not when I was doing technology but like in servicing proper and I was like this is this is Soviet Russia the way they're running this this company you know so yeah we are we are in propaganda hell right now where we are yeah I I I agree and I feel like it's been like that since you know I mean pre covid but really like the temperatures just just went up it always felt like you could see it was it felt like oh China or or Russia or someone's trying to influence us to think or even put us against each other but now to think is it our you know is it our own government also as well right right and they're trying to control potential what's coming I guess I I don't know but it it that's and you said something earlier about and I about the government and I just look at how much tax prices went up around oh yeah and it's just crazy I mean and who directly benefited from that was the government you know the state local governments but so it's like this rapid appreciation and who's the first one that's you know gaining from that other than the big banks is the is the government the taxes so and I know that people you know weren't expecting to buy a 500 thousand dollar house and then their tax Bill go up from you know the person before bought it for 220 you know 15 years ago and now they went from buying 30 four hundred in taxes to eight nine ten thousand in taxes they're not gonna get that back throw an FHA you throw a uh not an FHA you throw a HOA yeah oh yeah and then the an insurance on top of that and you're like oh my God I mean that's an almost another mortgage in some oh absolutely in California it is and and in Florida and yeah in California and Florida you know yeah and and that's that's something you know I I've that's a lot of the conversations I'm having with some policy people is around you know property taxes and what to do and you know obviously your governor is um trying to make some strides there I what from what I can tell we don't have that plan yet really uh but you know they're certainly gonna do something um yeah so no it's interesting I I think that's I think that passed or I believe it's trying to pass and that's where if you if you've paid off your mortgage you're no more state property tax oh really okay that's what it is but I'm I'm don't quote me on that yeah I I think they're still trying to to talk to finish it in a special session I'm not exactly sure though I I my my details are fuzzy but what I hear from policy makers is that they're the final plan has not been rolled out yet um so and different things are being discussed but yeah I mean this is you know and then my pal uh Travis from real estate mindset he's down in Texas just fighting the um appraisal fraud down there that the with counties that are basically uh hiking a a you know assess values based on faulty data and they found that there's someone down there suing you know this everybody actually but you know but what they did is they took like thousands of of cops from somewhere else and dumped it in this data file to do the assessments and you know and and so it's it's fake and so you can now see like the assess like you can walk in and you can of course um you know basically what's the word you can protest and um what what Travis has like a little site tells you what to do but you can go in and show them look the house next door to me just sold for $100,000 less than what you assessed my property for like yeah what what is this and so but yeah because and because they just they just they took that American Rescue Act just like people took the PPP and they enriched themselves and they enriched their friends and so they did crazy things like oh let's do a community theater and now everybody on the City Council has their business that you know they can then they get paid by the community theater and I mean it is just pay for play everywhere yeah and so this is going these these places are going to get hit very badly I can see it I mean we're already seen in some markets and I think it's just starting especially if you know I mean god forbid oil keeps going up but you know you you hearing people saying hundred fifty $200 a barrel like what's that gonna do to us oh yeah that's gonna yeah that's gonna be the canary in the coal mine that yeah that and food I mean because it's going to be so expensive and you know so you know go ahead it's already so expensive oh it's I I don't even I went to the grocery store I walked to the grocery store yesterday with my son and I was just like okay I went to go get milk and all of a sudden $40 later I'm like I went to get a milk which was $8 for a half a gallon by the way and I was just like this is crazy $8 oh my word I mean yeah yeah you know that something Margaret Thatcher always did is she would buy like a little pint of milk every day milk and bread just to see our our check the prices just to see what they were but yeah I mean like when Walmart put its uh you know real time pricing roll out like you know this is the last stage of hyper you know hyperinflation if if if if you know things but but what everyone needs to understand is that no matter what no matter if the street opens tomorrow you know we're there's going to be issues we're going to have higher prices now I think we'll then have deflation because the cure for high prices is high prices but that initial shock is gonna be very impactful to people yeah my sister's an economist and she always was worried about stagflation she said that's the one that's um and the so it's interesting because I think there there might even be there seems like we're almost going through that right now in some way it that's what it feels that way yeah like was it Doritos right that just recently came out that said that they had lost so much money because they increased their a bag of chips to $8 you know right so they're like right lowering it back down I remember remember now all over these social medias you're seeing oh look I can get Doritos for four dollars again now so it's like they cut their price in half because they lost what something like four or five billion dollars because the consumer stopped buying Doritos I mean I I mean I don't eat Doritos but I'm sure 78 80% of America I mean I love Doritos but I just don't eat them but yeah I don't I I'm very particular about the food that I eat yeah when I can be uh you know when you travel it's always hard but yeah no I mean that's that's the thing and you go to the grocery store and it feels like $10 is the new $100 like it's like you can't even get out of I can't get out of the grocery store for less than $100 and and so it's and and that's I mean that's nuts and that's not the whole week that's just I I like fresh food so I go to the grocery store almost every day and it's just I mean it's just insane um so yeah gas prices food yeah I'm right there and I'm I I I what I'm paying for daycare health insurance and food is like it's just I I my old self would laugh it cause it's just like it's what it you know the daycare is like a yearly salary and then you throw food and and and I'm not even getting into housing and everything but it's yeah it's yeah it's getting to a boiling point to where I feel like it's starting to boil over for a lot of people yeah you can't get good stats on how many people have canceled their health insurance and I know personally many friends who have so we're not hearing it but I guarantee you a lot of people are making that decision and they're saying I'm either gonna self insure or I'm gonna go do one of these you know alternative medical trust or things like that because my insurance was $1,000 a month yeah and then if I had to go it was another thousand it's like what is this this isn't this isn't insurance like what is this yeah so I mean we switch to catastrophic insurance cause we're young and healthy we're like this is crazy like this is this is too much for awesome you know especially when you're thinking okay how am I gonna pay for my kids college or how am I gonna right retire like retirement haha I know I mean I laugh about that too that's like haha just haha well I I this this conversation is definitely very informative and very helpful and I I always try to stay a little bit positive and I know it's hard to be positive in a market where it seems like everything's against us but what should people someone who wants to understand where the market is headed what are the key signals or indicators should they be focused on right now to to make sure they're you know they have a they have their finger on the pulse what things what's really going on yeah you can't really trust the news you can't really trust what they're saying you know I recommend even the free version of my substack cause I put that data in there definitely um you know that below for sure thank you and then but you know watch rates um and I I just don't think they're gonna the what most of the housing bulls and industry think is that you know once we get into crisis that rates will drop significant I mean it doesn't even actually make any sense if you think about it like if we're in a crisis who's gonna afford to be able to buy a house exactly that's yeah it's just it's it's I my yeah it's it's so weird sometimes but watch rates more so to tell you like OK this is you know if if we get a little bit of relief in rates then you're gonna see more listings and things like that once we get year of your negative on a national scale I believe this is going to be the beginning of kind of the big mind shift you know of what's and so there are real there are going to be opportunities in in in the future and everybody wants me to tell them exactly when unfortunately this this it housing is like the Titanic it moves very slowly much slower than I would want it to but this is going to take a lot of time and so it's you know if you can get a rental and you can get you know they're doing all kinds of crazy six months free rent you know like concessions just this is this is time to kind of wait if you are you know if you can if you can't you know you really uh be realistic about your price like it's not what your estimate says if you can afford it do an independent appraisal um and just be more realistic and if you need to sell don't don't wait because it's not going to get better no I agree yeah but I think there could be opportunities in the future for family for people who don't get into too much debt Tim like that's so important just yeah do everything you can right now to get out of debt yeah I'm right there with you well I'm I'm blown away by your perspective melody I I feel like uh we we see a lot of the same data points so we're probably you know screaming out the side of our mouth trying to say something I don't know if people are hearing it but I definitely am feeling it myself so I'm I it's always nice to speak with you about it I think our audience also got a lot of this I hope so thank you please don't forget to follow melody on her YouTube or Twitter channel and she also has a a substack at m 3 melody that's correct yeah m 3 melody substack yes that's where all your editorial work will be so and please don't forget to like and subscribe to this channel if you if you liked what you got out of today's episode and don't forget about our free foreclosure email alertsatforeclosure.com keep an eye on what's going on in your market you can see all you can go to the city or state or state pages and get a quick high level overview of what's going on in each market I I love that you can get a kind of a county snapshot so you can see what's going on until next time I'm Tim Jones with foreclosure.com and thank you for joining us today