YOUR government wants you to rent, and you will LOVE it!

For a video version of this, click here: https://youtu.be/eEAPwQSjgRY

When I was young, the American Dream was to buy your home with a bedroom for each child, a white picket fence, yard in front to share with neighbors, yard in the back for your kids to play. Increasingly, that is getting harder and harder in the US. But its not an accident, it is a feature and goal of our government. How can I say that?

Before we get into that, however, let's review where the market is to take their comments in context.

I maintain there are 2 most critical statistics to understand the real estate market. On the buyer demand side, the interest rates. And on the seller or supply side, the months of homes available for sale, or inventory.

So, on the buyer demand side, mortgage rates closed up slightly below the 7% level at 6.91%. Rates are still in the range they have been over the past year or so.

Inventory continues to track about the same as last year, just slightly higher, which was a record low for a year other than during the pandemic.. As I have repeatedly said, as long as inventory is low, prices cannot go down much.

Locally, in Los Angeles, the market maintained its status as a seller's market at 40.

So, in this week's survey of real estate news headlines, lots of fun stuff!

While the changes in homeowner insurance is important, and hurts, it pales in comparison to the change in housing payments. Here is a great graph posted by Len Kiefer that shows how much the mortgage payment affects affordability vs. insurance.

As he points out, that while homeowners insurance has increased from 1.49% to 1.64% of household income, mortgage payments increased from 17.9% to 22.1%. That statistic shows where the housing has become unaffordable.

Here is a rundown of news where crime is affecting real estate.

Good news for Californians, we are not the only state whose government is attempting to put landlords in prison to give property to criminals taking property. Here is a story in New York (Queens) where the owner was arrested for removing criminals from her home. (I use the term criminals instead of the popular term "squatters" to be more accurate.

To clarify, in this case, the city of New York is arresting the woman who attempted to take back her $1 million home, NOT the criminal the attempted to steal the $1 million home. If they attempted to steal $1 million of Nike sneakers, the police would put them in jail for about 10 minutes, but attempting to steal a $1 million home receives all kinds of government protections.

Criminals are now targeting areas that used to be safe and well-protected. Here is a story that not only is the city of Irvine experiencing increased crime, but there seems to be an organization of burglary tourists that come here to commit crime where they won't get punished so they can enjoy the profits in their home city.

The city of Irvine PD reported that over the past 35 days, there have been 34 home burglaries.

Crime in LA is at least more interesting, in that we have celebrity crime stories. Here is the latest where Hall of Fame basketball player Paul Pierce had his home broken into and burglarized.

It is particularly sad in that he is a local boy who made good, growing up in Inglewood, however, since he was primarily a Boston Celtic I don't really have much sympathy.

For those criminals not clear on how to steal a home here in the US, here is a home theft training video courtesy of our federal government explaining how easy it is to cross the border and take a home to live in.

CNN reports that their customer, Zillow, is worried about changes in the real estate market.

I love how transparent this is, CNN does not really worry about its readers and try to explain how the market affects them, but is very concerned about their true customers, advertisers like Zillow who are destroying the real estate market to create yields for their Wall Street investors. See my podcast real estate rip-offs for my episode on Zillow.

Speaking of big corporate liars, Redin announced they are expanding their traditional real estate agent program to seven more markets as the key to their future expansion.

The company that constantly badmouths the industry and has talked about disrupting the industry is increasingly turning to competing in a traditional manner. Welcome to the party, Redin, I hope you eventually make a profit and pay taxes like the rest of us and stop disrupting the industry by using Wall Street money that is destroying our country.

The topic of this week's report is that your government wants you to rent. That's a bold statement, how do I know that? Well, they are telling us, all we have to do is listen.

For example, here is Fannie Mae's CEO Priscilla Almodovar tell us "the housing market hasn’t killed the American Dream yet. Buying a home ‘might just take a little longer.’

She is telling us out loud the part that is usually kept quiet. One is it will take longer to buy a home, longer than the last generation, and longer in the next. Second, she is saying they have not done it YET, but watching the actions of the government, that is the goal AND the results.

This lady is no lightweight. She is not only in this government position with its $700k salary and gold plated perks and lives like a king with a guaranteed job next working on some Washington lobbying group, her husband was a statewide elected official in New York, and her only work has been in law firms and political organizations, including working for disgraced New York government Elliot Spitzer who resigned in disgrace when caught laundering money to pay for high priced prostitutes. A great mentor for a government official.

Here in California, we have passed yet another huge spending bill and backdoor tax hike with the passing of Proposition 1, a new $6.4 billion bond measure said to (yet again) solve homelessness but will end up lining the pockets (again) of state politicians and not make a dent in the problem.

These are the bonds that increase interest rates and make it harder for businesses to operate in the state. What is fascinating is not, as reported by Politico, that it took 2 weeks to count all the ballots, but that it took the crooked politicians of California 2 weeks to print enough ballots to steal the money. They are getting sloppy.

Here is one of California's programs designed to help with housing affordability, government loans.

One of the downsides, besides it is more publicity stunt than actual loan program, is that it skims 15-20 percent of the profits on sale to the homeowner. When we think of the American Dream, we don't normally think about Gavin Newsome reaching his hand in our pocket for his 15-20% cut. The US fought a revolution for a tax of 3 cents a pound on tea, here we have a program where owners are going to give 15-20 of their home profits to the state.

Part of the processing of stealing our property is building homes overlooking our backyards. While ADUs sound great if you are looking to add some income to your property, it is an unsightly intrusion of your privacy if it is built overlooking your backyard. Here is a story of challenges in San Diego where owners are building the only homes allowed in San Diego, ADUs, that overlook neighbors that still live in the neighborhood.

In some good news, in response to the government empowering criminals by flying them here and paying them to live here and then almost encouraging them to steal homes, some local residents are taking matters into their own hands to get these criminals, affectionately referred to as "squatters."

This group. the Squatter Squad, chronicles their success removing criminals. It has become one of my favorite channels. www.SquatterSquad.co Freedom is not free, and liberty has to be earned every day. We can no longer going to just sit around and complain about government policies and expect our politicians to do the right thing, we need to take action, and part of my action is helping those that are fighting the good fight.

So, what should YOU do?

If you are looking to buy a home and live there for a while, real estate has always been a great long-term builder of wealth and there is nothing to suggest that is changing if you can afford the home.

If you want to move or downsize, it's still a great market to sell, but a bit more challenging than in the last few years.

Finally, if you can find a property that will give you cash flow, this is a great time to get solid cash flow and enjoy the tax benefits of real estate.

How can I help you? Call, text, or email me.

Bill

Bill Gross

Broker Associate, BRE 01022275

Certified Probate Expert

Direct: 310-210-0008 , [email protected]