hello everyone and welcome to another

episode of selling Greenville your

favorite real estate podcast here in

Greenville South Carolina I'm your host

as always Stan mun realtor right here in

Greenville South Carolina you can find

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episodes of the show I would appreciate

that those are the only things that I

ask of you guys so um this past week has

been kind of miserable for me I had a

week of sickness I am still feeling

under the weather uh had a few days

where I functionally just took off uh it

was I was able to to push some things

around to ensure that the sickness

didn't impact my work um but man there's

a lot of stuff going around right now

and I know other people that have gotten

sick uh but I'm on the tail end of it

I'm glad that I recorded the podcast

when I did last week because if I had

waited uh I would not have gotten a

podcast out I mean my voice was really

rough um still not the best still not

100% uh but I'm getting there um and I

am just excited that this past week is

over right um we had an election uh

obviously that was a big thing I said

last week that I wasn't sure if I was

going to talk about it of course

multiple people re out to me and asked

if I could talk about it um and I'm not

going to be talking about you know for

those that know me well I'm I'm really

big into politics I follow politics very

closely um I'm involved locally in our

local political scene in various ways um

I'm not going to uh discuss a uh this

from a political

standpoint but I do want to discuss

these elections because again people

talk reached out to me about it I do

think it's worthwhile discussing we

talked a few times about you know what

is Trump saying what is Harris saying uh

with regard to the housing market and

now we know that Trump is going to be in

the white house as I'm recording this

almost certainly he's also going to have

both the house and the senate in red

meaning that uh he can kind of do

whatever he wants um and so I think it

is worthwhile to discuss what impact

this might have on the real estate

market on housing uh moving forward now

this is a Greenville podcast uh but this

is a classic example of a national thing

something happening nationally that will

ultimately have an impact on Greenville

real estate so even though real estate

is local and I talked about that a lot

uh there are National trends that do

impact local housing markets um and so

this is going to be one of those

episodes where I focus more on what's

Happening nationally and how that will

indirectly or directly impact our

Greenville real estate market then is

something Greenville specific uh so let

me start with this the markets were

extremely jittery leading up to the

election and here's what I've learned

about markets like the bond market the

stock market the real estate market Etc

people just want to know what's

happening it doesn't even matter what's

happening right they just don't like

uncertainty in fact um I saw a stat

recently that showed that after every

recent election the stock market has

gone up and it it doesn't even matter

which candidate wins at the end of the

day so much as uh the fact that that

everyone is clear on who won and that

there just isn't chaos really that's the

markets just want to see stability

that's all they're looking for and the

chaos of election season is something

that markets don't like and uh and we

see that I mean I talk to people uh you

know I'm I'm not a big stock Trader or

I'm not a big crypto guy or anything

like this uh but in terms of real estate

I talked to to people that say you know

what I'm going to sit on the sidelines

until I know what's what's happened I

know what's going on in our country

who's been elected all of that so it's a

real thing it definitely

happens um and uh it reminds me a little

bit of a scene from The Dark Knight

movie where the Joker says you know what

I've noticed I'm not going to do not g

to do uh Heath Ledger's epic Joker voice

um but uh but he says you know what I've

noticed nobody panics when things go

according to plan even if the plan is

horrifying that's pretty accurate when

it comes to markets nobody panics when

things go according to plan even if the

plan is horrifying they just want things

to go according to plan um in fact this

is actually uh we've actually seen a

little bit of a change in this regard

from 2016 Nate silver and whose election

model correctly predicted that Trump

would swing uh would would sweep the the

swing state

um in addition to some others that I

that I heard that live in New York City

um he was in New York City the day after

Trump was elected both in 2016 and this

year okay and he said in 2016 the day

after the election people in New York

were acting like 911 had just happened

last week the day after the election

business as usual Trump didn't burn the

economy to the ground eight years ago

and he's unlikely to do it this time and

so markets are kind of okay with with

Trump being president um you could maybe

argue that Trump's are that uh that

markets are really excited about Trump

being president as we saw all sorts of

different uh stock indexes and uh crypto

whatnot soaring in the aftermath of his

election but uh as I said it's not

uncommon for that sort of thing to

happen after an election so I don't

think that we can draw major conclusions

from any of that if you want to draw

major conclusions from that fine do do

your thing um I'm not going to do that

on the show now I've discussed

previously on the show that the 10-year

yield was soaring in anticipation that

Trump who has pledged to spend something

like s trillion dollar uh essentially uh

over the next four years um has several

inflationary proposals like heavy

tariffs um etc etc and uh and and so

markets were concerned about all of

these things combined with the fact that

Trump might get sweep of Congress which

is looking like is going to happen and

that basically inflation would take off

so investors essentially calculated that

based on the potential this potential

outcome that they wanted to dump their

money into the stock market into crypto

and into other Investments rather than

bonds okay so the result is when bonds

get sold then the 10-year yield goes up

and when stocks crypto Etc are bought

their valuations also go up and that's

prec precisely what happened leading up

to the elections we saw stocks crypto

Etc start to go up we also saw the

10year yield go up which means that

bonds are being sold and so investors

were uh Traders were responding uh to

the uncertainty again the chaos of the

election they wanted to know the

election

results and they were hoping I think

generally speaking for a divided

Congress

um so as the election results were

coming in on Tuesday a lot of people

were looking at H Market and and various

election betting markets if if you're

not aware of the election betting

markets by this point don't worry about

it you're not missing out on anything in

my personal opinion um I personally was

looking more at the 10-year yield

because election betting markets are

brand new in their infancy and one thing

if you know anything about betting it

takes a while for betting markets to

stabilize right when betting when when

sports betting became a big thing

throughout our

country it it took a while for people to

kind of understand how to actually make

money and and and uh do things that have

predictive value in the sports betting

World um and and so I think that betting

markets in uh the election realm are

going to be similar we're going to have

to go through a few election Cycles to

really see how uh accurate their

predictive power is that being said the

bond market has a robust predictable

history and so I was looking more at

that specific specifically the 10-year

yield because that is directly connected

to the 30-year fixed rate mortgage as

we've discussed before and sure enough

the 10year yield started to sore on

Tuesday and that was an early indicator

to me that Trump was going to win and

most likely that Republicans were going

to control Congress as well in fact uh

Logan mesami of housing wire who's a

good follow if you if you're on Twitter

or if if you like podcast like this um

he's he's got a podcast out there that

you can listen to um

he's a big 10year yield analyst and he

called very early on on on Twitter or X

whatever you want to call it that Trump

would win uh early on Tuesday evening on

the basis of what the 10year yield was

doing um I had similar feelings I was

tracking it in the same way that he was

he and I are very much on the same page

with with a lot of this stuff um now why

is all of this important well as I've

already alluded to mortgage rates are

tied to the 10-year yield if the 10year

yield goes up mortgage rates go up if it

goes down mortgage rates go down

generally speaking and naturally we saw

the 30-year fixed rate mortgage go from

the low sixes in September all the way

up to the low sevens on Tuesday a huge

over 100 basis point jump in just two

months and that's primarily because of

jitters and concerns like I said over

one party controlling the government and

causing crazy inflation well since this

election has come and gone markets have

actually settled down a little bit

various stock market indexes as I've

already said had highs recently um but

I'm not drawing major conclusions from

that at this point the the 10-year yield

was no exception basically once markets

knew that the uncertainty was over the

10year yield dropped from around 4.47 to

around 4.3 so that was that was really

important right not that that drop is

that substantial to have you know that

huge of an increase but it just showed

that markets were stabilizing and and

that that upward Trend that we had been

seeing in the 10-year uh was was

starting to normalize again mortgage

rates also drop per mortgage News Daily

which is a good index to follow for that

that that's like a composite of mortgage

averages dropped from 7.13 to

6.92 um and I believe that that's where

it currently sits today um as I'm

recording this so um and and again just

a reminder the fact that this composite

says rates are at 6.92 that doesn't mean

that you would lock in a 6.92 rate right

now um people with good credit are going

to get a lot better than 6.92 probably

uh in many cases the mid sixes that's

something to talk to your uh to your uh

loan officer about um also um it

indirectly helped mortgage rates that

the FED reduced their Benchmark funds

rate by 25 basis points last week uh but

that I was really already priced in by

market so the only way that that would

have actually had a true impact is If

the Fed hadn't reduced their rates and

then markets would have freaked out

because they had already priced in that

the Fed was going to reduce their rates

so instead uh if you didn't hear that

the FED reduced their rates last week

that's become that's because it was a

big ho hum moment for the market in

general people were expecting it nothing

happened that wasn't expected um they

didn't make any major statements that

were any uh major surprise to anyone so

uh life just moves

on I think that that's all important for

understanding what's going to happen

moving forward okay there is a universal

consensus that Trump is going to want

lower rates that is about the only thing

that everyone agrees on right it was a

big deal for him during his first

Administration you may forget uh that

towards the end of Trump's first term

rates were starting to creep up in 2019

before covid and Trump wasn't happy

about it he called out Jerome Powell

chairman of the Federal Reserve multiple

times about it um and the media as a

matter of fact has already asked Powell

if he would step down if Trump asked him

to which is pretty likely that Trump

will H will do that um and poell said he

wouldn't right so we Showdown a set here

and I've already said on this podcast

that it's highly likely at some point in

the future that a political party

attempts a partisan takeover of the

Federal Reserve perhaps similar to how

the courts have become partisan despite

them being allegedly independent um and

could that happen under Trump's

Administration I think that's very

possible so this is something to watch

very closely uh based on political

donations it's clear that the FED is

primarily made up of Democrats um so I

would imagine that Trump will want to

change it how will he go about that what

will he do um I'm really not sure right

the Federal Reserve is the most powerful

part of our government that currently

doesn't have a direct party affiliation

like I just said you can look at

political donations and clude that the

FED currently um is on the left of the

political

Spectrum but are they running for office

you know as a Fed Governor or fed

president um or chairman are they

running as a Republican or or democrat

no that's not how it works they are

supposed to be independent um but again

independency is kind of going away just

in general in our government um so at

some point we can expect for

partisanship to to uh take over the FED

if it hasn't already but ultimately I

think that Trump needs to focus Less on

the fed and focus more on keeping

inflation down this is something that he

can control and it will have much more

of an impact than whatever it is that

the FED is doing at this point

particularly when it comes to the

10-year yield and mortgage rates as it

is we finally reached a point a few

months ago where the fed's actions have

actually become decoupled from Bond

markets and from mortgage rates meaning

that what the FED is doing is already so

priced in that nobody is even flinching

at the fed's actions unless they do

something dramatically unexpected as I

already said this past week that's

that's precisely what happened nobody

flinched when the FED reduced rates it

was just kind of like yeah we already

knew that they were going to do that in

other words for the past two years until

fairly recently Traders were really

trying to read the tea leaves on what

the Fed was doing to determine what they

would do in the future now Traders are

more or less ignoring the fed and

focusing I mean to what from what I can

see 100% on the economic data uh and so

in my opinion Trump should focus on that

rather than focusing on the FED if he

focuses too much on the FED I think that

that will be U an immediate tactical

error by his

administration my theory is that if

markets believe that Trump's

Administration won't bring additional

inflation that we could actually see

mortgage rates uh drop really rapidly uh

perhaps even down below 6% which it

hasn't been in quite some time uh we

could I think we could easily see the

mid fives a level that morg rates

haven't been at again per mortgage News

Daily since

2022 because if markets feel good about

the direction of the economy Traders

will buy more bonds as the stock market

gets tapped out as crypto gets Tapped

Out people get concerned that that's

being overvalued at some point and that

will then bring down the 10-year yield

and Market stability

would also likely bring the spread

between the 10-e yield and the 30-year

fixed rate mortgage down at least that's

my theory right now the spread as we

call it basically the difference between

the 10-year yield and the 30-year fixed

rate mortgage is higher than it is in

times of Market stability in recent

history the spread was closer to 150

basis points meaning that with the 10e

year old at 4.3 which is roughly where

it's at while I'm recording this

mortgage rates would be in the 5 8%

range range not in the

6.92% marker where they currently said

as I'm recording this uh again according

to mortgage News Daily so we could still

see rates drop quickly Even If the Fed

doesn't do anything but it all rests on

inflation coming down and staying down

and markets then responding to that and

believing in that um and economists but

quite frankly believe that Trump's

campaign proposals would add substantial

inflation to the economy especially if

he gets to massive deportations and

tariffs so let's talk about that for a

second we know that from Trump's first

term when he says something on the

campaign Trail it's usually a lot more

aggressive of a proposal than what he

ends up implementing so is it possible

he will be more aggressive in his second

term than he was in his first term yes

it is possible it is possible that he

doesn't that he ends up being more

aggressive and ends up perhaps fing

through on some of these tariff and

deportation proposals that he's made but

at the moment we only have his first

term to look at and there's no evidence

based on that that he's going to be

ultra aggressive right at the beginning

of his second term um in from 2015 to

2016 if you remember he ran on massive

tariffs during that period of time as

well as well as immigration uh measures

as well building the wall all of that uh

if you forget um but a lot of those

things didn't materialize in the way

that he said that he and that they would

he didn't even Implement those tariffs

that he ran so heavily on until 2018 and

they were very targeted so as to have a

minimal impact on the economy and

inflation much much more targeted than

what he had said he would do during his

campaign in fact he started imposing

tariffs on Mexico but then rescinded

them when Mexico reached a deal with the

Trump Administration on illegal

immigration so it's probably fair to

assume that something like this will

happen again that Trump won't be as

extreme on tariffs as he has suggested

perhaps maybe not as extreme on

deportation as he's as he's suggested as

well because if he were to be as Extreme

as these campaign these things would

almost certainly plunge our economy back

into a high inflation environment and

yes the I believe that the the mass

deportations would do that too uh

because uh basically the economy is just

people right it's people uh and and the

hours that they're working and the

amount of production

that they are accomplishing during those

hours that literally is what the economy

is so if you remove people you hurt the

economy like that I there's going to be

some people that are going to disagree

with me on it go to your economic

textbooks and tell me what in there

indicates that that would change I'm not

saying that illegal immigration is good

for our economy not suggesting that I'm

just saying that uh if you take a bunch

of people currently that are producing

in our Workforce and get rid of them

it's going to hurt the economy

um and so that's something to keep in

mind um now all of this where I'm going

with all of this is that Trump likes to

make big bold sometimes extreme

proposals as a negotiating starting

point and then typically he dials it

back later um and I'm hoping personally

that that Trend continues in the second

term that he's going to start next year

next

January at the end of the day however I

think that Trump will be very focused on

getting the housing market back on track

now he didn't campaign much on housing

affordability but he did campaign on the

economy and there are only really two

things in my opinion holding back the

economy right now inflation and the

housing market now I'm a realtor so you

may think I'm just saying that the

housing market is holding back the

economy because it's holding back my

business personally right but I'll show

you why that's not true if you're on

YouTube I'm going to show you a graph of

uh of construction

employment here we go um if you're on

YouTube you can see

it

um

now I need to back this out currently

it's a little bit zoomed in I'm going to

zoom out I'm going to show you

employment history going uh construction

employment history uh going all the way

back to the

1940s one very unmistakable Trend if you

look at this is every

recession construction employment goes

down every single one of them in many

cases you start to see that the uh the

employment start to go down prior to the

recession and then it really takes off

during the recession but it is one of

the most reliable trackers of a

recession that we have when employment

construction goes down we are either in

a recession or likely headed towards

one um and

so the

um the the question we have to ask right

is is it cause or effect right are uh

employees losing jobs because the

economy is cratering right in all of

these recessions or in all these

recessions or is it the fact that the

housing market collapses and

construction jobs collapse with it that

then is a major contributing factor that

causes us to go into to a recession is a

cause or effect I would say yes both of

those things can be simultaneously true

the housing market and by extension

development is impacted by the broader

economy but then it also impacts the

economy in turn right and so we have to

look at more what's going on in the

economy to kind of parse this out and in

the environment we're currently living

in we're various economic indicators are

quite healthy having the housing market

now in a multi-year recession which even

though prices are still high housing has

been in a recession since June 2022 as

I've stated multiple times on here that

you can be in a recession without prices

dropping in fact very few uh very few

times very few months or quarters in our

nation's history have we seen prices

drop despite having all of these

recessions again if you're looking on

YouTube you can see every grade out area

is a recession we've had a bunch of

these recessions but guess what only two

of these recessions saw home prices

dropping okay so we can have a recession

and a housing market recession without

housing prices dropping um and by many

metrics we have been in a housing

recession since June

2022 um and so um long story short even

the prices are still High um and all of

that we have been in a housing market

recession

and eventually that will drag down the

economy like it will happen and so this

is where I think that these charts come

into play is because even though it

depending on different

situations you know the uh the

construction employment and the housing

uh housing market can be more of a cause

or can be more of an effect of a

recession I think in this case with all

with all these other economic indicators

showing the the economy is doing okay if

we were to start to see uh these numbers

these employment numbers for

construction start to lag and start to

go down I think that that would be an

indicator that the housing market is

going to negatively impact the broader

economy okay so I think that this is

super duper important this is something

that very few people are talking about

um and I think that we need to uh to

look at this very closely now again if

you're looking at this chart you can see

that uh the uh construction employment

is still going up right and even though

it's still growing it has slowed

substantially in 2024 we've only added

164,000 construction jobs year-to date

from January through October I don't we

don't have the November numbers yet um

this is down from January through

October of 2023 only slightly it was

166,000 jobs January through October 23

but if you look back at

2022 January through October it's way

down that was 252,000 construction jobs

added during that period of

time um and so uh we are we have now

seen two straight years of lagging

numbers when it comes to employment uh

uh construction employment data uh and

so that's not great now actually if we

talked if we looked at things in a

vacuum the 164,000 construction jobs

number would generally be an okay number

uh in most years not it wouldn't be a

great number but certainly not a

problematic number but the problem is

that construction employment never

rebounded from the pandemic um I'm going

to

share something very similar but

something that I've annotated all right

this is the

same graph if you're again looking on

YouTube the same that we that I just

showed you but I added a line showing

from 2010 the growth in employment uh

for construction employees from 2010 up

through the pandemic and then what it

would have continued to be had uh had we

just continued in the same Trend that we

were going in from 2010

okay you can see very clearly here

there's a huge gap from where

construction employment is now in

comparison to where it would have been

had we kept up the pre-pandemic pace so

we never rebounded from the pandemic in

terms of uh in terms of construction

employment if we kept up with the

pre-pandemic pace of job growth we'd be

at 8 point roughly

8.75 million jobs in construction

instead we're at roughly 8.31 million

again uh as of the end of October nearly

half a million difference in employment

so that's huge okay so we never made up

the deficit in construction jobs and

construction job growth is slowing

that's a very bad combination in fact

from September to October so one month

month on month September to October of

2024 only 8,000 construction jobs were

added so on an annualized basis that

would come out to

96,000 uh added construction workers

which would be very very poor job growth

and a likely recession indicator okay we

don't want that to happen so Trump was

voted in really to come back to him he

was voted in for three reasons in my

opinion to improve the economy to

increase border security and to stand

for traditional social values there's a

lot of data uh that points in that

direction that those three things were

his mandate and regardless of whether

you think he can will or even should

focus on those things the data shows as

I've already said unequivocally that

this is his mandate his legacy will

hinge in large part on how he succeeds

in these three areas or how people

perceiv that he succeeds in those three

areas and I can assure you Trump is

laser focused on his reputation and on

his well maybe not his reputation but on

his legacy um right now that is going to

be a huge part of how he governs the

next four years so I don't think that it

will take long before he starts looking

at the housing market because like I

said this is a a big big wild card and

perhaps the one thing that could

completely derail the economy right now

so what will he do about it well quite

frankly it's unclear um he has talked

about and we we've discussed this will

be a little some of this will be

reviewed from what we've talked about in

the past but he's talked about using

Federal lands to build futuristic cities

which sounds like a really cool idea but

would that really put a dent in the

housing market probably not um first off

it would take years to accomplish um and

uh and and then you know if you

accomplished it to what extent would it

be accomplished how many people would it

truly impact would people really want to

move you know displace themselves from

where they are to one of these

futuristic cities I don't know um and um

at the end of the day he has some he has

to have some immediate wins in order to

have success in the 2026 midterms to

maintain Congressional control so doing

something like this that would take

probably at the very least the entire

four years of his presidency to build

futuristic cities on on Federal Land um

I I think that Trump is going to want to

have some more immediate wins to to get

under uh you know notches on his belt

before

2026 so will he inject stimulus into the

housing market down payment assistance

tax breaks perhaps for firsttime home

buyers Harris made proposals like this

but as I've already said on the show

believe that generally speaking her

proposals uh for putting stimulus into

the housing market would be bad for the

housing market long term I could see a

scenario where the FED even responds to

stimulus if Trump were to try to do

something like that by tightening things

on their end which would then

potentially make rates go up like I said

before Trump needs to be laser focused

on bringing down inflation if he does

that rates will come down substantially

making it substantially cheap to buy

home without crashing the housing market

that's what we want we want something

that will improve the market now without

destroying it or impacting it negatively

later and usually stimulus helps now but

hurts later so I am generally against

government stimulus into private

markets how about this will he

restructure the government's

relationship to mortgages this is being

discussed quite a bit because Fanny May

and Freddy m are private companies that

have been held in government

conservatorship since the global

financial crisis and during Trump's

first Administration he wanted to return

them 100% to the private market so the

government wasn't responsible for them

anymore right it was very it was

immensely unpopular when they were ba

bailed out by the government and then

taken into

conservatorship um back in in the global

financial crisis people now have just

kind of gotten used to it you know right

it's been it's been a long time it's

been nearly 20 years since that's

happened

uh but but Trump doesn't like it a lot

of people don't like it why does it

matter well they play a huge role in

mortgages Fanny and Freddy don't make

mortgages but they underpin the bulk of

the US housing market market marage

market by buying Home Loans from lenders

wrapping them into Securities and then

guaranteeing guaranteeing repayment of

principal and interest to investors so

longterm I think that getting Fanny and

Freddy out of government conservatorship

probably is a good idea right I'm not a

big fan of our government controlling

the housing market so directly uh but

some predict that if we pulled them out

which at the very earliest would not be

able to happen until 2026 let's be clear

this is not something that's going to

happen right away okay it would take

years to unbundle Fanny and Freddy from

the government um but some predict that

this if and when it happened that this

would cause mortgage rates to go up and

this is something that vice president

Harris talked about a little bit during

her campaign

that being said it's really unclear if

that's true so for now I think we just

have to watch this one and and see what

comes out of it this one uh could be one

that you know perhaps if the housing

market is in better shape in 2026 2027

maybe at that point um it makes sense to

uh to restructure Fanny and Freddy

privatize them once again um and then

maybe if there is a little bit of

short-term pain maybe that's okay

because the housing market is already

doing all right um but I would imagine

that Trump wants to tread lightly on

that at the beginning due to the risk of

potential Fallout there what else uh

Trump has talked about deregulation when

it comes to development but as I've

discussed on here before most

regulations on development are on the

state and local level so he'd have to

find a way to offer Federal incentives

to local municipalities to deregulate

now Trump has actually a decent history

of finding ways to bring National

Housing policies into the local sphere

instance uh when he introduced the

concept of opportunity zones which is

something that we've seen some

developers in Greenville take advantage

of that was an interesting pilot program

for for a national program that trickled

down to the local level um it wasn't a

huge thing right if you've never heard

heard of opportunity zones you know uh

that um it it wasn't it you know it

didn't completely Chang the game but it

did have an an impact uh on on some

low-income areas and and some other

things so that could perhaps be a pilot

that he's looking at a pilot program uh

for also then trying to deregulate as

well um but deregulation at the end of

the day let's just be realist realistic

it's going to be hard to pull off at

scale in all these states and local

municipalities I'm skeptical that he can

pull it off um and quite frankly I don't

think it would have the impact at home

prices he thinks it would he he thinks

home prices are are impacted 30% by uh

by regulation um I've seen mix things on

that um I'm I'm I'm not sure that it's

quite 30% of of the cost of housing is

100% regulation um I think that there's

a lot of other complicating factors in

there um but we'll see we'll see uh if

he's able to have any impact on that um

I personally don't think he will I also

think Trump and many others overestimate

the impact that illegal immigration has

on uh on the cost of housing

look at the charts on home prices and

they are correlated not with immigration

Trends but with mortgage rate trends and

if mortgage rates go up the housing

market slows down and it really doesn't

matter how many immigrants are entering

the

country as I've discussed

before that's well let me just say this

okay I always need to hedge this I'm not

for illegal immigration nothing I say on

here is for illegal immigration we need

to fix the illegal immigration problem

okay I've said that um but with regard

to the current immigration issues that

we have I don't think that they are

meaningfully contributing to housing

affordability could it be a difference

of 1% you know the prices being 1%

higher than they could be sure maybe uh

but is it having an impact would prices

be 10% lower if uh you know if we didn't

have the immigration problem that we uh

have had the past several years I don't

think so I I don't think it has nearly

that sort of an impact so I don't think

that any sort of deep deportation

measures or or or strengthening our

border I I really don't see that having

a a very big impact on housing so what

do I think well I have mixed feelings

right I do have concerns that Trump with

a fully R Congress is going to spend us

into more inflation right he's proposed

s trillion dollar of uh of spending over

the course of the next four years um and

that concerns me um and even though

Biden got blamed for the postco

inflation that happened let's not

pretend like Trump didn't also play a

role right remember those stimulus

payments he made to everyone in 2020 he

sent out a whole letter telling people

you're about to get more money uh

because I'm writing you you know checks

um if you don't think that that played a

role in the housing market think again

it played a huge role including the

rental market where rents and even

security deposit started to sore so uh

inflation happened in housing in rentals

in shelter all of that as a direct

result of the stimulus that Trump did

and then that Biden continued to do when

people have more cash they typically

spend it and when that causes a supply

and demand imbalance inflation happens

it's it's really that simple however I

also know that Trump is going to take

his mandate to fix the economy seriously

and as I stated earlier the housing

market is arguably the most important

part of the economy currently lagging

behind so if Trump assembles the right

team around him and honestly I've been

encouraged by some of of the people he's

announced so far that are going to be on

his team then I think he could

potentially show some patience let the

economy stabilize uh or or see if the

economy stabilizes and then see if rates

improve from there if rates improve the

housing market will rebound like it's

it's really that simple mortgage rates

don't improve then all bets are off

construction employment will start

cratering and the broader economy could

start to Teeter at which point Trump

would likely want to start taking some

uh some really big action and quite

frankly the FED would too right I think

that they would be on the same page when

it comes to that so I think at the end

of the day it's not just the economy

stupid as James Carville uh famously

said when it comes to housing you could

say it's a mortgage rate stupid right

it's literally that simple it just comes

down to mortgage rates right now

particularly in this environment where

so many people are experiencing that

lock in effect where they're locked into

a a 3% 2% maybe even a four or 5%

mortgage and and they don't want to go

up to six and a half or 7% they just

don't want to um and so uh mortgage

rates are are going to be continue to be

the story under the Trump Administration

and my guess is that mortgage rates will

remain in the mid to high sixes maybe

even the low sevs until the market feels

like they have a sense of what Trump is

going to do if the markets feel like

Trump won't bring more inflation we

could really see rates drop fairly

quickly as I already said if markets

feel like Trump will bring on more

inflation then we could see rates

soaring Mark uh 30-year fixed rate

mortgage rates soaring back into the

sevens uh low sevens mid sevens maybe

even high sevens um I don't know again

this a lot there's going to be a lot of

reading the tea leaves here in in the

future and and we need to be careful uh

with that and we need to be data focused

which is what we will be or at least

what I will be right so 2025 is shaping

up to be another wild one so buckle up

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