Trump Just Stalled the Biggest Housing Bill in Decades

0:00Mom and pop investors are dominating the housing market despite all the negative news out there. President Trump just declined to sign the biggest housing bill that passed Congress in decades, and housing demand is a surprisingly bright spot for the housing market. Today, we're hitting these headlines and more to make sure that real estate investors understand everything that's going on in the market. This is On The Market. Let's get to it.

0:32Hey, what's up, everyone? I'm Dave Meyer. Welcome to On The Market. Today, I am joined by Kathy Fecky and James Daynard. Henry's off big time in us, just ignoring us, can't even show up for recording anymore. But I'm happy to have you both here. Kathy, how are you? I'm good. I'm excited. James wants to bring a happy show to us today. No more sad clowns. I like it. I feel like some of the shows we've done recently have just been so depressing. saying over when in reality things aren't that bad right like they're not 2022 but like there's good stuff going on and we have a couple good stories to talk about that today james how you doing man you know i'm doing good i'm done filming i got two more days and done i feel like a butterfly i'm so light right now oh so good yeah i can't even imagine what you did filming three seasons for A &E in what?

1:29Like a year and a half? Dude, 18 or 24 months. That's brutal. But the show is awesome. If you guys haven't watched it, go check it out. It's called Million Dollar Zombie Flip. I think they're airing season two right now. I'm on episode eight. It's ridiculous. But James and his team do such a good job with this. Definitely go check it out. I genuinely mean this. It's the most fun flipping show I've seen. You know, from that episode, I got a rash that wouldn't go away for a month. Okay. With you, I don't know if that means you're sad about it or you're proud of that. That might be a badge of honor for you.

2:02It is. Well, let's get into our story today. James, you said you have a happy story. Let's start with a happy story. What do you got for us? It is amazing to me how quickly people's attitude and perception of everything switches so fast now. But there's just kind of a lot of sad clowns out there. It's like the world's ending or they think they're walking out the rain cloud over their head all day long. It's Charlie Brown. It is Charlie Brown. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, you guys, you got to look at the facts. And Housing Wire article, housing demand holds steady as regional inventory trends reshape the market.

2:41And what this article talks about, and, you know, and I don't think this is 100 % telling the full story either, you know, because I think the market has slowed down in a lot of sectors and you got to kind of sit there and grind it out. But what the article does point out is that demand is broad, is not concentrated, but the national inventory is actually really flat year over year. Yeah. So on the inventory national, it's only up less than a quarter of a point. Midwest is up 5.5%. The West is down 2.8 % and the South is down 0.8%. So inventory is not skyrocketing. rocketing. And what I think what people really got to look at is what is the median home price in your market?

3:24What are things selling? Because there's a lot of little segments that are not moving. I'm in some deals where they are not moving. And that's okay. Like I got to wait it out and time it out. But all this like inventory is cranking up in that the market is coming apart. You have to look at the actual facts. And I broke down a market inside Washington because I'm like, like, okay, this does not tell the whole story. This is about two weeks ago. I broke this down because I'm like, I got to see what this is. And I think this shows a very good snapshot of the rest of the country too. There's two different markets going on at the same time inside of our market.

3:57There is the luxury market, which anything above$3 million, inventory has extremely increased. We're at levels in like Bellevue and Clyde Hill at over 10 months inventory. inventory. But if you back into the more median home pricing, we're down on inventory. Yep, exactly. Affordability, baby. It's all about affordability. And you know, I mean, being a luxury flipper, it's just great, let me tell you. But you have to look at it because the important thing is to look at the actual facts, right? That does tell a story throughout. And because I've seen people like cut price, they're getting very irrational with their investments.

4:33It's like, no, you had like you were hitting a slow time in the market. And you have to just slow down, look at the facts. Now, if everything's down, that's a major concern, but they're just little segments that are down and slowed down. And typically if everything doesn't slow, something will get some legs on it and get running back again. And so you just got to be patient and build out your, your strategy to have a lot longer hold times. But that's what I liked about this article. It's like, Hey, this is not really what everyone's saying. It's just that certain segments of the market are not doing well.

5:03Yeah, I think all the evidence shows that things are better than people make them out to be. And I said this on a show recently, like this is a bold statement, so I'm not don't quote me on this. But to me, it feels like we're sort of like finding a bottom of the residential market right now, because like if things didn't get that much worse this year and we didn't see demand evaporate in the last six months. And in fact, we've seen demand go up over the last couple of months. If you look at mortgage purchase applications, if you look at pending sales, they are up this year. And so if we're four years into a tightening cycle, four years into low affordability, we saw mortgage rates go up 0.5, 0.75 % this year.

5:47There's all these fears about AI. And more people are trying to buy a house this year than last year. And I'm not saying things are going to get better quickly. But I think to me, this just shows that absolutely we're not in a free fall. Like, right. People are still participating in the housing market, still want to participate in the housing market. And personally, I think it's going to take a while for it to get meaningfully better. But to me, this is this just shows that like we're at a position and a place in the market where you as an investor can make decisions like it's stable. And that's as an investor, all you need.

6:21Right. You need some level of predictability. There's never perfect predictability, but some level of confidence that the next three, six, nine, 12 months are going to go somewhat similar to what you think it's going to happen, or at least you have a backup plan. And to me, the data James shared shows two things. As a flipper, like James, the disposition is challenging, but it's not getting worse. And I think a lot of things are showing that it might be getting better. And as a buyer, there are good deals, but don't expect some free fall where inventory is going to skyrocket 10, 20, 30 percent.

7:00All of a sudden, they're going to be flooding the market with deals. You're going to be shooting fish in the barrel like it was 2010. So, like, no, it's not perfect, but it's more stable. And, like, that's all you need to make good decisions. And that's why you've got to look at the fact, like, pending sales are up. Yeah. I feel like everyone's freaking out. Like, that's, like, a very encouraging thing about the market. Yeah, it's because the conditions are not great. inflation is high, things are expensive, but pending sales are up. Like Midwest is up 9%. Yeah. The West is up 8.4%. The South is up 6.9%.

7:31The Northeast is up 4.1%. The world is not falling, but you do have to do the research to what is safe and not safe. That's the thing. Of course, not, not everything fits in the same bucket and everyone throws everything into the bucket when they're going this at the market's terrible. It's like, we're still selling homes with multiple offers. And then there's some that are crickets, right? And so you want to look at what's the absorption rate, where's the velocity in your market. And that's all I want to buy right now. I just bought a very expensive flip. And I think people are thinking I'm crazy.

8:03I'm like, well, it's expensive. But my target ARV, it's 4.3 million. It's the affordable part in the market for this neighborhood. I would love that to be the affordable part. That would be great. But the neighbor's house next door is listed for 8 million bucks. Oh, wow. And so that's where you want to be is that affordability. But just because if you just interpret the surface, you end up sitting out and you miss some really good buys during this time. And so you've got to you've got to balance and arm yourself with facts or you just lock up and you lock up. You don't make any money. All right.

8:36Well, I love it, James. Great, positive story. Thanks for sprinkling us with some good news today. I always appreciate that. I'm not trying to be like all Pollyanna about it and say that everything's perfect. It's not. But it's not as bad as people think. And if you can find those pockets of strength, there's opportunity there. So make sure that you're staying diligent, looking at the market, understanding your market all the time. That's how you profit and succeed in this kind of environment. All right, that's our first headline. We have two more for you talking about how mom and pop investors are dominating the housing market.

9:14That's another positive story. And we'll also talk about the bipartisan housing bill that passed Congress this week, but President Trump has declined to sign. We'll get to those right after this quick break. We'll be right back. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10 % below market value in the best markets across the country without making real estate your second job. That's exactly what Rent to Retirement does.

9:47They're a full-service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 % to 75 % of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more. Vacation is expensive. Your empty place doesn't have to be. If you're heading out of town and your home is sitting empty, you could list your space on Airbnb while you're away and turn those unused nights into extra income. And with Airbnb's co-host network, getting started is more straightforward than most people think.

10:28You can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience who could create your listing, manage reservations, handle guest communications, and even provide onsite support for guests during their stay. So while you're away spending money, your space could be working in the background, bringing in extra cash. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. Everyone loves talking about big returns, but here's the problem. Returns don't tell you how efficient your investment actually is. Because once taxes hit, that great deal can look pretty average. That's why a lot of experienced investors focus on multifamily, not just for cashflow, but for the tax advantages.

11:09Depreciation can help offset income while the property is still producing. BAM Capital builds its strategy on that reality, focusing on active asset management and tax-aware structuring to help accredited investors navigate complex markets. If you're exploring passive real estate, understanding this tax-efficient framework is a great place to start your due diligence. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash BAM, Only for accredited investors, past performance is not indicative of future results.

11:41Welcome back to On The Market. I'm here with Kathy and James going through this week's headlines. We talked about a bright spot in the headlines that James brought us before, talking about how inventory and pending home sales, not as bad as people think. There's actually positive trends in a lot of those areas. Kathy, give us something else a little more positive. We're just staying on the happy train today. Yeah, happy clowns today. That's all we are. It's a big, big clown party. I'm going to be a sad clown, but let's keep going. Okay, well, mine is from realtor.com. I think it's a great headline.

12:16Mom and pop investors are dominating the housing market, and Wall Street is backing out just as Trump steps in. So this article was super fascinating. Basically, the sale of homes to investors ticked up slightly to 11%. just 0.3 percentage points. So not a ton, but what's interesting about it is investors bought 534 ,000 homes last year and the median investor purchase amount rose 5%. But collectively, it was the small investors, not Wall Street. Small investors accounted for two thirds of all of those homes that were purchased. Large investors are down almost 70 % from 2021. That's amazing. Wow.

13:02That's on single families, down 70 %? Yeah. Large investors and Wall Street investors, basically defined as those who own 350 homes or more. The article said it doesn't necessarily tie to Trump because they don't have those numbers yet and the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which you're going to talk about in a minute. I will. Because I'm not sure that the numbers reflect that yet. So it's just interesting because, again, coming back to what James's article was about, There's like people are like, I can't find cash flow. There's no deals. The prices are high and mortgage rates are high. Nothing cash flows.

13:37It's like, apparently there's a whole lot of investors who don't agree. Yeah. Still doing stuff. It's still doing extremely active. Does it say, Kathy, the split between flipping or rental? Does it say anything about this? This is one of the things I don't like about these stories is it's not specific, but at the very end, it talks about flipping. So the last sentence says that real estate analytics firm Adam found that the typical profit for flipping a home is rebounding this year. So it's not clear, but it's interesting because you don't see a lot of the Wall Street investors doing the flip.

14:10So it's like, is it talking about buy and hold or not? Like, how do they define investors at people who bought with an LLC? You know, how do they know this? And it's not really clarified in there. Yeah, they all do it differently and they're not perfect. But if you look at like Redfin does this, Adam does it. And the. The direction is the same, so I think it's right, you know, like I don't it's probably not precise, but directionally accurate. So I I'm not surprised at this at all, to be honest. Like, do you know, do either of you know any investor who's been active the last year who's just stopped investing?

14:48Not in my world. Yeah, maybe not. Actually, everyone's still looking. Yeah, right. I guess maybe volume has slowed down because volume has slowed down everywhere. That is true. If you look at these reports, they show that investor activity is actually down, but proportionally, investors are making up more and more of the housing market. But it's not because they're buying more. It's not this media narrative that investors are going out and buying the most. It's actually that homeowner buying has just gone down even more than investor buying. And so proportionally, investors are making up more and more.

15:24And I just think anyone who sees real estate as a long game sees this as a buying opportunity. And maybe there's a lot of trash out there. It's still bad deals. But it's worth looking, right? And people are finding stuff. And there's going to be more and more of that. Even though what we talked about with James, even though the fact that inventory is relatively flat, I personally just think the amount of distressed sellers, people don't want to put their home on the market, sell them on pocket listings, sell them off market is just going to keep increasing. And that's the opportunity for investors.

15:58I mean, even on market deals are getting better, but like there's dual opportunity here. So I think it's great that people are still out and buying. Hopefully they're doing all their underwriting correctly and they're being disciplined about their buying. But if you're doing that and you're patient and you're willing to look at 40 deals before you pull the trigger on one, there's good ones out there. Oh, yeah. And again, like I said, buyer's market. So I imagine that the investors doing this are going to the buyer's market where there is more inventory and they can negotiate. And the people who are selling in a slow market are maybe a little bit more desperate.

16:34But the article goes on to say that the Midwest and the Sun Belt are the most popular destination for the investors, with Memphis having the highest share, 23 % of market activity, then Kansas City, then St. Louis, Birmingham, and Oklahoma City. So interesting. Cheap spots. A little bit more affordable. Any of those. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah. So it's again, opportunity and people focusing on areas. It also says the Sunbelt though, because it's in the Sunbelt, we know that in an article says this, that the demographics show the area is still gaining population, but it's on sale. So investors who see that, it's like, that's my dream to go into an area with population growth, job growth, yet the prices are down.

17:17You know, there's going to be that boomerang. That's my thing. That is a no-brainer. Find a good house, but that's a no-brainer kind of market. I have seen some people, you know where I think some of this is coming from, too, because I do know a lot of Bitcoin bros. They've been kind of going out of Bitcoin a little bit. And then also like I've seen stock investors also starting to make some like kind of safe, steady investments. They're not going for like the big kicks, but they're just trying to move their money around a little bit. That makes a lot of sense. And like for all the fear about AI, like the stock market's just ripping.

17:49People have money, you know, like people who are invested in equities have money. Yeah. So keep doing what you're doing, everyone. We're helping prop up the housing market. Yeah. People hate on real estate investors rescued the housing market in 2011, 2012. It was investors who set the bottom of the market back then and got the market growing again. And although we haven't had a crash, I think investors are helping set the bottom for inventory and activity and pending sales and demand. And I'm glad that small and pop investors and not institutional investors doing that. So good on our community for continuing to work on your businesses and move forward despite challenging conditions.

18:27You guys rock. And I want to give a plug for BPCon because I'm going to be talking about how to increase cash flow in this market. And I've got so many ideas. I'm very excited. So is there still good deals on tickets? Oh, yeah. We still have. Well, by the time this comes out, I think like one or two more weeks on early bird pricing. So go check that out. Also, if you want a discount, hit me up. I get a limited number of them every month. You can DM me on Instagram. But they're the cheapest they're going to be. So definitely go get your ticket. I'll be speaking. James is speaking. Henry is speaking.

19:05We have Morgan Housel as our keynote. I'm pretty stoked. Last year, we did a little on the market meetup. It was super fun. Maybe we'll do that again at the conference, too, where we just talked about the economy like nerds for a while. But it's in Orlando this October 2nd through 4th. You should go grab your tickets. It's going to be a lot of fun. All right. We've got to take one more quick break. After this, though, we're going to talk about the housing bill that passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support this past week, but President Trump has declined to sign so far. We'll give you an update on that right after this break.

19:37Quick gut check. If your investments are generating income, how much of that are you actually keeping? Because a lot of people, they focus on yield and ignore tax impact completely. Multifamily real estate, though, tends to solve for both. You get cashflow and with depreciation, who may be able to reduce your taxable income at the same time. That's the approach BAM Capital takes. They're not chasing flashy deals. BAM focuses on the long game, prioritizing steady execution and the potential for tax efficiency over time. For accredited investors who want real estate exposure without the day-to-day work, it's a model worth looking at.

20:15Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash BAM. Only for accredited investors, past performance is not indicative of future results. Billion-dollar investors don't typically park their cash in high-yield savings accounts. Instead, they often use one of the premier passive income strategies for institutional investors, private credit. Now, the same passive income strategy is available to investors of all sizes, thanks to the Fundrise Income Fund, which is more than$600 million invested and a 7.97 % distribution rate. With traditional savings yields falling, it's no wonder private credit has grown to be a trillion dollar asset class in the last few years.

20:56Visit Fundrise.com slash pockets to invest in the Fundrise Income Fund in just minutes. The fund's total return in 2025 was 8 % and the average annual total return since inception is 7.8%. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Current distribution rate as of 12-31-2025. Carefully consider the investment material before investing, including objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the income funds prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you've heard us talk about Lightstone Direct, the direct-to-investor platform from Lightstone, a$12 billion real estate firm that invests 20 % plus of the equity in each investment right alongside accredited investors.

21:37Right now, they're inviting investors into Hidden Lakes, a 384-unit apartment community in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Lightstone is acquiring it at a 12 % discount to comparable sales, and they already own and operate 10 ,000 apartment units in Michigan. So they know the market cold. The deal is targeting a 7.3 % net cash-on-cash return to LPs and a 13 % net IRR and a four-year hold. Accredited investors only$100 ,000 minimum. All investments involve risk. Visit lightstonedirect.com forward slash BP. Most investors only think about insurance when something goes wrong. A tenant injury, storm damage, loss of rent.

22:19Then suddenly, the cheapest policy doesn't feel like the best one anymore. That's why a lot of BiggerPockets investors use steadily for landlord insurance designed specifically for rental properties. Whether you own one property or a growing portfolio, they make it simple to get covered properly. And BiggerPockets Pro members get an extra 5 % off their landlord insurance premiums. Visit biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance to get a quote today.

22:49Welcome back to On the Market. I'm Dave Meyer here with James Daynard and Kathy Fecky going over this week's headlines. We had some positive news and you know what? Today, my story, I'm going to spin it positively. We had the biggest housing market bill pass Congress with bipartisan support over the past week. It's called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. And we've talked about it on the show before, because this is something that's been in the works for a while. It's, I think, been negotiated over 10 months with, again, overwhelming bipartisan support. I forget the exact numbers, but it was just like a massive margin.

23:27Everyone supports this. And there's a lot of good provisions in there, everything from making giving access to affordability programs helping community banks lend more making manufactured and prefab housing easier to finance and to build streamlining environmental reviews there's a lot of good stuff in there but this week and a lot of fanfare is very dramatic on wednesday president trump canceled a signing ceremony for the bill now what i hear and what I've read about what's happening here is that there's no objection to actually what's in the bill. The president and the White House have actually signaled support for the bill throughout the negotiation.

24:11But President Trump wants the SAVE Act, which is an unrelated voter ID focused act to pass. And he's, I mean, frankly, just using political leverage or maneuvering to try and hold up this housing deal to get this other deal passed. I'm personally hopeful it will get passed. Everyone wants it, right? I'm curious what you guys think. Do you think this will get enacted? And if so, do you think it will make any difference? I think it's going to get passed. I think this - Me too, if I had to guess. Yeah. I mean, I think in this world, everything's a political bargaining chip. People just can't do what they think is right.