This is bad for realtors, potentially bad for buyers: Expert warns of 2025 forecast

A realtor dot com predicts low sales, but rising prices for homebuyers in 2025. Housing guy Mitch Rochelle joins me now, Mitch, that doesn't sound good to me. How about you? Well, it's bad for realtors because they're not going to sell a lot of homes and it's potentially bad for buyers because prices are going to go up. Good for sellers. But that is I completely agree with their forecast for 2025. Unless we figure out some fiscal policy to create incentives for people to build more homes, we're not going to see more homes hit in the market in a meaningful way. And you can't just snap your fingers and build more homes just like that, can you? I mean, it takes a long time to get those to the market. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the companies we have, we can create new homes, which we do them for rent in about a year. But the biggest challenge is all these local regulations which just slow down the process. Just pulling a permit can take six months sometimes. So that is certainly one of the challenges. And then we have billionaire Mark Cuban. He says home insurance in areas hit by repetitive disasters is going to be the number one housing affordability issue in the next four years. He says Florida in particular will have his words huge problems. Is that exactly what you're seeing, Mitch? Yeah, it's certainly an issue. But I think Mark Cuban's comments directed at Florida and potentially directed at Governor DeSantis are political in nature because guess what? Texas has the exact same problems and he lives in Dallas. So, yes, I think it's a national problem. We've talked about it in the past and we need to figure out a way to deal with it. We're seeing, Stuart, more and more people choosing to rent versus buy just for the reason that you don't carry that burden of expensive homeowners insurance when you're a tenant and you shift it back to the landlord. I believe I remember you said that your solution to that problem or partial solution is to raise your deductible. Is that it? Yeah, that's my solution. But, you know, that's not certainly for everybody. That means you're willing to take up to fifty thousand dollars worth of risk if something happens to your house. For somebody that has a four hundred thousand dollar house, they can't take that kind of risk. So I don't think it's a one size fits all solution. It's my personal solution. But I think what we're seeing is people are kind of voting with their feet and opting to rent versus buy when high homeowners insurance is part of the calculus of whether or not they rent versus buy. What a mess. You know, we bring you on. You're a real estate expert. You know what you're talking about. And every week the news seems grim. You know, it's just not an active market. Realtors are not having a good time at the moment, are they? No. And the thing that really disturbs me the most about it, and I hate being the bearer of bad news, but, you know, speaking the truth is speaking the truth. We're talking at the end of the day, Stuart, about the American dream. And I think the American dream is owning a home. And when it's bleak prospects of owning a home, I think that that trickles down through a lot of the economy. So I think it's something that this incoming administration needs to really, truly focus on. Well, let's hope they do. Mitch Rochelle, thanks for joining us. You have a great weekend. No matter where you are, enjoy yourself.