2204: Navigating Market Shifts, Policy Changes, and Wealth-Building Opportunities with Megan Gorman Part 2

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My name is Brandon Cook. This is my fourth Meet the Masters seminar. All these markets that Jason and his network endorses are great markets. We're getting better. Higher rents, prices are going up right now. But with financing terms as good as they are, they're still real great deals and all have been through Jason's network.

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Welcome empowered investors, and this is episode 2204. Thank you for joining me today as we continue our discussion with May Megan Gorman. Fascinating discussion on all the President's money. How the men who governed America governed their money. So we will get to that in just a moment. Before we start though, a little public service announcement. You know, I have said many times that it is unfair that McDonald's, you know, McDonald's. Right. That they get so much blame, or at least they used to get so much blame for, for serving and selling such unhealthy food. And that is certainly true. Their food is terrible. All fast food is terrible. But interestingly, the biggest purveyor of poison in America, in my humble opinion, I'm not an expert, but this is just my opinion as a consumer. Is Starbucks. Starbucks sells such absolute junk. And yes, I am a customer. I go there more than I want to. But that's just because there's no other choices. No other real choices. In fact, I tried to choose other coffee shops and I've gone out of my way to do it. And it is really tough when you have essentially what amounts to a monopoly. Fortunately, in Europe, I just got back from two months in Europe, you don't see Starbucks monopolizing that market, thank God. But you know, I always thought I was being pretty healthy because my ex girlfriend Carmen introduced me to these egg bites. And I've been eating them for years. Well, yesterday I finally decided to look up every ingredient of Egg Bites. And let me tell you, these ain't healthy, okay? If you're looking on the screen, you can see the ingredients of this. Like, why can't we just have eggs as God made them? You know, look at all the crap in these egg bites. I mean, it's just. It's just insane. I'm not going to go over it with you, but it's just unbelievable. And you know what else I discovered that a blueberry muffin there that I commonly eat, but maybe not anymore. I didn't have one this morning. 27 grams of sugar that ought to have a warning label on it. You know, I'll get to the topic at hand here. I got some interesting views for you in a moment. But just to continue my public service announcement, when you're in Europe and I'm, you know me, I go every summer, you just realize that American food is poison. We have just been sold down the river in this country in terms of our food supply. And, you know, when I got to share the stage last week with, with rfk, he really wants to do something about this and make America healthy again. Maha, this is a critical thing. Your life depends on this. You see so many people in the US sadly, just walking around like zombies. I mean, they're so obese, they can't even walk. It's like unbelievable. I pass them on the street and they're walking like two miles an hour, kind of like waddling. I mean, this is terrible. This is poison. The food is poison. You've got to make such big efforts here to escape the poison food supply. Yeah, it's just really something. And. And Starbucks is so guilty of this. I mean, the stuff they serve is just pathetic. Not to mention the drinks they serve. I mean, I don't get these drinks. I just get, you know, regular coffee, which is full of pesticides and poison, of course. But I mean, these crazy drinks they get that are like eating five desserts, they have 90 grams of sugar. Some of these things. Now, compared to what? Right. That's always the right question. Well, you know, again, I'm not an expert, you know, I'm certainly not an expert in this. But just what little I know as a consumer and what I've researched, the body can properly digest and assimilate, from what I understand, about 4 grams of sugar per hour. By the way, if you know more about this than I do, please comment below. If you're watching on video or go to Jason hartman.com, ask and shoot me a message on this because I'd love to know more, but that's what, what I've heard and researched a little bit. I haven't spent a ton of time on this, but 4 grams of sugar per hour, right, without any big insulin response issue or anything like this not going to give you diabetes, right? And in one muffin, you know the pumpkin cream cheese muffin, I like that one better than the blueberry. 34 grams of sugar. It's insane, this stuff. I mean, why is it that cigarettes have to have a warning label on them yet these don't. This, this food is just killing people. Literally killing people. Cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease. I mean, what else do you want? It's just awful. It's just inflammation, muscle aches and pains. It's just disgusting. This has got to end, folks. It has really got to end. Do something about it, Talk about it, please talk about it to people, okay? And of course, defend yourself to whatever degree you can reasonably do. But look at the bottom of these ingredients contains bioengineered food ingredients. That's the big question mark. We don't even know what that really even means or what the effects are. We just don't know. It's just too early to tell. But all the other ingredients in here, just absolutely unbelievable. I looked up every single ingredient. I. I spent the time. Yesterday morning, I pulled out Wikipedia, which is woke. And you can't even trust Wikipedia at all anymore. But maybe here you can a little bit. And it did not look good. These ingredients, not good. Okay, this chart is going to blow your mind. Single family housing units completed by decade. Wow. I shared this on our empowered investor pro zoom meeting yesterday. And if you're watching this on video, you can see the stark difference here. But I'll explain it to you. In the 70s, we built 11 million homes. In the 80s, we built 9.8 million homes in America. In the 90s, we built 10.7 million homes. And in the 2000s, we built 12.6 million homes. In the 2000 and tens, the last decade, we only built 6.5 million homes. And remember, remember what I always say. The homes we built were mostly not entry level homes because those aren't very.

Lucrative for the builders.

So there is such an acute housing shortage in general, of course, yes, there's a housing shortage, you know, anywhere from a million to five or six million homes, they say. Depends on who you ask. But there's a shortage nonetheless. Remember, there's only about 700,000 homes for sale in the U.S. but in the entry level starter home category, these numbers are so much worse. They are so, so much worse. And this is census Bureau data. And remember, we are now pretty much halfway through the decade of the 2000 and twenties, and this is the last decade's information. Remember, the census is only every 10 years, and we now have 340 million people in the country. Back in 1980 or so, we had about 120 million fewer people in the country, yet we were building almost twice as many homes. So this is just not letting up anytime soon. Even if our communist presidential candidate, you know who she is, that idiot with a hyena laugh. Oh, she's so stupid. I can't believe it. It's, like, unbelievable. I mean, I know the other guy has mean tweets and all, but she's an idiot. You know, it seems like to me that if everybody's so concerned about the housing shortage, maybe we should be considering the guy who's a real estate developer, a housing developer to run the country. It's just a thought. He could actually do something about it. But she wants to build 3 million homes, right? Which will never happen. I mean, even if she's elected, I mean, what she done the past, you know, almost four years, she hasn't done anything. Okay, she wants to build 3 million homes. Like that's some big goal that won't even come close to solving the problem. I mean, we got a deficit from the last decade with consistent population numbers of about 6 million homes. And then that deficit is much more acute in the entry level category, which is the most needed category and most in demand category. I mean, folks, this problem or opportunity, depending on which side of the equation you are as an investor, it's an opportunity because you can be the person to provide housing to these people that so badly need it. Remember, there's a lot of shadow demand out there that hasn't shown itself yet, and that's all those people living at home. I did an analysis on that on a prior show and you heard about it, but it's pretty crazy. So the opportunity for investors. You've got a huge market here, a huge market of demand that needs the product. You provide rental housing, and eventually you're going to sell some of your rental housing. So there's a huge market that needs to buy a house, right? And so there you go. All right, you've seen this chart before. What happens if mortgage rates come down? Remember, just a quick review here. We've only got about 700,000 homes for sale in the country. We see the 6.5% rate. Using 7 as a baseline, as a mortgage rate. 7%. 2.8 million new buyers can now afford the median price home. At 6%, 5.4 million can now afford the median price home. These are additional buyers beyond what we already have. And then at 5.5%, Fannie Mae is predicting rates will come down to 5.5%. 7.7 million new qualified buyers can afford to buy the median price home. With 700,000 homes for sale, what do you think is going to happen? Just do the math. It's simple economics. One on one, supply and demand. All right, join us for our Wednesday masterclass. This is going to be a different one and it's going to be great. We've had so many requests for this. We're finally doing it. So here we are. Unlock global freedom. Master offshore planning in a changing world. Get a plan B. You know, the next lockdowns. We all know they're coming. Whether they be climate lockdowns or whatever new funky diseases going around, they're going to find a reason again to do lockdowns around the world. So you want to have a plan B. Wouldn't it be nice to have another passport to travel on, where you can travel around the world not dependent on one passport or being from one country? You know, what if you are an American and there are certain places you can't go with your American passport? Or what if that passport is even further restricted? Well, if you had another passport, you'd have a whole bunch of new options. So come and join us for this masterclass. Learn how you can have offshore planning opportunities. Second citizenship, second passport, asset protection, offshore offshore structuring, offshore bank accounts, offshore planning. It's going to be great. A lot of you have asked about this for a long, long time, and we're finally doing a masterclass on this. Go to Jason hartman.com Wednesday to sign up for this. That's Jason hartman.com Wednesday. And join us for our free monthly masterclass. And this time it's on offshore planning. All right, let's get to Megan Gorman and continue to talk about all the President's money.

Right.

I think one of things we don't talk about a lot, and I say this because I'm a Gen Xer, you know, in my late 40s. And I think everybody in their late 40s and early 50s are dealing with parents and aging. And, you know, what we don't ever really talk about is one of the biggest, most dangerous things that happen as you age is UTIs. Right. Because UTIs as you age cause confusion and cause falling. And so to your point, homes are really, really risky. And you know, one of the things a lot of my clients work on is what home are we going to age in? We try to, you know, can we get the primary bedroom on the main floor? And here in California, what's been interesting is we have a new law regarding ADUs, right. Those additional dwelling units. Because we have a housing shortage here.

Right.

And what I'm having hearing a lot of people.

That's not going to solve the problem though.

It won't solve the problem because I'll give you example, I have people doing ADUs because they want a house on the property that they can eventually put a caretaker in for when they want to age in their house. So yes, I agree, it's not going to solve the problem. But you know, when the law is a certain way, you want to see is there an opportunity set that benefits you?

Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good. Okay. So sorry to get off on the little tangent.

No, no, I love this.

Okay, so talk to us about the healthy amount of risk that you mentioned before or risk taking. You know, sometimes the biggest risk in life is not to take the risk. I think that's a very significant thing. Share, maybe elaborate on that or share some experiences from some of your clients, your high net worth clients and yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think with a lot of people, right, you know, risk is tough because it's emotional. Right. You know, we all wish we could be like a poker player, right? The best person in risk and presidents was Dwight Eisenhower. Right. He was, he was a poker player. Very cool, calm and collected. But for most of us there's an emotional draw. So what I always tell people is, look, as you navigate things, the important thing is to have someone who you can talk to about it that is unemotional about your money. Where people are really good that I've seen in sort of taking risk is deciding what they're willing to put at risk. And what I mean by that is I work with a lot of corporate executives who are in publicly traded companies. We're holding millions in single stock positions. Right? And that violates everything.

That is in portfolio construction. You're not supposed to have concentrations. But the thing I would tell you is great wealth is not created by diversification. Diversification maintains it at a certain steady rate of return over the long term. It's boring and it's like watching paint dry. You want to become wealthy, you need to do it by, you know, having a business owning a single stock position. Concentration. Yeah, and concentration.

As I always say, you know, diversification perpetuates wealth. Concentration creates wealth. So depending on the stage you're in, if you're wealthy and you want to just be conservative and put it in neutral, hey, diversify. But if you want to create wealth, you need to do what Andrew Carnegie said. Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket. You know, Now I like the income property basket the best. And so what you can do is you can be all in that basket, but you can diversify your risk geographically by being in different markets. And we say be in at least three markets, not more than five. I like that rule.

I like that rule a lot. That's a good rule. Yeah. And also, you know, I'm a big believer in if you want to own rental properties, know, know where you're renting. So I was sharing with you before the call. I own a rental property, but it's in my hometown on the Jersey shore. I know the rhythm of the Jersey shore.

I know how you live in California.

But I live in California. Yeah. Trust me, I'm doing it from afar. But when you're from somewhere and you know the market, it gives you a little bit of like some people would say, oh, buying a home on the Jersey Shore when you live in California is taking on a lot of unnecessary risk.

Yeah. But the risk could be like, see, the problem is with most of our clients is they live in these nicer mark or I don't want to say nicer. They're not always nicer. They're just more expensive markets. Correct. And you can never make the properties pencil in those markets. You got to be in the cheap markets for investing. And you know, what I always say is invest in markets that make sense. So you can afford to live in markets that don't make sense. Right. So, you know, you live in San Francisco half the time in Corona del Mar, California, where I used to live half the time. Right. And so you live in places that make no sense whatsoever.

No. And I actually had an experience recently of my own situation, which, you know, I think it's good to know when to, like, fold them. Right. So for a long time when I moved out to California, my real estate story is interesting in the sense that in 2002, I graduate law school and my ex husband And I take 10 grand and we buy a condo in Hoboken, New Jersey. Okay. And we had no idea, but it had parking. We didn't know how valuable that was to have a garage spot. And when we, when Goldman moved me to Southern California three years later, you know, we sold it and had doubled our money, which gave me the ability to enter the California market. But I had a great little house, the worst house on the best street in the villages of Corona del Mar. And if you know Corona del Mar, it's got these really cute streets called the Flower streets and the land and they're in alphabetical order except there's two M's and two P's and it stops after Poppy. So don't ask.

Sorry, go ahead. There's no Z street.

Yeah, there's no Z's even though there's zinnias. Right. So what was interesting is in Corona tomorrow, when I moved out there, the land is so valuable and I know I sound crazy saying this, that a lot of times there's a front house and a back house, right? And this sounded nuts when I got there from Jersey, I'm like, who does this? But the back houses were a way to get entry to the marketplace. And I ended up having the house for 17 years. Sometimes it was my primary residence, sometimes a secondary. Then it was a primary at the end and people said to me when I went to go set, sell it, do you want to rent it? And I thought long and hard about it and I penciled out the numbers and I could not justify renting it. Yeah, they don't work because even though I could cover the expenses, but your.

Rent to value ratio there is so out of whack it's insane. Like you can never, you can never make those high end markets pencil. And you know what's interesting, Megan, is I've been to 97 countries now and I'm currently in Poland and I, I was just looking at properties a few days ago with couple of different real estate brokers here and the real estate developer, the rent to value ratios here, they hold the same rule holds pretty much worldwide. So a million five really nice condo here in Warsaw, Poland will rent for about five grand a month. And I'm converting all this to dollars, not zlotties or you know, Polish currency. It's like that same rent to value ratio holds true around the world, you know, in high end and low end markets or, or cyclical and linear markets.

And I have a lot of clients that have rental real estate around the world. People in, in Portugal and Sicily, you know, in Africa, Costa Rica. And you know, I will tell you like some of the markets like Spain, it's very easy to get into the property market. It's not that expensive. Cost of living there isn't expensive. But you also don't get a lot in rent, so it's not as great a situation. So I, you know, I find the rental thing, you have to be incredibly selective to make it work. Now where I've had people be successful, I'll give you an example. I have someone with a beautiful home in Park City, Utah. Park City is a great place to have a rental. It's a lot like I saw people in Bend, Oregon. Right. These are great year round.

We used to, you know, 20 years ago, we used to sell properties in Park City. Okay. And just think about that, folks listening to me, okay? You know, between about 2004 and 2008, we were selling properties to clients that were buying in Park City, Utah. You couldn't touch that today, like and make it make sense as rental. But back then you could make that actually make sense as a rental.

And the ones I have there make sense.

So, yeah, the markets, you think now today, they're just uninteresting markets. Right? Just wait, you know, wait a decade and you'll change your mind. It's really.

Well, let me, let me ask you this question because I've watched people with Park City, with Bend do incredibly well. Six figures of rental income a year.

You know, we used to do Redmond, Oregon, Bend. Yeah. Park City.

I got a hypothesis. So let me, let me run this by you. So Las Vegas likes to reinvent itself constantly, right? You know, it was one point it was the family friendly place and then it's a food city. And now it's trying to be a sports and entertainment city. Right. You know, with the F1 is little.

I don't like Las Vegas very much at all. But Las Vegas was better when the mafia ran it, probably. Now the corporations run it and they've screwed it up.

But what I'm always wondering is, as this latest reinvention, when you're sports and entertainment, you're getting very wealthy people come in who want to stay in luxurious spaces. So the thing that I'm wondering, you know, I've been kicking the can around in my head is, is Vegas the place where you buy a gorgeous condo that you rent out, which when you've got the F1 going on or the sphere, you're able to get really good rents like you could in a Park City or a Bend or to your point, Redmond years ago. And these are the things I think you have to kick the can around on to sort of pencil it out.

I'm just, I'm just not a huge fan of condos. Like the deal has to be so good to convince me to do a condo. You know, I'm just not a huge fan. But, but I see what you're getting at. The thing I wanted to toy around with you with the real estate thing for a minute is, you know, you mentioned Corona del Mar and now you're mentioning Vegas. A lot of this has been driven by the concentration of wealth and the wealth gap issue. Okay, totally. You know, the rich have gotten extremely rich in this country, you know, during COVID but long before COVID as well. And there's definitely a huge wealth transfer going on. Right. You know, and if you don't believe me about this, just look at like anecdotal stuff. And what I always say to my listeners is, is watch old TV shows, listen to old music and just look at the scenery around people. When you watch an old TV show like Columbo the Detective. Right. Or that old show Heart to Heart. Do you remember that one?

Yep.

Right. And that was considered ultra wealthy back then.

Right.

And compare that to what we call ultra wealthy today, which is insane levels of wealth today. Right. I mean, it's just so different. The wealthy are so much more mega wealthy than they ever were. Right. And so is that going to continue to drive these higher end markets and higher end properties? Is it going to maybe become even more severe, the wealth gap? I don't know. I don't think it's good for society. I'm glad I'm on the right side of that equation personally. And a lot of my clients were helping them get there because the middle class is getting hollowed out, which I think is a very bad thing overall, and I'm sad to see it happen. And, and you know, it's even happened in Corona del Mar. And I'll tell you one of the things that happened there is. I remember in the 90s when they changed the law and they made it easier to subdivide the lots in Corona del Mar. They have these little 100 foot by 35 foot lots. I think that's the measurements. Before they were all R1, you could only have one house on them. And then they made it really easy. The city changed the rules and made it really easy to subdivide it and have two units. Okay. And when they did that, all the developers came in and started, you know, knocking down the old beach house that was three bedroom, two bath or one bath and you know, built in the Post World War II, baby boom maybe. And then they built like two condos, okay, that were brand new and you know, they made them really high density and you know, they went up and you know, all that stuff. And so it really moved the middle class out of there, you know, and it became a much more expensive market. And so, you know, there's all these dynamics going on. But what are your thoughts with all of your experience, Megan, about are the rich just going to keep getting richer or is that due for a change? What do you think?

So, so I think a couple things. You've asked a bunch of questions there. So let me, let me.

I'm the king of the compound questions.

I think, I think I got them all in my head. So. So I think the first thing I would say is in writing my book, my biggest takeaway was that the American dream is still alive. It is so much harder to achieve it today. Right. I mean, in 1910, Calvin Coolidge could have built a house for six grand. Right? That's still a lot.

Yeah, but adjusted for inflation, 6 grand.

Well, probably still a lot less, still under 100 grand. Right. So that was possible. You know, Richard Nixon went to college for $280 a year in 1930. Right. So you think about this and then you think about what's happened today. We're not adjusting our institutions the right way in order for us to achieve the dream. So when you ask me these questions, I think the bigger thing is I don't mind people growing wealth in this country. I think that's part of the American dream. I want more people to have a shot at it. So the challenges we have today, right, is if you're self employed, getting a mortgage is a nightmare. What's more American than being an entrepreneur? But by the way, we won't let you buy a house. So we're going to make it really difficult for you to get access to capital. So why, why is it that way? Why is it we have to put 20% down? That's a rule from like the 50s when banks didn't have much recourse if they had to take a house. So some of the challenges I think.

Is, oh, so you think the down payments are too high.

Okay, let me say this for me with where I am in life, I think it's appropriate, okay. If I'm a 25 year old trying to get in the market for the first time. I think we need to work on how banks work with them. I think we have to work on how the tax code handles them. I'm a tax attorney. Right. I do think certain incentives to help those guys get in because you and I know once you're in the game, then you can move around.

Right.

But if you can't get in the game, it's hard. And we're 5 million housing units short in this country.

Yeah.

So to your point, if you have means and then, you know, and you're able to go in all cash, you are going to get a big bigger piece of the pie and really build wealth. We need to think about, okay, keeping those guys having the access to do what they want to do. But how do you get more people in the game? And that to me is the biggest challenge.

So I think the answer to that question is you incentivize the developers, not the buyers. We have enough demand, we have not enough supply. You need to make it easy to build more houses. You know that that's where the, it has to be on the supply side, supply side economics.

But, but if you're a developer, like we talk about Corona del Mar, right. You know, they're buying these things, these old houses, like there's one up the street from me, amazing views, great location. And they're going to buy it and scrape it, but to justify the resale cost. And this is happening across the country. I see it in my hometown of Cape May. I see it everywhere. They have to put the houses on it and make them so big to justify the cost.

Right.

And so part of that is that's, that's some of the issues.

It's because the land value is so high. That's what's driving that.

Right? Yeah. It's funny, I always say one of these days I would take my little nephew down to my rental house in KMA and say, this house, the house is worth nothing. It's all about the land and that's where the value is. So I think we've got to reshape some of this in terms of behaviors and how land can be treated, how get, how to get people in, how to get people to get access to capital. Right. And I think realtors have been part of the issue because when, like I just went through this last week with a client, when my clients go in to buy a property, we go in all cash because we have 90 days to put a mortgage on to keep the mortgage indebtedness deduction on the tax return. So the real estate world is telling us when you get two bids, and this happened when I sold my houses. When you get an all cash bid, you're being pushed to take that because it's a sure thing. And so if you're a 25 year old trying to get in the market for the first time, how can you compete? So the competition isn't fair. And I think the best way to.

Acquire this, I wish we could go into the institutional investors. RFK has made quite an issue of that. But, but anyway, go ahead.

I think a couple things. I think the tax code is often the best way to create a better sense of fairness. And you know, the tax code is weird. We focus on low income people and then we try to take everything away from people who have tons of money. But in the United States today, if you make between 150,000 and 400,000 in this country, you're not getting any benefits from the code. You know, you hear they make fun of people who say, oh, I make 250 a year and I'm living paycheck to paycheck check. But that's the truth in this country today. And so if you want to bolster the middle class, if you want to, it's the people make 150 to 400, how do you give them incentives? How do you give them tax breaks that can really allow them to get in and wealth built?

Make a suggestion or two on that, like what would they be?

What would it be? So first of all, I think one of the things that we really have to change and I mentioned to this to you before the show started, is we used to the way a sale of homes worked is used to roll your gain into your next house. And in 1998 they changed that and they gave each of us an exemption. So if it's your primary residence two out of the past five years, you.

Would get two for singles, 500 for married.

Correct. We've never indexed that. Right. You know, people are making decisions not to move because they know they're going to pay tax because, and that's what's interesting.

We talk about the mortgage lockdown effect a lot, but that tax policy is also constricting inventory and supplies. And, and so, you know, people. And Prop 13 in California does that too, which I, you know, think Prop 13 is pretty good in a lot of ways, but it also causes inventory to remain off the market. That would come on the market.

You know, I think one of the things that most people, most people hear about the estate tax, right. They think, oh, it doesn't impact me. But there is one thing with the estate tax that's so incredibly important. And depending if you're in your community Property state or a separate property state. It's the step up in income tax basis. And it's one of the most powerful tools we have. Right. So what I mean by that is if you bought a house for a hundred thousand and on the day you die it's worth a million, your heirs inherit it with a tax basis. California, because it's a community property at a million. Right. Depends on separate property states if you, if you own it with someone.

So that's great when you're inheriting because the basis steps up to market value.

So, but, but here's the thing. Most people don't always know that rule. And there have been times when they've been kicking around the estate tax rules that they've said they want to get rid of that, you know, the exemption is the exemption. And, and if you are going have a taxable state, you work with people like me and I can help you. Right? But losing the step up or that risk of that, when they go and look at the estate tax law, that's a big problem for real estate owners. And people should stay on top of that and really encourage your representative or your senator to know that the step up is important to you. But I think when you ask me what I would do is I think that some of this has to be, how do you incentivize people? How do you incentivize people to improve your home, sell your house when it's up to move into another house? And I think we got to go back to schedule A of the tax code, you know, the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, which I think is the biggest misnomer because my clients all had tax increases, nobody got a tax cut. But losing the state and local tax deduction for things like real estate taxes was a really painful thing. So a lot of people who used to be able to itemize because they had their mortgage interest, they had their real estate taxes, their state taxes are now taking the standard deduction. And I'm from the great state of New Jersey. New Jersey, if you live in a nice neighborhood, you have a lot of property taxes that's hurting people. And so not getting more, more of a benefit from that, that's injuring the middle class. So I think the thing is we need to stop seeing the IRS and the tax code as our enemy, but see it as a tool to drive the ability to protect certain things like the middle class to get new buyers in. And we really need to think about banks and how they operate. And obviously we don't want. Remember the scene in the big short where they're talking about ninja loans, no income, no job loans, we don't want those types of mortgages. But if you got a young couple trying to buy their first house and they only have, you know, 10% to put down or they're, they're self employed, we've got to stop making it so arduous on them.

Yeah, that's it.

And then the last thing I'll say, Jason, before I get off my soapbox is, well, the reason they do that.

On the self employed is because they, they want you to pay your taxes. That's why the system is a circular system. But go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah. No, no, yeah. The self employed thing is difficult because you're self reporting your income. But banks, when you go in as a self employed person to get a mortgage, it's almost like they don't believe you. Like they want to see your p. L. And there's a lot of businesses in this country, people who have like a solo small business, they're not keeping the best books. Right. People are not good at some of the belt and suspender stuff of personal finance. So, you know, it just is hard to get qualified. And like I've know people where when they finally get qualified, they have to pay a higher interest rate.

And we'll be back with a lot more on this topic with this guest on our next episode.

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Forward to seeing you on the next episode.