Jason Hartman argues housing crash predictions are wrong. Forty percent of Americans own homes mortgage-free, and 65% have rates at 4% or below, making widespread defaults unlikely. He debunks a popular doomsayer's failed predictions about Airbnb sell-offs and price crashes that never happened.
The numbers are 25, you know, percent, give or take, of the country, has a loan at or below 3%, 65%, at or below 4%, and 40% of all the homes in America have no mortgage at all. So what is the chance of distress when you have no mortgage or you have an incredibly cheap mortgage? It's just very hard to get into trouble. And that's why the doomers have just been wrong about the market, you know, because these people are very comfortable. People always would criticize me and they say, Jason, you're way too optimistic. The elephant in the room is unemployment. Unemployment is going to skyrocket. And this is when the tech companies were starting to lay people off. But they were only laying people off because they massively over hired in the first place, Right? They said the unemployment, you know, when people become unemployed, they're going to stop paying their mortgages. But the reality is their mortgages were so cheap they could afford that mortgage with unemployment insurance. So that's why we just never had the doom that everybody predicted. So here is a famous doomer you've probably watched on YouTube and he's probably cost you a lot of money, okay? This guy makes these ridiculous leaps in logic. You know, always ask yourself, what are they not telling you? What are the dogs that aren't barking? That's always the question to ask. And I have watched a zillion of this guy's videos, okay? And he just makes these giant leaps. One of the videos that really put him on the map and he got a lot of pr. I even saw him on cnbc. I've never been on cnbc. Why doesn't someone interview me? So is this Airbnb video, he said all these Airbnb owners are going to sell their properties because the Airbnb market sucks. And you know that was true, right? So there are a few true things and then there's the leap, okay? The leap was like a million new homes are going to come on the market because of these Airbnb owners that are going to be forced to sell. Never happened. This video was like three years ago. That never happened. Yes, the Airbnb market wasn't very good. True. But they didn't all sell their house. Why? Well, first of all, nobody makes this decision all at once. That's the first thing. It's a slow process of people peeling off and selling. And then some people turn their homes into long term rentals. Some people sell them. True. Some people move into them. Right. They move into their own Airbnb. And a lot of the Airbnb market is filled with people who already owned a second home anyway and were wealthy enough to have a second home. And they just said, hey, honey, we might as well stick it on Airbnb and get some extra income out of this property. But. But they just keep a second home vacant anyway, right? That's a large part of that market. You know, it's always amazed me, if someone gets you into a bad investment deal and they lie to you and they defraud you, you can sue them, right? That's one thing. But nobody sues the doomers that talk people out of deals. Why is that? Because the human mind doesn't work in that direction, right? Like these people are causing people to lose more money than anybody. I mean, this guy, like, he has way more subscribers than I do. He has like 450,000 subscribers. I only have like 82,000, okay? Because doom and gloom sells. It's much more popular, right? People want to hear this negativity stuff, right? We're just wired like that. And so can you imagine the hundreds of billions of dollars people lost by listening to his advice? The opportunity cost is the biggest cost. That's the biggest thing you'll lose. You know, maybe you go into bad deal, you lose $20,000, right? But missing out on 45% appreciation during the COVID era, you're losing way more missing out on that. Okay, so look at some of his videos. Now here, I took the screenshot, 3-15-24, okay? So. So backdate this by two more years, okay? And think of the prediction. So this was 2022 in March. He was making these predictions. See, look at the date it was posted two years ago. Two years ago, right? And here's what he's saying. You know, he's talking about the 2021 housing crash. Did that happen? No, not at all. We had a 2021 housing boom. Your zip code is going to go down by 50%. Okay? Hundred thousand views. I rarely get that many views on any of my videos. Okay, this was two years before this was 2022. Did that happen? No. Okay, look at this remote work crash is coming. Did that happen? Nope. 2022 prediction. Redfin releases shocking 2022 housing prediction well, what was shocking about it? Prices are going to go up more. Yeah, I mean, just look at this. I mean, it's just. This is just trash, okay? It's just complete, you know, it's mind junk is what it is. It's junk food. Look at these. I put these in black and white. So you'll notice they're a different screen. Right, so two years ago, before this date, here are all these videos posted. Don't buy. Yeah, so don't buy in 2020.
