You're tuning in to a special episode of Drive with NAR Mic Takeover here in Boston, Massachusetts at NAR NXT. I'm James Dwiggins, co-host of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast. You know me as Dwiggy Dwiggins. Along with my partner in crime, Mr. Keith Robinson. Crazy uncle. Yes, sir. Bryan Greene, Vice President of Policy Advocacy for NAR this was a fun one because I'm a political junkie. You are? Uh, you should. Really tell him what we talked about. Well, you can you can
do it. I'll add a little flavor to it. So, so talked about what he is concerned or actually what was interesting not concerned with for 2020. That was an interesting comment actually. Yeah. Yeah. Talked about, uh, affordability a bit. We talked about first time homebuyers. Some we talked about how they are approaching going into 2025 and the advocacy work that they're going to do. How much work the team does that people don't realize
that. And then the racial divide in ownership in this country, too, which is a was a good conversation to have. And I hope everybody tunes in to this one. Yeah, this is an important one and you need to put it in your ears, kids on this one. Bryan, welcome to the podcast. We are very excited to have you here. Lots of stuff to talk about since earlier this week, and there hasn't been any conversations on social media about it at all. Not much. Um, so a slow. Year for you in general.
I've had time to look at. Yeah. Don't. It's a dumpster fire. You're all right. I believed you for a second. Yeah. Um, look, we we know you're busy, and we're we're excited to have this discussion with you. Um, you know, we talk a lot in the advocacy team about the stuff that you're working on leading up to elections and things. I would love to ask this question a little bit differently. So obviously, the elections happened. Um, where does where do you go next? Like, what happens
now? The election's over. You had some candidates. I'm assuming that, you know, you were supporting some win. Some lose, like, I'm sure always. What's the next step? Where does the team focus on now in this forward basis? Well, believe it or not, a good part of that answer is we keep doing what we're doing. Okay. So, you know, insofar as analysts say that, uh, um, you know, that rent and housing costs contributed to Trump's victory. Uh, what's clear is that, uh, home prices are not going down.
Nope. And, uh, I think what's key or what was key for many politicians was how effectively they leaned into it. Um, one of the things I think we can, uh, take away from this last campaign and be proud of is that, uh, housing was on the agenda. Yeah. You had, you know, in the presidential race, both candidates and their running mates talking about housing, including in the debates. I think it may have been the first question. First, uh, question in the vice presidential debate.
Right. Um, and, um, you know, candidates across the country talking about it in their congressional races. So we know this is a major concern, should be a major concern. Um, and I think in ah, it's going to continue to look at different ways to advocate. And, you know, regardless of the composition of Congress, that's going to be our our focus, how we tailor that message. Um, what tactics we use, you know, might change based on, let's say, where the house goes or whichever.
But we've got lots of data and lots of ways to, to attack in order to persuade, uh, officials in power that we need to tackle this. And tell us, just go a little deep on that for a second. What does that look like? Because I think I think people don't understand the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. Um, certainly people that are here, you know, at the, at the convention are very involved. But there's 10,000 people here. There's, you know, almost 1.5 million people elsewhere that are
not. And so like, give them a little bit. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, if people don't see what happens behind the scenes, you have cameras here. People can see that I'm going gray. Yeah. And it's called real estate. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Uh, so. Yeah, I mean, uh. Keith's bald. Yeah. And very gray. On the other. You're doing fine. Don't worry. Yeah. We talk. We've been talking about these
issues. Uh, you know, with the administration, the current administration, with the various agencies, uh, and on Capitol Hill, obviously, we have an expansive lobbying team that's meeting with, you know, members individually. Senators. Um, but I think the other thing in terms of, you know, behind the scenes, which is critically important right now, is we do a great deal of research.
And, you know, what we're seeing in the research indicates that America, you know, can run but can't hide from the housing affordability problem. Problem? Yeah. And just right now, for example, we just put out a study that shows that first time home buyers purchases by first time homebuyers this past year at a record low. Yeah. Lowest ever. Correct. Lowest ever since we've been keeping data. Yeah. Yeah. And then also, we're finding that the average age of first time home buyers is the highest
ever. So all time high. They're two bad combos. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then I don't want to depress everybody. Yeah. But all cash buyers, um, in the market are at all time high, too. So if you go back to the first time home buyers, you know, they're already competing with constrained supply. Uh, you hear people talking about institutional investors too, which in some markets is having a great
impact. Um, but then on top of it, just regular existing homeowners who have equity in their properties, who are looking to upgrade or whatever, show up, pay cash. Right. And so figuring out the secret sauce of how do we help these first time homebuyers is going to be critical. And the the particular measures we take may be different under a Trump administration or a Republican Senate or House than it would have been, um, last week. Right.
Let me do a follow up on that, too, because Keith knows I'm kind of a political junkie sometimes. That's true. Do you. Are we. On junkie? Yeah. Well, he gets to be the nerd for data all the time. I get to do the political junkie. He's the political. Nerd on the data nerd. Are you concerned about the. Both candidates have not done a good job of explaining how they're going to deal with the deficit and debt in this country, which we're now at $1 trillion of interest every year.
They're going to have to be they're going to face this problem and how they deal with it's going to be the big question. Everyone's going to be dealing with cuts somewhere. What what do we do? How do we make sure that the, you know, real estate is a very significant part of our GDP? How do how do we make sure that this is not the area where these. Yes happen. Cuts happen? Yeah. Is swearing allowed? Yeah. All right. Well, I mean reality maybe. All right. No swearing. Take it back.
Reality is a b. Yeah. And and just to say that, like, you know, reality is going to come crashing down. Right. Right. And you know, you mentioned interest rates. You know, there are a lot of things we may want to do in terms of tax relief, but that could also, um, hang the mortgage rates. Right. Sure. Right. Long term. Right. And, you know, the reality too is we have, you know, whole generation. I mean, I was talking about the age of first time homebuyers.
Right. Who may not see that prospect and who are, you know, some of some of those folks facing retirement or at least delaying what they can save for retirement Because they don't have this major investment. 40 times homeowners have 40 times the wealth. Yeah, it's. The single largest wealth generator for most people.
Yeah. And, you know, I always think of the John Oliver saying that, you know, when he did a program on homeownership, he said, oh, and by the way, you know, anyone under 35, this show is not for you because you will never effing own a home. Right. You know, and so but, you know, it's a joke, but it is shown borne out in the data. Right. And so we can't avoid that. You know, and if we want social stability in the country, we have to address it because it's also cutting racially.
Yeah. You know, and we know from our demographics that net the majority of net new home buyers are people of color. Right. And existing homeowners, many of whom for a variety of reasons, aren't prepared or incentivized to sell. Right. Or holding onto properties which they very well may bequeath to their children. Right. And that further. It doesn't enter back into. Yeah. Yeah. Further exacerbates the inequality. So all of those things we have to tackle in one way or another.
Reality is going to confront us. I'm going to come back to that because I want to actually ask you what policies we should be looking at to address some of this stuff, but I know Keith has a question he's been wanting to ask about sort of concerns. Yeah. So I have one other question first, because while I do agree that, uh, during this last election cycle, at least housing was mentioned, but no one really had there wasn't a plan. Right. No, it was mentioned, but not deeply discussed.
Um, I mean, there were some policies, but it was there were some. Yeah, there was some, but it wasn't really. Yeah, I guess not enough in my opinion. This is just views expressing views of Keith. Right. But like when does it become something that's mentioned to something that's actionable and, and there's a plan for it. Like a real plan of significance. Yeah, well, once you're in office,
right? I mean, uh, you can run on various platforms, and I think it's important to make, you know, uh, bold statements of your vision. Sure. But obviously, you know, how that looks in legislation, uh, is likely to be different. Actually, that's where the details are going, are going to be hashed out.
And and it's it's going to be important depending upon whether, you know, President Trump has control of the Republican Party, has control of the Senate and the House as well to get those things passed. Right. You're going to have infighting like normal. Yeah. So, you know, to some extent, concepts of a plan are helpful. Yeah. But but, you know, yeah, it's likely that you're going to detail those plans later. Um, even better if your concept is sound concept. Right. That's helpful.
Yeah. And that people are voting for something that's going to actually, uh, you know, help us all. Right. And so, um, but what's, you know, what's helpful is that that a lot of that work is already happening, right? Um, we at Na have supported a number of bipartisan measures, um, that are going to help in terms of inventory. And when I say inventory, I'm not talking about housing production necessarily, but that issue of, uh, circulation. Give us an example of one of those.
So the more homes on the market act like, one of the reasons why a lot of people who have great equity in their homes, many who maybe, you know, over 40 years, I was hanging out with some friends in Boston who've actually seen their their property values, uh, increase like 20 times in since 30 years. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and but if you're going to sell that, there's. Your tax event. Well, it's a tax event.
And the cap, the amount of capital gains you can exclude hasn't changed since 1997 or something. Right. Right right. And so but values certainly and. Value values certainly have. And so with inflation that that absolute dollar figure would have doubled if if the capital gains exclusion had actually been set to increase with inflation. So by proposing to double that, that may encourage some of the existing homeowners to put more. Stuff on to get it. Back into the market.
Now, that does not add to the overall number of units, the number of units that are not just going to suddenly materialize. So we have to have strategies there. The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act is helpful, especially in distressed areas, that it can produce some units and actually rehabilitate some units that are going obsolescent.
Um, but then you also have some of these measures like the the Downtown and Main Streets Act, which is supposed to provide tax incentives to convert commercial to residential property. But honestly, we need to do all those things. But it's not enough. Right. All that and more. Yeah. We have a 5.5 million unit shortage which, you know, accumulated over 15 to 20 years. So we really need some bold
action. I describe it as a marshall plan to build in this country, and we had a forum here yesterday where we focused on some of that, and folks said, we need to be thinking about how do we build mass scale, right. You know, what do we do in terms of like modular and others? And how do we don't how do we make sure we don't undermine ourselves? The whole tariff discussion is like. Yeah, it's a big thing, right? Impact on materials. You know
what? I just from all from everything you just covered is I had this sort of epiphany that there are so many people who do not understand or appreciate how much work is going on that is happening to make sure that that all of this functions in this country, because all of those things, I wasn't aware of some of those as well, and I wish I was
right. And we have to we have to continue to work on getting that information out, because without that arm, this advocacy team doing that, this whole thing, we're all very different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to keep this moving just because of time. Yeah. You got two more questions for you. So let's talk about what's happening on Capitol Hill. 2025. What are you concerned about coming out of Capitol Hill for 2025? Well, um, I wouldn't call it a concern, but what I know we will.
That's good news. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, in the housing. Housing? Um, fair. What I'll say is that what we are concerned with, that what we want to, you know, what we want to make sure we do, um, is see that, um, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions that are set to expire, um, are extended, the ones that will be beneficial to homeowners and to the real estate industry. Um, so I think that's key.
And, you know, I was on this advocacy group we had here the other day and my, uh, director of federal taxation policy was talking about this, too. You know, the composition of the House. Um, can sort of cut both ways that, you know, there are many pro-business benefits if there's a Republican House. Um, but then many Democrats have strongly supported measures that would boost supply that we desperately
need. And so there's the possibility, if there's a Democratic House for some compromise around some measures that would do a bit of both. Um, but supply is absolutely essential. And so I guess if you ask what I'm concerned about, I'm concerned that we don't have enough Republicans leading on the supply. Um, but I think there's great potential. And as I said, reality is confronting
us. Um, and fortunately, we have very good relationships with, uh, the folks who may be the chairs of the relevant committees for us, the. Influence you mentioned that a little bit earlier in the show. We'll wrap up with this because this is a this is something that is it's an incredible problem. So the racial homeownership gap is larger than ever in this country. Um, what do we do? What would you suggest we should be doing to reverse this trend?
Well, there are certain things that we must do to try to keep it from getting worse and worse. So housing supply, for example. You know, because the lack of housing supply is creating the affordability challenge in the country and those who have more. As I've said, you know, are the ones who are most likely to benefit. And it's actually going to be those who have more, uh, are going to have even greater advantages. And those who have less are going to have even greater disadvantages.
And that cuts racially in this country because of our history of excluding people from homeownership, um, for decades and centuries. And so, um, you know, I think we're going to have to confront the fact that if we aren't willing to do anything reparative in this country. We may not see those measures, those gaps
close. Um, under the Biden administration, there were some efforts to do certain things like special purpose credit programs and others, um, and to try to tailor them in such a way that they address some of the past discrimination. Um, I don't think that's something the Trump administration is likely to do. But I think, again, data is going to show that if we don't do something along those lines, we may see them exacerbate.
And it can lead to some significant problems in this country, especially if the net new, um, if the majority of the net new homeowners are people of color. So we're going to have to figure out certain ways to do it. We just passed a shared equity model policy that we want to support those kinds of programs that are, um, through shared equity, going to help people with down payment assistance and closing costs. We know some states are doing things to redress past discrimination.
And many of those states, uh, like, uh, Washington state realtors supported those measures. So some other states are looking at those things. So some of the states may do some things in this area, but we have to confront it and be honest about it. Yeah. Bryan I just wanted to as we close out, just thank you for all the work that you do. You know, you, Shannon, the whole the whole team, we do appreciate
it. And sometimes it doesn't feel like you get the appreciation from the membership is as you deserve. I'll give. You my Venmo and you. Can. Yeah, I'll take you up. I'll buy you a cocktail. Um, but just genuinely thanks for everything. We appreciate you stopping by and keep up the amazing work that you're doing. Thanks for having the work. Appreciate it. Thanks. All right. Thank you for joining us at the NAR NXT conference in Boston, Massachusetts.
We have been doing the Drive with NAR podcast in association with Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered. We want to thank everybody for tuning in. We appreciate all of that. Make sure you subscribe to both podcasts. We got a lot of content coming.