Are They Attacking Your Right to Own a Home: Are we at the end of personal real estate ownership as we know it?

Is there really a housing shortage? Have those in control been orchestrating a “shortage” and rising costs so that the American Dream is out of reach for the average, working American? What part does increasing insurance and interest rates, single-family build to rent, and multifamily communities play in the story? I interviewed real estate professional, podcaster, best-selling author, speaker, and coach—Leigh Brown to get the answer.

Brown has been a full-time real estate professional for 24 year in the Charlotte, North Carolina market. She’s sold over 4,000 houses and is unique in that she openly speaks about the political side of real estate.

Regarding the American Dream, Brown said, “…for most people, that little piece of dirt they live on, that’s their American Dream, it’s where they can plant a garden, they can paint the kid’s bedroom any color that kid has been dreaming of. And it’s theirs. And that’s what makes Americans so very stubborn many times; because that’s their corner, that’s their house, back off.”

When we discussed the factors that have hit the real estate sector in the last few years, Brown expressed her opinion, “The attacks on real estate have just gotten really visible now. I had seen it earlier than many because of being involved in the politics side…”

When COVID hit, everything in the housing industry was in gridlock and all the headlines were saying overnight that there was a huge housing shortage—and it wasn’t just in “hot” markets, but it was nationally according to many news sources. Because I never take news reports at face value, I specifically asked Brown what her experience has been in the market in terms of housing shortages.

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 Is the Housing Shortage REAL?

Brown said there is data showing that there is a supply and demand issue, “There’s a lot of truth in the fact that we are seeing demographically a real problem with the family structure. Our Millennials, our Generation Zs, … the young folks have been encouraged from day one, not to get married, but to go chase a career. They were told kids are expensive.” Brown said since they were putting off marriage and creating households, and they typically fall into the first time buyers group—demand was delayed. Their urgency to buy according to Brown, “…was delayed because of, I think, just a lack of desire or understanding of the importance of the family unit.”

The pandemic lockdowns made young people think. They were working at home, living with their parents, and wanted a change—this is when the demand started to go up. Brown said on top of that there were other problems to exacerbate the issue: building permits had been dragging for about 10 years (so there was a 10-year backlog on new starts), a lot of homes had a lot of deferred maintenance and useful life, and new homes weren’t coming online fast enough to replace old homes. “…local government started changing zoning and shutting down building permits before the cost even became an issue. So there was an issue with local government that kept back the number of houses,” Brown said.

Once the Biden Administration opened up the border, Brown said she asked, “When are we going to account for the number of illegals in this country impacting the demand side? I said, ‘It’s an agnostic question’ but of course, it became political football that I dare to even ask it.”

Brown wanted to know from a data perspective if allowing thousands and thousands of people over the border every day are going somewhere, and they’re in every community, where are they? Are they in safe houses? Are they in rentals? Are they buying? Is the hedge fund renting to them?

Institutional Investors and the Hoarding of Homes

What about the hedge fund issue, how are the institutional investors affecting the supply and demand issue?  When I asked Brown about this she said, “What would your community look like if a Wall Street firm owned 30 % of the houses? That’s a whole lot of houses. That means one entity is responsible for the property taxes and the upkeep. They don’t really upkeep. They don’t care about that. People who live there may be wonderful, nice people. But they are renting for choices of their own. That’s fine. But renters, by nature, don’t tend to be the PTA volunteers and clean up the monuments at the neighborhood entrance and invest in the yards and invest in the house because it’s not theirs. It’s a disincentive to really improve the community.”

Brown told me the institutional buyers will many times form LLCs and buy these homes under those pseudo names to keep the purchases somewhat hidden. If these investors snatch up a huge percentage of homes and remove them from inventory, what’s left for the average American to buy and ultimately use to build wealth? But this is where I think the government plan to destroy personal home ownership comes in and it’s related to the United Nations’ sustainable development push.

Brown agreed, “I am worried that the government is going to put more barriers to homeownership in the future. We see this with the attacks by the DOJ on the realtors. So I’m telling young people, get something get in it so that if the rules change, you’re in.”

We talked about how the institutional investors have also driven up prices higher than they would normally be. In my opinion, they are working in lockstep with the government to gobble up these communities and take them out of inventory, while pushing prices higher and keeping them out of the reach of consumers.

So do we have a fighting chance to stand against the federal government on this issue? Probably not. What could we do? Brown agreed we probably should pay more attention to local politics and the part they play in this game.

Holding Local Level Politicians Accountable & Zoning Changes

Brown admonished, “If you don’t know your county commissioners, your city council, your mayor, then you’ve got to drill in right now, and you need to call each one of them. I’d call them until they call you back because you’re a constituent, and they’re not allowed to ignore you. They signed up to be in the public eye. And then ask them some questions, what are they doing about the housing shortage?”

 One of the other strategies government is using to keep people out of the American Dream is to change local zoning laws from single-family homes to multi-family buildings. Another strategy is “build to rent” rather than building to own. Many large builders recently have been building entire single-family communities for rentals only.

In Washington State they are rezoning all single-family zones to multifamily. So if you purchased a home in a single-family area with the expectation to stay there for many years and raise a family, you may potentially find that now five or six other homes can go on a plot next door. Brown commented that there has been a push for this since the Obama-era and now it’s moving to the “15 minutes cities” model. I’ve done several reports on how I believe they want to move everyone into what I call “stack and pack communities.”

Valuations & the Demonization of Real Estate Agents & Appraisers

I want to say a word about appraisers and real estate agents. I’ve noticed they have been getting really bad press. I feel like the press is demonizing both of these occupations with an agenda. I believe it’s because if their end goal is to get people out of property ownership, they know they won’t really need as many real estate agents or appraisers. I told Brown that I believe there will be a day when appraisers are all government employees.

Brown admitted that appraisers are being attacked with a laser focus in D.C., and the public does not realize it because the only time a homeowner thinks about an appraiser is when they are doing a refinance or purchase. “If the numbers hit, everything is okay, but if they don’t, they’re doing a separate opinion of value to help protect the investment,” Brown said.

If the establishment wants to control housing, they also would want to control the valuations.

“There’s a big move to replace real appraisers with the automated valuation models. They won’t be verified by a human with eyes who can smell, who can look up and down the street. It is a computer model that may or may not be accurate. Who cares?” Brown said.

She continued to say the bank cares because they own the automated valuation models and they want to control the value of your house. The banks control the money and they control you. “And so if the value of the market suddenly falls and you can’t make your payment, what’s the bank going to do? Take your house back.”

 And that is what this is all about—taking homes so that they control the inventory, the asset, wealth building, and so that people will need to rely on the government for their housing. I believe they want all of us to rent from them. They don’t want us to own anything and be happy, including the American Dream.

 

 

Sources:
Leigh Brown YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeighBrownSpeaker/videos

Leigh Brown’s website: https://www.leighbrown.com/