December 23, 2025 • 41 mins
Kevin talks about comments made by Rush Enterprises CEO W.M. "Rusty" Rush during a press event at last week's 20th Anniversary Tech Skills Rodeo in Nashville and covers the following stories: a pop-up survey, which was actually more of a push poll, from what appeared to be a Liberal Organization regarding whether you support lawmakers' plans to ban gas cars; Wreaths Across America reported the results of the wreath laying ceremony this past December 13th; the National Association of Realtors released their Existing-Home Sales Report; Kevin has the details, sifts through the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his opinions and insights.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is America's Trunck and Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welveab Bar. Thanks for tuning in on this Christmas eve.
I cannot believe that we are already on the doorstep
of Christmas. Unbelievable. As you know, last week we were
at the Rush Enterprises twentieth year anniversary of their Tech
Skills Rodeo in Nashville. On that Tuesday evening, right before
(00:35):
the awards ceremony, we were able to sit down with
Rusty Rush, the chief executive officer of Rush Enterprises, and
he gave an assessment and talked about a wide variety
of things in terms of the company looking ahead. And
it's always interesting to talk to industry experts in terms
(00:55):
of people that are on the ground, you know, boots
on the ground, rubber meets the road, to find out
what they are seeing, what they are seeing as far
as the economy is concerned. And then of course I've
got some anecdotal evidence based on what I'm seeing and
of course what the actual numbers are as opposed to
(01:15):
what the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media are
plucking out of the information to do their lead. And
we'll get into that a little bit later on, but
we had the opportunity to sit down with Rusty Rush
last week and of course the founder and CEO Rusty Rush,
and of course the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder, and
(01:38):
had a wide range of questions were able to be asked.
He remains hopeful. He spoke significantly about being hopeful about
the trucking industry, adding their signs of life in the
spock market. But then again they said that there's not
necessarily something in terms of a positive turnaround yet. He
mentioned that looking ahead and looking at what's going on,
(02:00):
mentioned again what a lot of people are mentioning and
they're kind of surprised by this the third year in
a row, or actually a third year or more of
a freight recession from the truckload perspective, which most of
these recessions as far as the trucking industry are generally
about twelve to fourteen months. So the fact that we
(02:20):
were into basically almost a three year period of time
is extremely unusual. And he mentioned that a lot of
it that unlike pass cycles that corrected more quickly. He
mentioned that excess capacity has lingered. He pointed to lenient
lenders on foreclosures and repossessions. Too many trucks pushed into
(02:42):
the market during the boom, and then demand that never
fully caught up. So again, there was a lot of times,
you know, with the especially with the plandemic, when the people,
you know, when everybody was depending upon trucks to keep
the wheels of the economy going, and freight rates were
way up, and there was a lot of freight being moved,
(03:05):
although you know, stuff was being delivered to homes, to
the big box stores and that type of thing. Not
necessarily the restaurants because most manufacturing and other places were closed,
but there was still an awful lot of activity, and
especially in the spot market. So anybody that had a
CDO license that said, you know what I'm seeing my neighbors,
I'm hearing about that people are making a lot of money,
(03:27):
so I'm going to jump on board and jump into
the market. And so they were able to do that.
I know that a lot of people bought new trucks,
some people bought used trucks or late model trucks and
jumped in and we're making a lot of money. But
then when the bottom fell out to a certain extent
after the pandemic, and things started going back to normal.
(03:48):
Even though, and I remember specifically talking to a lot
of people, they said that, well, freight rates are much
lower than what they were back in twenty twenty during
the pay pandemic as they referred to it, but of
course I refer to it as a plandemic. But even
though those prices are a lot lower, they're still above
(04:08):
what they were pre pandemic. So people that were wise,
people that knew what they were doing, people that had
been in the business for a long period of time,
seeing the ups and downs over the period of time,
know how to weather the storm. Always put a little
bit of money aside so that when you do have
those lean times, you got certain things to carry you over.
You know, all these things that you hear from these
(04:29):
financial markets and these financial advisors talking about that you
want to have a certain amount of reserve of cash
on hand that in case. You know, sometimes I think
I shouldn't say this, but I think sometimes they're a
little bit more how should I say, pessimistic. They will
say something in terms of having a six month worth
of reserves. I tend to think more in the turn
(04:52):
in line of three to four months, because you've got
to expect that, you know, in any period of time,
it is very rare that you're going to go six
months period of time without having any business walk through
the door, with the exception of the pandemic, But as
far as the trucking industry is concerned, you had a
lot of people still on the road, and with the
(05:14):
spot market, a lot of people jumping in. Now. As
far as restaurants and that, yes, they had some very
significant and you know, you can drive, well, it's no
news to you driving around or anybody that's out going
to different strip centers, various locations, maybe a favorite restaurant
of yours or a favorite place that you used to shop,
(05:36):
or these specialty stores. How many of those are closed?
You go into these different strip centers, and generally when
you would see full capacity at some of these strip centers,
you see basically at this point in time, still about
seventy five percent occupancy just about everywhere. I look that
you drive through and you say, cheet, what was the
(05:58):
store that was in that? Look? Yeah, that store had
been in there for a number of years. Oh my goodness,
they closed. And how many times have you thought, you
know something that you normally don't buy something that you
buy only maybe three four times a year, and then
you say, well about time to buy that, you go
and check that particular company and they're out of business.
So a lot of businesses, smaller business went out of business.
(06:20):
Now a lot of the major corporations and stuff like
that were able to keep afloat. Then, of course, with
the government payments coming in and with some of this
reinvestment or funds available from the federal government to keep
businesses afloat, which we've seen a lot of people that
diged into that was fraudulent. But again, the recovery money
(06:43):
that was available tied a lot of people over, and
of course with any of the backup that they had
as far as any savings or anything put aside. But again,
what we're seeing in the trucking industry is people that
were not used to weathering this storm, and because the
stimulus checks didn't qualify or didn't come to them in time,
a lot of people went by the wayside. And as
(07:05):
Rusty was pointing out that as that is shaking out,
we'll see a little bit better, and he said that
again that the spot market, we're seeing a bit of
an increase there not as much as they would like
to see, mentioning talking about soft market, the company has
leaned in its vocational segment, where you have a lot
of trucks that are available that are for specific industries.
(07:29):
Those are still going very well. He talked in terms
of having a solid year as far as used truck
parts and service and the body shop business. And again
because Rush you know, not only sells new trucks, but
they also service those trucks. They have used trucks, and
then they also service the trucks in a large parts
(07:51):
department and body shops. They cover the whole gamut. And
what we see generally, and we've seen this, you know
in the four wheeler industry, and that when people hold
on to their cars a lot longer, then you also
see an increase in terms of parts stores. People you know,
buying parts for cars. The parts industry is up as
(08:12):
opposed to new car sales. So it's kind of this
push and pull. So the fact that Rush enterprises is
well diversified. You know, when one segment is down, the
other segment is up. He talked about medium duty didn't
get a reprieve. There's a tremendous amount of truck inventories
that were built up, OEMs caught up, built up. There
(08:33):
were a lot of inventories sitting on dealers' lots. There's
still more than your normal years this according to Jason Wilder,
the COO of Rush Enterprises, there's still more. Let me
see that meaningful improvement likely hinges on industry that medium
duty vehicles serve, such as housing, landscaping, HVAC, and food delivery.
(08:54):
So when there's demand for that movement of vehicles or
stuff that is transported by the medium duty, then when
people need those trucks, then they go out and buy
those trucks. Rush said Steady. Non explosive adoption of electrification
talked about in a medium duty area where you've got
local deliveries, that seems to be a niche area where
(09:14):
people are going where you're going to see a lot
of improvement. If you notice around town the Amazon Prime people,
a lot of their vehicles are electric and they're good
for local delivery and that because they drive around during
the day but then go back to the central location
the headquarters at night, plug in and are available for
(09:35):
the next day. As far as the trucking industry itself,
for long haul overnight and from coast to coast. The
infrastructure just isn't there. The weight of these vehicles, the
amount of less payload that they can carry is not
sufficient for that area to be covered. So we're seeing
that more in the medium duty industry wide. Rush sees
(09:56):
opportunity for alternative fuels. He's been big on ultra fuels
and he said they've been looking at that. He's been
very a pet project of his for over eighteen years.
Got a little bit more to talk about this, we'll
cover that coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in
Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What need This is the racing report on America's trucking
Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
National Transportation Safety Board held a briefing over the weekend
into the fatal plane crash in North Carolina that killed
NASCAR driver Greg Biffel, his family, and three others. Wreckage
from the scene has been removed from the airport. They
don't know why the airplane was trying to return to
the airport. The cockpit voice reporter is in Washington, DC.
RFK Racing co owner and driver Brad Keselowski suffering a
(10:44):
broken leg on a recent ski trip with his family.
Keselowski is working very quick and hopefully a full recovery
work to get ready for Daytona. The Chili Bowl Nationals
about a month away, and the entry list continues to grow.
Defending winner Kyle Larson three time winner Christopher Bell have
filed their entries for the Tulsa, Oklahoma event January twelfth
(11:06):
through the seventeenth. Matt Crafton will run five to ten
racist part time next season for ThorSport in the Truck Series.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
This is the wreathing reboard on America's Truck and edwork
on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Merry Christmas, everyone say Dennison a t N.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It's former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munos,
did you know that ninety five percent? I'm Kevin Boord
in America's Truck and Network seven hundred WLW. Continuing our
conversation or continuing what was discussed during the media event.
We had an opportunity last week during the Rush Truck
(11:44):
Scent Rush Enterprises twentieth anniversary of their Tech Skills rodeo
in Nashville. We've got an opportunity to sit down with CEO,
Chief Executive officer and founder, Rusty Rush. Actually he is
the son of the founder, but we got to speak
with him and then the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder,
(12:05):
and one of the things, one of the more interesting
things that he said, he said, we love talked about
how natural gas and some of the projects that he's
been involved in with that. He's very big on that.
He said, we love working on natural gas. We've invested
in the bays and the facilities to do it. Rush said,
(12:26):
there have been a pet project of mind for the
last eighteen years because I love trash. That's kind of
interesting because a lot of the industry has moved towards
natural gas in terms of trash removal. These vehicles that
you see going into you know, collecting garbage, collecting the
dumpsters and so on, and so that has been an
(12:48):
area where you see a lot of natural gas being
used and those trucks being propelled by that. And Rush
has those vehicles. Those are the vehicles on a lot
of the vehicles that they sell. He says, we're still
believing in it because a large customer base is largely
invested in it too, and so any of these industries
that are looking to cut their costs. Of course, they're
(13:09):
going to move to alternative fuels, and I think some
of these alternative fuels really show a lot of promise
in terms of what can be done as far as
you know, lowering emissions, but also making sure and because
natural gas is a resource, a natural resource, that we
continue to drill for that and have that available as
(13:30):
opposed to relying on something that is not sustainable and
which is not very reliable, which we've seen so far
with wind and solar. At some point in time maybe
those will be up in those ranges. And of course
with the EV batteries, the weight of those things is
just way too much, the expense of the trucks, way
(13:50):
too much, the infrastructure to support that. I mean, I've
made this comment several times before that if everybody right
now today, on this day, got rid of their internal
combustion engine and bought a electric vehicle number one, the
wear and tear on the roadways right now would be horrific.
We would see a very serious problem as far as
(14:14):
the infrastructure, the weight of those vehicles on the current streets.
Take that into consideration in terms of parking garages, the
parking garages currently the way they are built and the
way they were built based on what they anticipated the
weight of vehicles to be and continuing to be given
the fact that the weight of vehicles have gone down
significantly from back in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties,
(14:38):
jumping that back up to those ranges back then and
even more, I'm not sure that the parking garages and
the infrastructure there could handle it. So again, from that aspect,
that's one of the things, what things that people aren't
even the unintended consequences that people aren't even thinking about.
He expanded in the Federal Reserve, one of the things
(14:59):
that was very curious to hear him talk about, and
I mentioned this too on several occasions. Also expanded the
Federal Reserve meeting in mid January and his expectations that
the governors will probably hold interest rates. I think, based
in my opinion, I think there will be some cuts
because there seems to be some division within the Federal Reserve.
(15:21):
He recognized that and talked about that. I mentioned quote
from him. I got to believe from what I've read,
it's a rather divisive meeting this past meeting in December.
But where there's smoke there's fire, I expect them to
pause now. I think, though, that the pressure from the
Trump administration. I wish that Trump would have appointed the
(15:41):
who he plans on replacing Lion Jerome Powell, Lion Jerry Powell,
with would have been announced as a Christmas gift to
the American public before Christmas, but it appears that that's
not going to be announced until after the first of
the year. And then once that's done, maybe that will
put some pressure on the Federal Reserve in January to
continue to reduce interest rates, because we've got stories coming
(16:04):
up that will verify that or will push in that direction.
And most customers are more worried about unemployment and inflation,
those concerns, and of course talking about some of the stuff,
people are still waiting on the sidelines to see if
and when or how tariffs are going to affect the
(16:25):
economy as far as inflation. I was listening to a
couple of reports over the weekend and they've people have
just absolutely how should I say, surprise shock that the
so called experts talking about how tariffs we're going to
add to inflation just hasn't materialized, and they're pretty much
shocked by that. But again, as we as I pointed
(16:48):
out on this program, it's not necessarily the terriffs because
in some instances prices go down, prices go up. The
net effect across the board is generally small to minimum increases,
if any at all, and in some cases may actually
go down. But what really drives that is government spending.
If you've got these back, you know the what was it,
(17:09):
the uh, the Recovery Act the Biden pushed through in
the final days or initial stages of the recovery from
the pandemic. People were telling him at that point that
if they did that Infrastructure and Recovery Act, that the
spending that would be in that would lead to inflation,
(17:29):
which in fact it did. So when you flood the government,
when you flood government money into the marketplace, that leads
to inflation, which then has to be controlled somehow. And unfortunately,
when they start controlling interest rates, that burden falls on us,
the public, to sustain or to take the results of
and the pain of those higher interest costs in order
(17:52):
to bring the economy back within reason. So again, the
Recovery Act that was put through by the Biden administration
did add a lot to the inflation and not what
we're seeing as far as the tariffs are concerned, because,
as I've said before, when you take into consideration the
companies overseas that have these big margins between their labor
because they have lower labor costs over there and what
(18:14):
the final product is, they have a big cushion as
far as margin is concerned. They can absorb some of
those tariffs. The exporter can then absorb some of those
tariffs before they send those out. Then the importer on
the other end could possibly absorb some of these tariffs
or increases. Then you get to the wholesale or distributors,
(18:36):
they absorb stuff, get to the retail market, they absorb
some of that stuff, and so it kind of is
spread out over everybody. So all those people along the
supply chain kind of share the burden of any increase
in tariffs. Getting back to some of the stuff having
to do with EVS, this survey, and I kind of
hesitated clicking on this because when you get these pop
(18:58):
ups on your screen when you're going from website to website.
Although it came from a reputable source of where I
go on a normal basis, and this survey popped up
and I thought, you know, just for the hell of it,
I'm going to go ahead and take this survey. The
way it was portrayed, I thought, God, this has got
to be some liberal organization that's putting this. You know,
(19:20):
the time to ban gasoline internal combustion engines is now.
And they said, you know, talking about how you know,
there's been this push that there's lawmakers that are trying
to eliminate the internal combustion engine, or as they call,
the plan to ban gas cars. And I thought, man,
this is some liberal group. I got to see in
(19:41):
terms of the survey where everybody stands on that. So
I went ahead and well, they asked for my name
and email address and phone number, which I was kind
of hesitant to do, but I was kind of curious.
So I voted no on that. Well, I see the
survey results. Do you agree? And that the phrase is
do you agree with lawmakers plan to ban gas cars
(20:03):
in the US? Yes, Climate action is urgent and we
must act now. Fifteen thousand, three hundred and seven votes No.
Lawmakers shouldn't dictate what Americans can drive nine hundred and
twenty two thousand, three hundred and eighty five against if
(20:24):
This was a I mean, like I said, this was
kind of almost a push pull kind of of a survey,
if you will. They said, you know, the time to
ban gasoline, the powered you know, and all this is
now a government is moving towards this. Where do you
stand on this? And I'll bet that they're pretty much
shocked where this came from. And certainly the numbers that
that is dictating coming up, We've got some more mischief.
(20:47):
Get into I'm Kevin Bordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country, and the tries sit Overnight mostly
Claude was showers likely the low down to forty two,
patchi drizzle and a chance of showers early Tuesday. Otherwise
Claudie the high year sixty, partly sunny. Christmas Eve Wednesday
a high fifty three, and for Year Christmas Day, chances
of early rain. Otherwise Claudie highs in the lower sixties. Nationally,
very heavy snow expected for the Sierra Nevana Mountains, while
(21:15):
excessive brain is on tap for parts of southern California Wednesday. Meanwhile,
above average temperatures expected for most of the country leading
up to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck
in network. By the way, during a break, I did
a quick and dirty Wow, not quick, I just did
the did the math on it. That survey that I
mentioned before the break, do you agree with lawmakers plan
to ban gas cars? The vote was one point six percent.
(21:49):
Less than two percent of people said yeah, banned cars.
So we're looking at what is that ninety eight point
four percent of the American public say no. Lawmakers shouldn't
dictate to Americans what they can drive. My goodness, Wow,
America's truck and network supports the mission of Recee Across America.
(22:11):
You can hear us every truck and Tuesday at five
am and ten am Eastern on Recee Across America Radio,
available on the iHeart Radio app. Search the word Rease.
Now it's wr eats for Reese Across America Radio. And
thank you for all our truckers for the supporting the
mission of Reese Across America. Now, last week I didn't
(22:32):
have a chance to get to this, but rececross America
remember they had their and hopefully you participated in that.
They had their reflaying ceremony on December the thirteenth. Unfortunately,
I wasn't able to participate because my wife and I
were on our way down to Nashville to participate and
to attend the Rush Enterprise's twentieth anniversary of the tuch
(22:54):
Tech Skills Rodeo. And if you missed any of that,
make sure you hit up that iHeart Radio app brought
to you by Rush Truck Centers. Now, some of the
statistics from that December thirteenth wreath laying ceremony together they
support We supported five thousand, five hundred and ninety eight
(23:15):
participating locations, sponsored more than three point one million veterans wreaths,
and mobilized millions of volunteers, a third of whom were children,
across all fifty states, at sea and around the world.
So there are locations different to veterans cemeteries overseas and
(23:37):
in US territories that participate in this as well. Three
point one million reefs were laid at these tombs and
again going to these individual locations. As they say, a
veteran dies twice, once when he takes his last breath
(23:57):
and the next is when his name is no longer mentioned.
So the push eventually is to make sure that all veterans'
grave sites are have a reef placed at them. But
right now the concentration is at the older sections of
these graveyards where a lot of people back from the
(24:18):
even as far back as well the Revolutionary War, Civil War,
Spanish American War and thereabouts. A lot of those people,
their relatives have moved out of the area. As a
matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of
mine and he was telling me that a friend of
his that her father is in the area and he
does a lot of genealogy, and she's from the area.
(24:39):
She's living in Cleveland now, but he does a lot
of genealogy, and he just looked up some of the
family members and they actually found grave sites of family
members she didn't even know she had in one of
these cemeteries. And then the fact that they were they
served what they served because through some of this genealogy
and stuff, you can find out some of the mill
(25:00):
ary records as well, and so she was astonished by
that and the availability. So a lot of these veterans
are buried in regular cemeteries, not just necessarily segments of
one cemetery near where I live, there is a section
that's set aside for veterans. But then in other cemeteries
(25:21):
they are dispersed throughout the entire cemetery. They're not necessarily
reserved for just veterans. So this reesecross America again servicing
those and making sure that these res are are put
at those areas. Now, some interesting things to keep in
mind here is that now this is interesting through from
now until December thirty first, the headquarters of Recross America
(25:47):
through sponsored different sponsored groups that replacement at the RECE
next year, which by the way, will be December the nineteenth,
twenty twenty six, that headquarters will match all veterans sponsored
through a registered RECE Across America's sponsorship group. So if
(26:10):
you go on their website now, and if you are
associated with a particular group, and if you do sign
up now and do the contribution or the donation or
sponsorship of a wreath between now and December thirty first,
that will be matched by Recross America headquarters. So that
(26:31):
is also a good benefit there, so you can pretty
much double your effect along those ways. And again save
the date the next wreath laying ceremony will be Saturday,
December the nineteenth, twenty twenty six, and so hopefully I
won't be out of town and I'll be able to
attend that. But I do going back to one of
(26:53):
the original things that was talked about is that of
the various volunteers, almost thirty I think, what was it millions,
a third of whom were children, and which is great
that children are involved and they get to know a
little bit of history. I remember when a couple of
years ago I was in town and was able to
attend the wreath laying cemetery at the local chapter, or
(27:18):
the one closest to me. There were a lot of
children there, and I was grateful to see that, because
again you have to have the next generation step up
to be there for our veterans and especially the fallen
veterans who are in these cemeteries that died in time
of war. And so again I can't say enough about
(27:38):
reefs across America and the stuff that they do. And
of course if you go to their website across America
dot org, you can learn all kinds of information. Maybe
if you and a group want to sponsor a particular
cemetery that's not currently being taken care of or that
is not on their list. You and a group of
(27:58):
people can sponsor that and actually have the sponsorship group
for that area to take care of those reefs and
to lay those reefs at that particular cemetery. Or you
can go online and you can volunteer at one close
to you if you want to participate with them, and
they're pretty quick about getting back in touch with you
so that you can know where to go and on
(28:19):
that particular day again, December the nineteenth, so it's only
going to be about what was it nineteenth, It says, well,
actually six days before Christmas. That's a little bit late
in the month, but generally it's a little bit closer
to the beginning of the month. But hopefully a lot
of people will be able to attend that and very
worthwhile cause getting to last Friday, there were some numbers
(28:41):
coming out from the National Association of Realtors and it
was interesting to see how some of these things were
covered in terms of who said what and what was
covered and so on existing home sales. Now, this is
doctor Lawrence Ewn. He is the chief Economists. Wage growth
(29:02):
is outpacing home price gains, which improved housing affordability. Still,
future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to
keep pace with demand. Existing home sales were up month
over month point five percent, one half of one percent
(29:22):
four point one three million homes existing homes now year
over year, that was one percent down. Now as far
as homes for sale month over month was down five
point nine percent from the previous month. However, on an
annual basis so far year over year, the number of
(29:43):
homes for sale is up seven point five. They talk
about in terms of months of supply. As far as
November home sales, four point two months supply is on hand.
That is down from four point four in actually up
a little bit from November at three point eight, but
down from four point four in October. So some of
(30:05):
the stuff going on in the housing market, there's some
things in this article we need to talk about. We'll
pick that up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Americas Struck
In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
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Speaker 2 (31:25):
Burn personalized savings on commercial truck insurance with smart Haul
from Progressive in Surrey variety of commercial vehicle one hundred WLW.
I'm Kevin Gordon getting to this National Associated of Realtors,
National Association Realtors, and they're monthly sales monthly numbers. The
headline National Associated Realtors Existing home sales reports showed zero
(31:48):
point five percent increase in November. Now another headline, US
existing home sales edge up in November as mortgage rates ease. Now,
what have I been saying all along that interest rates
are holding back this economy. Lower interest rates, more people
will jump into the market and more people will buy homes,
(32:09):
and that is good for the economy. It's very good
support of the GDP numbers, which will be out some
believe tomorrow later on today, I believe, if memory serves
me correct. But anyway, when they get into the specifics
here in terms of where some of the growth is
a month over months, sales increased in the northeast and
(32:29):
south showed let me see, sales increased in the northeast
and south, showed no change in the west, and fell
in the midwest. Year over year sales showed no change
in the northeast and south and decreased in the Midwest
and west. Now, according to again Lawrence Young, he is
(32:50):
the National Association Realtor's chief economist, existing home sales increased
for a third straight month due to two lower mortgage
rates this autumn. That is huge. The fact that interest
rates are coming down and more people are jumping in
(33:11):
that is good for the economy. Again, when you have
somebody who does not own a home that they're renting,
and in some cases the rent is more than the
mortgage would be on that property, and for them to
jump away from that into a home, generally the home
is bigger. They're going to buy more furniture, they're going
(33:33):
to be buying appliances, they're going to be buying all
kinds of stuff to fill that home up. And so
if they're spending less as far as a mortgage is
concerned versus what they're paying in rent, they will have
more disposable income for that and instead of paying a landlord,
they're paying less on a mortgage. But then they're also
(33:55):
having more money available for disposable income. And so that
again star's boosting the economy. And when the interest rates
come down, then people can afford to get into the market,
because again with interest rates high, with the amount of
the value of these homes up, a lot of people
are not able to qualify for that based on their income.
(34:16):
And what we've talked about in the past, I've talked
about that on this program, the difference between your monthly
payment at in terms of a particular income level, what
you can afford based on a three percent mortgage versus
a six and a half percent mortgage is astronomical. It's
about a seven hundred to eight hundred dollars difference. So
(34:39):
if you're coming from a rental property and that price
is coming down and you can get a lower interest rate,
that then gives you even more disposable income and more
people moving into the market. Now in here one of
the key features. Also when we hear from the spoon
fed regurgitators in the mainstream media about the softness of
(35:01):
the economy, they start talking about, oh, you know, unemployment
is up, which, by the way, I am not buying
this crap of this four point six percent unemployment rate.
I think when they adjust that, when they find out
what the real number is, it's going to be closer
down to around four point three four point four percent,
which is a heck of a lot less because we
(35:22):
were at four point one throughout most of the year
than it jumped up slightly to four point two than
to four point three. I think the current unemployment rate
is probably closer to that than the four point six
that they're reporting. Now. One of the key features in
here that they point out is that with distressed property
sales at historic lows and the housing wealth at all
(35:46):
time highs, homeowners are in no rush to list their
properties during these winter months. Now. Distressed properties are where
people are foreclosures, people are behind, they're about ready to
lose their home. If they are at historic lows, then
(36:06):
that means that people aren't struggling to pay their mortgages.
We saw a lot of distressed homes back in the
housing crisis back in two thousand and eight to two
thousand and ten. Basically, we saw distressed homes back during
COVID to a certain extent, except that some of these
recovery programs for banks were given to where people could
(36:29):
refinance or postpone payments, or the companies would actually work
with them in order to reassess the loans or to
actually do a refinance type of thing that was available.
In some instances, they took some of the payments that
hadn't been made and add those on to the tail
(36:49):
end of the mortgage, so extended the length of the
mortgage a little bit more, but at the same current
interest rate. And in some cases I saw where some
people actually kint a better interest rate than they originally
did so the fact that distressed homes property as that
historic lows is a good thing. In this they also
(37:10):
talk about, as has been the case throughout the year,
single family home sales outperformed condominium sales. In November, the
typical price of a sold condo was thirteen point five
percent lower than the typical price of a single home
family home. Well, in most instances, your condos are smaller
square footage than what a normal house would be. So
(37:33):
if you're talking about a I mean, I don't know,
they don't mention what the average square footage of a
condominium is. But from what I see around the Greater
Sins a northern Kentucky area, a place I'm most familiar with,
most of the condos are between fifteen hundred to maybe
two thousand square feet. Most homes I think in the area,
or at least in the neighborhood where I live, are
(37:55):
probably more in the neighborhood of two twenty five hundred
and maybe three thousand square feet. So again, obviously the
price for the condo is going to be less because
you're talking about less square footage. So in and of itself,
that's not too bad. Now, skipping through some of the
stuff in here. One of the things that was interesting.
They're talking about some of the statistics having to do
(38:17):
with homes. Thirty six days medium time on the market
for properties, up from thirty four days last month. I
don't really think, well, unless you're in a situation where
you've already bought a home and you're now carrying two mortgages,
thirty six days on the market is probably bad. But
for the most part, most homes from what I've been once,
(38:39):
what I've experienced, is generally around that time. Thirty percent
of homes were first time home buyers, unchanged from November,
which is a good thing because as people move out
of existing rental spaces and moving in there, they buy
more stuff to fill that house and to equip the house.
Twenty seven percent of transactions were all cash. Eighteen percent
(39:02):
of transactions were individual investors or second home buyers. So
that's eighteen percent of the market, sixteen percent last month.
Two percent of again, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph,
two percent of sales were distressed sales, foreclosures or short sales,
unchanged from a month ago. So that would show that
the economy is relatively strong. Not a lot of people
(39:24):
are underwater as far as their homes are concerned. They're
not behind on their payments and they're making their mortgage payments.
So if the economy were bad, that number would be
more than two percent, and there would be a heck
of lot more quote distressed homes on the market. Mortgage rates,
the average thirty year fixed rate is six point twenty
(39:46):
four percent. That's down from six point two five percent,
not much in October, but at the beginning of the
year that number was six point eight one. And I
saw a statistic and it was that, let's see, in
mid January, interest rates were at seven point oh four percent,
(40:07):
so they were just above seven percent, and you take
that one percent off of a home loan the mortgage,
and you see a dramatic difference in terms of price. Now,
this was interesting. Not sure what he's saying here. The
existing home sales figures suggest that the drop in mortgage
rates in recent months has nudged demand up somewhat, but
(40:29):
not by enough to signal meaningful turnaround. Now, I'm not
sure if it's because the interest rates have been more meaningful.
If the interest rate cuts had been more meaningful, whether
they would have been inclined to move. Now, that's something
that you know, again they don't explain in the particular story.
(40:50):
Let me see if I got time to squeeze this in.
There was one other thing in here that was kind
of confusing because they were saying that people are reluctant
to move and because of the uncertainty as far as
the job market is concerned. Now, what wasn't clear is
that whether or not that affects people that are not
(41:10):
into a home wanting to get into a home, or
people that are in a home that want to upgrade.
That was left on Uh, you know, that question was
left unanswered. But anyway, well, we're up against clock, my friends,
stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the top of
the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and Network seven
hundred WLW
This is America's Trunck and Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welveab Bar. Thanks for tuning in on this Christmas eve.
I cannot believe that we are already on the doorstep
of Christmas. Unbelievable. As you know, last week we were
at the Rush Enterprises twentieth year anniversary of their Tech
Skills Rodeo in Nashville. On that Tuesday evening, right before
(00:35):
the awards ceremony, we were able to sit down with
Rusty Rush, the chief executive officer of Rush Enterprises, and
he gave an assessment and talked about a wide variety
of things in terms of the company looking ahead. And
it's always interesting to talk to industry experts in terms
(00:55):
of people that are on the ground, you know, boots
on the ground, rubber meets the road, to find out
what they are seeing, what they are seeing as far
as the economy is concerned. And then of course I've
got some anecdotal evidence based on what I'm seeing and
of course what the actual numbers are as opposed to
(01:15):
what the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media are
plucking out of the information to do their lead. And
we'll get into that a little bit later on, but
we had the opportunity to sit down with Rusty Rush
last week and of course the founder and CEO Rusty Rush,
and of course the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder, and
(01:38):
had a wide range of questions were able to be asked.
He remains hopeful. He spoke significantly about being hopeful about
the trucking industry, adding their signs of life in the
spock market. But then again they said that there's not
necessarily something in terms of a positive turnaround yet. He
mentioned that looking ahead and looking at what's going on,
(02:00):
mentioned again what a lot of people are mentioning and
they're kind of surprised by this the third year in
a row, or actually a third year or more of
a freight recession from the truckload perspective, which most of
these recessions as far as the trucking industry are generally
about twelve to fourteen months. So the fact that we
(02:20):
were into basically almost a three year period of time
is extremely unusual. And he mentioned that a lot of
it that unlike pass cycles that corrected more quickly. He
mentioned that excess capacity has lingered. He pointed to lenient
lenders on foreclosures and repossessions. Too many trucks pushed into
(02:42):
the market during the boom, and then demand that never
fully caught up. So again, there was a lot of times,
you know, with the especially with the plandemic, when the people,
you know, when everybody was depending upon trucks to keep
the wheels of the economy going, and freight rates were
way up, and there was a lot of freight being moved,
(03:05):
although you know, stuff was being delivered to homes, to
the big box stores and that type of thing. Not
necessarily the restaurants because most manufacturing and other places were closed,
but there was still an awful lot of activity, and
especially in the spot market. So anybody that had a
CDO license that said, you know what I'm seeing my neighbors,
I'm hearing about that people are making a lot of money,
(03:27):
so I'm going to jump on board and jump into
the market. And so they were able to do that.
I know that a lot of people bought new trucks,
some people bought used trucks or late model trucks and
jumped in and we're making a lot of money. But
then when the bottom fell out to a certain extent
after the pandemic, and things started going back to normal.
(03:48):
Even though, and I remember specifically talking to a lot
of people, they said that, well, freight rates are much
lower than what they were back in twenty twenty during
the pay pandemic as they referred to it, but of
course I refer to it as a plandemic. But even
though those prices are a lot lower, they're still above
(04:08):
what they were pre pandemic. So people that were wise,
people that knew what they were doing, people that had
been in the business for a long period of time,
seeing the ups and downs over the period of time,
know how to weather the storm. Always put a little
bit of money aside so that when you do have
those lean times, you got certain things to carry you over.
You know, all these things that you hear from these
(04:29):
financial markets and these financial advisors talking about that you
want to have a certain amount of reserve of cash
on hand that in case. You know, sometimes I think
I shouldn't say this, but I think sometimes they're a
little bit more how should I say, pessimistic. They will
say something in terms of having a six month worth
of reserves. I tend to think more in the turn
(04:52):
in line of three to four months, because you've got
to expect that, you know, in any period of time,
it is very rare that you're going to go six
months period of time without having any business walk through
the door, with the exception of the pandemic, But as
far as the trucking industry is concerned, you had a
lot of people still on the road, and with the
(05:14):
spot market, a lot of people jumping in. Now. As
far as restaurants and that, yes, they had some very
significant and you know, you can drive, well, it's no
news to you driving around or anybody that's out going
to different strip centers, various locations, maybe a favorite restaurant
of yours or a favorite place that you used to shop,
(05:36):
or these specialty stores. How many of those are closed?
You go into these different strip centers, and generally when
you would see full capacity at some of these strip centers,
you see basically at this point in time, still about
seventy five percent occupancy just about everywhere. I look that
you drive through and you say, cheet, what was the
(05:58):
store that was in that? Look? Yeah, that store had
been in there for a number of years. Oh my goodness,
they closed. And how many times have you thought, you
know something that you normally don't buy something that you
buy only maybe three four times a year, and then
you say, well about time to buy that, you go
and check that particular company and they're out of business.
So a lot of businesses, smaller business went out of business.
(06:20):
Now a lot of the major corporations and stuff like
that were able to keep afloat. Then, of course, with
the government payments coming in and with some of this
reinvestment or funds available from the federal government to keep
businesses afloat, which we've seen a lot of people that
diged into that was fraudulent. But again, the recovery money
(06:43):
that was available tied a lot of people over, and
of course with any of the backup that they had
as far as any savings or anything put aside. But again,
what we're seeing in the trucking industry is people that
were not used to weathering this storm, and because the
stimulus checks didn't qualify or didn't come to them in time,
a lot of people went by the wayside. And as
(07:05):
Rusty was pointing out that as that is shaking out,
we'll see a little bit better, and he said that
again that the spot market, we're seeing a bit of
an increase there not as much as they would like
to see, mentioning talking about soft market, the company has
leaned in its vocational segment, where you have a lot
of trucks that are available that are for specific industries.
(07:29):
Those are still going very well. He talked in terms
of having a solid year as far as used truck
parts and service and the body shop business. And again
because Rush you know, not only sells new trucks, but
they also service those trucks. They have used trucks, and
then they also service the trucks in a large parts
(07:51):
department and body shops. They cover the whole gamut. And
what we see generally, and we've seen this, you know
in the four wheeler industry, and that when people hold
on to their cars a lot longer, then you also
see an increase in terms of parts stores. People you know,
buying parts for cars. The parts industry is up as
(08:12):
opposed to new car sales. So it's kind of this
push and pull. So the fact that Rush enterprises is
well diversified. You know, when one segment is down, the
other segment is up. He talked about medium duty didn't
get a reprieve. There's a tremendous amount of truck inventories
that were built up, OEMs caught up, built up. There
(08:33):
were a lot of inventories sitting on dealers' lots. There's
still more than your normal years this according to Jason Wilder,
the COO of Rush Enterprises, there's still more. Let me
see that meaningful improvement likely hinges on industry that medium
duty vehicles serve, such as housing, landscaping, HVAC, and food delivery.
(08:54):
So when there's demand for that movement of vehicles or
stuff that is transported by the medium duty, then when
people need those trucks, then they go out and buy
those trucks. Rush said Steady. Non explosive adoption of electrification
talked about in a medium duty area where you've got
local deliveries, that seems to be a niche area where
(09:14):
people are going where you're going to see a lot
of improvement. If you notice around town the Amazon Prime people,
a lot of their vehicles are electric and they're good
for local delivery and that because they drive around during
the day but then go back to the central location
the headquarters at night, plug in and are available for
(09:35):
the next day. As far as the trucking industry itself,
for long haul overnight and from coast to coast. The
infrastructure just isn't there. The weight of these vehicles, the
amount of less payload that they can carry is not
sufficient for that area to be covered. So we're seeing
that more in the medium duty industry wide. Rush sees
(09:56):
opportunity for alternative fuels. He's been big on ultra fuels
and he said they've been looking at that. He's been
very a pet project of his for over eighteen years.
Got a little bit more to talk about this, we'll
cover that coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in
Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
What need This is the racing report on America's trucking
Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
National Transportation Safety Board held a briefing over the weekend
into the fatal plane crash in North Carolina that killed
NASCAR driver Greg Biffel, his family, and three others. Wreckage
from the scene has been removed from the airport. They
don't know why the airplane was trying to return to
the airport. The cockpit voice reporter is in Washington, DC.
RFK Racing co owner and driver Brad Keselowski suffering a
(10:44):
broken leg on a recent ski trip with his family.
Keselowski is working very quick and hopefully a full recovery
work to get ready for Daytona. The Chili Bowl Nationals
about a month away, and the entry list continues to grow.
Defending winner Kyle Larson three time winner Christopher Bell have
filed their entries for the Tulsa, Oklahoma event January twelfth
(11:06):
through the seventeenth. Matt Crafton will run five to ten
racist part time next season for ThorSport in the Truck Series.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
This is the wreathing reboard on America's Truck and edwork
on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Merry Christmas, everyone say Dennison a t N.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It's former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munos,
did you know that ninety five percent? I'm Kevin Boord
in America's Truck and Network seven hundred WLW. Continuing our
conversation or continuing what was discussed during the media event.
We had an opportunity last week during the Rush Truck
(11:44):
Scent Rush Enterprises twentieth anniversary of their Tech Skills rodeo
in Nashville. We've got an opportunity to sit down with CEO,
Chief Executive officer and founder, Rusty Rush. Actually he is
the son of the founder, but we got to speak
with him and then the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder,
(12:05):
and one of the things, one of the more interesting
things that he said, he said, we love talked about
how natural gas and some of the projects that he's
been involved in with that. He's very big on that.
He said, we love working on natural gas. We've invested
in the bays and the facilities to do it. Rush said,
(12:26):
there have been a pet project of mind for the
last eighteen years because I love trash. That's kind of
interesting because a lot of the industry has moved towards
natural gas in terms of trash removal. These vehicles that
you see going into you know, collecting garbage, collecting the
dumpsters and so on, and so that has been an
(12:48):
area where you see a lot of natural gas being
used and those trucks being propelled by that. And Rush
has those vehicles. Those are the vehicles on a lot
of the vehicles that they sell. He says, we're still
believing in it because a large customer base is largely
invested in it too, and so any of these industries
that are looking to cut their costs. Of course, they're
(13:09):
going to move to alternative fuels, and I think some
of these alternative fuels really show a lot of promise
in terms of what can be done as far as
you know, lowering emissions, but also making sure and because
natural gas is a resource, a natural resource, that we
continue to drill for that and have that available as
(13:30):
opposed to relying on something that is not sustainable and
which is not very reliable, which we've seen so far
with wind and solar. At some point in time maybe
those will be up in those ranges. And of course
with the EV batteries, the weight of those things is
just way too much, the expense of the trucks, way
(13:50):
too much, the infrastructure to support that. I mean, I've
made this comment several times before that if everybody right
now today, on this day, got rid of their internal
combustion engine and bought a electric vehicle number one, the
wear and tear on the roadways right now would be horrific.
We would see a very serious problem as far as
(14:14):
the infrastructure, the weight of those vehicles on the current streets.
Take that into consideration in terms of parking garages, the
parking garages currently the way they are built and the
way they were built based on what they anticipated the
weight of vehicles to be and continuing to be given
the fact that the weight of vehicles have gone down
significantly from back in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties,
(14:38):
jumping that back up to those ranges back then and
even more, I'm not sure that the parking garages and
the infrastructure there could handle it. So again, from that aspect,
that's one of the things, what things that people aren't
even the unintended consequences that people aren't even thinking about.
He expanded in the Federal Reserve, one of the things
(14:59):
that was very curious to hear him talk about, and
I mentioned this too on several occasions. Also expanded the
Federal Reserve meeting in mid January and his expectations that
the governors will probably hold interest rates. I think, based
in my opinion, I think there will be some cuts
because there seems to be some division within the Federal Reserve.
(15:21):
He recognized that and talked about that. I mentioned quote
from him. I got to believe from what I've read,
it's a rather divisive meeting this past meeting in December.
But where there's smoke there's fire, I expect them to
pause now. I think, though, that the pressure from the
Trump administration. I wish that Trump would have appointed the
(15:41):
who he plans on replacing Lion Jerome Powell, Lion Jerry Powell,
with would have been announced as a Christmas gift to
the American public before Christmas, but it appears that that's
not going to be announced until after the first of
the year. And then once that's done, maybe that will
put some pressure on the Federal Reserve in January to
continue to reduce interest rates, because we've got stories coming
(16:04):
up that will verify that or will push in that direction.
And most customers are more worried about unemployment and inflation,
those concerns, and of course talking about some of the stuff,
people are still waiting on the sidelines to see if
and when or how tariffs are going to affect the
(16:25):
economy as far as inflation. I was listening to a
couple of reports over the weekend and they've people have
just absolutely how should I say, surprise shock that the
so called experts talking about how tariffs we're going to
add to inflation just hasn't materialized, and they're pretty much
shocked by that. But again, as we as I pointed
(16:48):
out on this program, it's not necessarily the terriffs because
in some instances prices go down, prices go up. The
net effect across the board is generally small to minimum increases,
if any at all, and in some cases may actually
go down. But what really drives that is government spending.
If you've got these back, you know the what was it,
(17:09):
the uh, the Recovery Act the Biden pushed through in
the final days or initial stages of the recovery from
the pandemic. People were telling him at that point that
if they did that Infrastructure and Recovery Act, that the
spending that would be in that would lead to inflation,
(17:29):
which in fact it did. So when you flood the government,
when you flood government money into the marketplace, that leads
to inflation, which then has to be controlled somehow. And unfortunately,
when they start controlling interest rates, that burden falls on us,
the public, to sustain or to take the results of
and the pain of those higher interest costs in order
(17:52):
to bring the economy back within reason. So again, the
Recovery Act that was put through by the Biden administration
did add a lot to the inflation and not what
we're seeing as far as the tariffs are concerned, because,
as I've said before, when you take into consideration the
companies overseas that have these big margins between their labor
because they have lower labor costs over there and what
(18:14):
the final product is, they have a big cushion as
far as margin is concerned. They can absorb some of
those tariffs. The exporter can then absorb some of those
tariffs before they send those out. Then the importer on
the other end could possibly absorb some of these tariffs
or increases. Then you get to the wholesale or distributors,
(18:36):
they absorb stuff, get to the retail market, they absorb
some of that stuff, and so it kind of is
spread out over everybody. So all those people along the
supply chain kind of share the burden of any increase
in tariffs. Getting back to some of the stuff having
to do with EVS, this survey, and I kind of
hesitated clicking on this because when you get these pop
(18:58):
ups on your screen when you're going from website to website.
Although it came from a reputable source of where I
go on a normal basis, and this survey popped up
and I thought, you know, just for the hell of it,
I'm going to go ahead and take this survey. The
way it was portrayed, I thought, God, this has got
to be some liberal organization that's putting this. You know,
(19:20):
the time to ban gasoline internal combustion engines is now.
And they said, you know, talking about how you know,
there's been this push that there's lawmakers that are trying
to eliminate the internal combustion engine, or as they call,
the plan to ban gas cars. And I thought, man,
this is some liberal group. I got to see in
(19:41):
terms of the survey where everybody stands on that. So
I went ahead and well, they asked for my name
and email address and phone number, which I was kind
of hesitant to do, but I was kind of curious.
So I voted no on that. Well, I see the
survey results. Do you agree? And that the phrase is
do you agree with lawmakers plan to ban gas cars
(20:03):
in the US? Yes, Climate action is urgent and we
must act now. Fifteen thousand, three hundred and seven votes No.
Lawmakers shouldn't dictate what Americans can drive nine hundred and
twenty two thousand, three hundred and eighty five against if
(20:24):
This was a I mean, like I said, this was
kind of almost a push pull kind of of a survey,
if you will. They said, you know, the time to
ban gasoline, the powered you know, and all this is
now a government is moving towards this. Where do you
stand on this? And I'll bet that they're pretty much
shocked where this came from. And certainly the numbers that
that is dictating coming up, We've got some more mischief.
(20:47):
Get into I'm Kevin Bordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country, and the tries sit Overnight mostly
Claude was showers likely the low down to forty two,
patchi drizzle and a chance of showers early Tuesday. Otherwise
Claudie the high year sixty, partly sunny. Christmas Eve Wednesday
a high fifty three, and for Year Christmas Day, chances
of early rain. Otherwise Claudie highs in the lower sixties. Nationally,
very heavy snow expected for the Sierra Nevana Mountains, while
(21:15):
excessive brain is on tap for parts of southern California Wednesday. Meanwhile,
above average temperatures expected for most of the country leading
up to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck
in network. By the way, during a break, I did
a quick and dirty Wow, not quick, I just did
the did the math on it. That survey that I
mentioned before the break, do you agree with lawmakers plan
to ban gas cars? The vote was one point six percent.
(21:49):
Less than two percent of people said yeah, banned cars.
So we're looking at what is that ninety eight point
four percent of the American public say no. Lawmakers shouldn't
dictate to Americans what they can drive. My goodness, Wow,
America's truck and network supports the mission of Recee Across America.
(22:11):
You can hear us every truck and Tuesday at five
am and ten am Eastern on Recee Across America Radio,
available on the iHeart Radio app. Search the word Rease.
Now it's wr eats for Reese Across America Radio. And
thank you for all our truckers for the supporting the
mission of Reese Across America. Now, last week I didn't
(22:32):
have a chance to get to this, but rececross America
remember they had their and hopefully you participated in that.
They had their reflaying ceremony on December the thirteenth. Unfortunately,
I wasn't able to participate because my wife and I
were on our way down to Nashville to participate and
to attend the Rush Enterprise's twentieth anniversary of the tuch
(22:54):
Tech Skills Rodeo. And if you missed any of that,
make sure you hit up that iHeart Radio app brought
to you by Rush Truck Centers. Now, some of the
statistics from that December thirteenth wreath laying ceremony together they
support We supported five thousand, five hundred and ninety eight
(23:15):
participating locations, sponsored more than three point one million veterans wreaths,
and mobilized millions of volunteers, a third of whom were children,
across all fifty states, at sea and around the world.
So there are locations different to veterans cemeteries overseas and
(23:37):
in US territories that participate in this as well. Three
point one million reefs were laid at these tombs and
again going to these individual locations. As they say, a
veteran dies twice, once when he takes his last breath
(23:57):
and the next is when his name is no longer mentioned.
So the push eventually is to make sure that all veterans'
grave sites are have a reef placed at them. But
right now the concentration is at the older sections of
these graveyards where a lot of people back from the
(24:18):
even as far back as well the Revolutionary War, Civil War,
Spanish American War and thereabouts. A lot of those people,
their relatives have moved out of the area. As a
matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of
mine and he was telling me that a friend of
his that her father is in the area and he
does a lot of genealogy, and she's from the area.
(24:39):
She's living in Cleveland now, but he does a lot
of genealogy, and he just looked up some of the
family members and they actually found grave sites of family
members she didn't even know she had in one of
these cemeteries. And then the fact that they were they
served what they served because through some of this genealogy
and stuff, you can find out some of the mill
(25:00):
ary records as well, and so she was astonished by
that and the availability. So a lot of these veterans
are buried in regular cemeteries, not just necessarily segments of
one cemetery near where I live, there is a section
that's set aside for veterans. But then in other cemeteries
(25:21):
they are dispersed throughout the entire cemetery. They're not necessarily
reserved for just veterans. So this reesecross America again servicing
those and making sure that these res are are put
at those areas. Now, some interesting things to keep in
mind here is that now this is interesting through from
now until December thirty first, the headquarters of Recross America
(25:47):
through sponsored different sponsored groups that replacement at the RECE
next year, which by the way, will be December the nineteenth,
twenty twenty six, that headquarters will match all veterans sponsored
through a registered RECE Across America's sponsorship group. So if
(26:10):
you go on their website now, and if you are
associated with a particular group, and if you do sign
up now and do the contribution or the donation or
sponsorship of a wreath between now and December thirty first,
that will be matched by Recross America headquarters. So that
(26:31):
is also a good benefit there, so you can pretty
much double your effect along those ways. And again save
the date the next wreath laying ceremony will be Saturday,
December the nineteenth, twenty twenty six, and so hopefully I
won't be out of town and I'll be able to
attend that. But I do going back to one of
(26:53):
the original things that was talked about is that of
the various volunteers, almost thirty I think, what was it millions,
a third of whom were children, and which is great
that children are involved and they get to know a
little bit of history. I remember when a couple of
years ago I was in town and was able to
attend the wreath laying cemetery at the local chapter, or
(27:18):
the one closest to me. There were a lot of
children there, and I was grateful to see that, because
again you have to have the next generation step up
to be there for our veterans and especially the fallen
veterans who are in these cemeteries that died in time
of war. And so again I can't say enough about
(27:38):
reefs across America and the stuff that they do. And
of course if you go to their website across America
dot org, you can learn all kinds of information. Maybe
if you and a group want to sponsor a particular
cemetery that's not currently being taken care of or that
is not on their list. You and a group of
(27:58):
people can sponsor that and actually have the sponsorship group
for that area to take care of those reefs and
to lay those reefs at that particular cemetery. Or you
can go online and you can volunteer at one close
to you if you want to participate with them, and
they're pretty quick about getting back in touch with you
so that you can know where to go and on
(28:19):
that particular day again, December the nineteenth, so it's only
going to be about what was it nineteenth, It says, well,
actually six days before Christmas. That's a little bit late
in the month, but generally it's a little bit closer
to the beginning of the month. But hopefully a lot
of people will be able to attend that and very
worthwhile cause getting to last Friday, there were some numbers
(28:41):
coming out from the National Association of Realtors and it
was interesting to see how some of these things were
covered in terms of who said what and what was
covered and so on existing home sales. Now, this is
doctor Lawrence Ewn. He is the chief Economists. Wage growth
(29:02):
is outpacing home price gains, which improved housing affordability. Still,
future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to
keep pace with demand. Existing home sales were up month
over month point five percent, one half of one percent
(29:22):
four point one three million homes existing homes now year
over year, that was one percent down. Now as far
as homes for sale month over month was down five
point nine percent from the previous month. However, on an
annual basis so far year over year, the number of
(29:43):
homes for sale is up seven point five. They talk
about in terms of months of supply. As far as
November home sales, four point two months supply is on hand.
That is down from four point four in actually up
a little bit from November at three point eight, but
down from four point four in October. So some of
(30:05):
the stuff going on in the housing market, there's some
things in this article we need to talk about. We'll
pick that up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Americas Struck
In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
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from Progressive in Surrey variety of commercial vehicle one hundred WLW.
I'm Kevin Gordon getting to this National Associated of Realtors,
National Association Realtors, and they're monthly sales monthly numbers. The
headline National Associated Realtors Existing home sales reports showed zero
(31:48):
point five percent increase in November. Now another headline, US
existing home sales edge up in November as mortgage rates ease. Now,
what have I been saying all along that interest rates
are holding back this economy. Lower interest rates, more people
will jump into the market and more people will buy homes,
(32:09):
and that is good for the economy. It's very good
support of the GDP numbers, which will be out some
believe tomorrow later on today, I believe, if memory serves
me correct. But anyway, when they get into the specifics
here in terms of where some of the growth is
a month over months, sales increased in the northeast and
(32:29):
south showed let me see, sales increased in the northeast
and south, showed no change in the west, and fell
in the midwest. Year over year sales showed no change
in the northeast and south and decreased in the Midwest
and west. Now, according to again Lawrence Young, he is
(32:50):
the National Association Realtor's chief economist, existing home sales increased
for a third straight month due to two lower mortgage
rates this autumn. That is huge. The fact that interest
rates are coming down and more people are jumping in
(33:11):
that is good for the economy. Again, when you have
somebody who does not own a home that they're renting,
and in some cases the rent is more than the
mortgage would be on that property, and for them to
jump away from that into a home, generally the home
is bigger. They're going to buy more furniture, they're going
(33:33):
to be buying appliances, they're going to be buying all
kinds of stuff to fill that home up. And so
if they're spending less as far as a mortgage is
concerned versus what they're paying in rent, they will have
more disposable income for that and instead of paying a landlord,
they're paying less on a mortgage. But then they're also
(33:55):
having more money available for disposable income. And so that
again star's boosting the economy. And when the interest rates
come down, then people can afford to get into the market,
because again with interest rates high, with the amount of
the value of these homes up, a lot of people
are not able to qualify for that based on their income.
(34:16):
And what we've talked about in the past, I've talked
about that on this program, the difference between your monthly
payment at in terms of a particular income level, what
you can afford based on a three percent mortgage versus
a six and a half percent mortgage is astronomical. It's
about a seven hundred to eight hundred dollars difference. So
(34:39):
if you're coming from a rental property and that price
is coming down and you can get a lower interest rate,
that then gives you even more disposable income and more
people moving into the market. Now in here one of
the key features. Also when we hear from the spoon
fed regurgitators in the mainstream media about the softness of
(35:01):
the economy, they start talking about, oh, you know, unemployment
is up, which, by the way, I am not buying
this crap of this four point six percent unemployment rate.
I think when they adjust that, when they find out
what the real number is, it's going to be closer
down to around four point three four point four percent,
which is a heck of a lot less because we
(35:22):
were at four point one throughout most of the year
than it jumped up slightly to four point two than
to four point three. I think the current unemployment rate
is probably closer to that than the four point six
that they're reporting. Now. One of the key features in
here that they point out is that with distressed property
sales at historic lows and the housing wealth at all
(35:46):
time highs, homeowners are in no rush to list their
properties during these winter months. Now. Distressed properties are where
people are foreclosures, people are behind, they're about ready to
lose their home. If they are at historic lows, then
(36:06):
that means that people aren't struggling to pay their mortgages.
We saw a lot of distressed homes back in the
housing crisis back in two thousand and eight to two
thousand and ten. Basically, we saw distressed homes back during
COVID to a certain extent, except that some of these
recovery programs for banks were given to where people could
(36:29):
refinance or postpone payments, or the companies would actually work
with them in order to reassess the loans or to
actually do a refinance type of thing that was available.
In some instances, they took some of the payments that
hadn't been made and add those on to the tail
(36:49):
end of the mortgage, so extended the length of the
mortgage a little bit more, but at the same current
interest rate. And in some cases I saw where some
people actually kint a better interest rate than they originally
did so the fact that distressed homes property as that
historic lows is a good thing. In this they also
(37:10):
talk about, as has been the case throughout the year,
single family home sales outperformed condominium sales. In November, the
typical price of a sold condo was thirteen point five
percent lower than the typical price of a single home
family home. Well, in most instances, your condos are smaller
square footage than what a normal house would be. So
(37:33):
if you're talking about a I mean, I don't know,
they don't mention what the average square footage of a
condominium is. But from what I see around the Greater
Sins a northern Kentucky area, a place I'm most familiar with,
most of the condos are between fifteen hundred to maybe
two thousand square feet. Most homes I think in the area,
or at least in the neighborhood where I live, are
(37:55):
probably more in the neighborhood of two twenty five hundred
and maybe three thousand square feet. So again, obviously the
price for the condo is going to be less because
you're talking about less square footage. So in and of itself,
that's not too bad. Now, skipping through some of the
stuff in here. One of the things that was interesting.
They're talking about some of the statistics having to do
(38:17):
with homes. Thirty six days medium time on the market
for properties, up from thirty four days last month. I
don't really think, well, unless you're in a situation where
you've already bought a home and you're now carrying two mortgages,
thirty six days on the market is probably bad. But
for the most part, most homes from what I've been once,
(38:39):
what I've experienced, is generally around that time. Thirty percent
of homes were first time home buyers, unchanged from November,
which is a good thing because as people move out
of existing rental spaces and moving in there, they buy
more stuff to fill that house and to equip the house.
Twenty seven percent of transactions were all cash. Eighteen percent
(39:02):
of transactions were individual investors or second home buyers. So
that's eighteen percent of the market, sixteen percent last month.
Two percent of again, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph,
two percent of sales were distressed sales, foreclosures or short sales,
unchanged from a month ago. So that would show that
the economy is relatively strong. Not a lot of people
(39:24):
are underwater as far as their homes are concerned. They're
not behind on their payments and they're making their mortgage payments.
So if the economy were bad, that number would be
more than two percent, and there would be a heck
of lot more quote distressed homes on the market. Mortgage rates,
the average thirty year fixed rate is six point twenty
(39:46):
four percent. That's down from six point two five percent,
not much in October, but at the beginning of the
year that number was six point eight one. And I
saw a statistic and it was that, let's see, in
mid January, interest rates were at seven point oh four percent,
(40:07):
so they were just above seven percent, and you take
that one percent off of a home loan the mortgage,
and you see a dramatic difference in terms of price. Now,
this was interesting. Not sure what he's saying here. The
existing home sales figures suggest that the drop in mortgage
rates in recent months has nudged demand up somewhat, but
(40:29):
not by enough to signal meaningful turnaround. Now, I'm not
sure if it's because the interest rates have been more meaningful.
If the interest rate cuts had been more meaningful, whether
they would have been inclined to move. Now, that's something
that you know, again they don't explain in the particular story.
(40:50):
Let me see if I got time to squeeze this in.
There was one other thing in here that was kind
of confusing because they were saying that people are reluctant
to move and because of the uncertainty as far as
the job market is concerned. Now, what wasn't clear is
that whether or not that affects people that are not
(41:10):
into a home wanting to get into a home, or
people that are in a home that want to upgrade.
That was left on Uh, you know, that question was
left unanswered. But anyway, well, we're up against clock, my friends,
stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the top of
the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and Network seven
hundred WLW
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