March 26, 2025 • 25 mins
Norm Blumenthal - an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one of the Top Attorneys in Southern California. Norm was inducted and recognized as one of America's Most Trusted Lawyers in Employment Law.
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About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
“What You See Is What You Get”
Connect with Bert: YouTube | Twitter | Instagram
Get a Free Copy of Dominating Your Mind: https://amzn.to/2XuM9Xr While supplies last, limited time.
About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Meaning is being recorded. You got that on.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Three two one. Welcome back, Norm bluementhal here with us today.
Norm Blumenthal's an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as
one of the top attorneys in Southern California. Norm was
also inducted and recognized with one of America's most trusted
lawyers in employment law. Norm Blumenthal.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Welcome back, Nice to be here, Bert, and I thought
today we talk about a little bit of derivative issues,
you know, just thinking when I came in and share
a song, if you could turn back time, yeah, you know,
and I think that's the whole point of the past
election was people wanted to turn back time, you know,
(00:51):
make America great again. And so this is where we
kind of are as the people you know, and you know,
when I was starting out, you could get to yourself
a condominium for one hundred thousand dollars, a nice one,
and you could get a house for you know, a
couple hundred thousand dollars, and so that's what people grew up.
(01:15):
If I could live, you know, make my life better
than my kids, then that's where I'll be and have
a house. But these these right now, living space that
you can own where you know, one hundred thousand or
two hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand,
(01:36):
you know, it just doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And everybody, you know, they're blaming it on.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
The Democrats because they didn't come up with the plan,
because they're supposed to be the party of the people.
And you know, I expect that you're not going to
seem much better from the Republicans. So as a people,
we are, know you careful what you wish for. We're
stuck with the Republicans in charge, who are notoriously a
(02:09):
management group. And you know, at the end of the day,
look look who showed up at the inauguration, all the.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
All the oligarchs. I mean, it's all about the money,
and that's people.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And you got this must head he's you know, standing
around for what political purpose, nothing except that he gave
the president more money than anybody else, so he gets
a bigger voice than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So absolutely, I think I think what's incredible here we
see that with this administration, money is the no pun intended,
is the primary Currency're right, they're not, they don't they
don't care about the people. They don't they don't seem
(03:01):
to take They don't seem to care about somebody's background
or or or vetting them correctly. If you have money,
you can play. Oh, you're willing to follow me blindly
and do what I want you to do. Oh, then
let's put you in charge of a department that you
are not qualified for, just because you're willing to jump
(03:25):
when I say jump.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, And that's that's who we have.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Now the question becomes, is there an answer out there
that that all our politicians are missing? And I submit
there is one. And the answer isn't build more housing,
build more housing, build more housing. They can do that
till the end of time, but nobody can afford it,
(03:50):
so they And this now gets kind of.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Into the deep bushes.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
But I'll give you from experience of my clients, there's
a lot of people out there that own real estate.
Mom and pop shops will call them, for lack of
a better term, you know, their family owns an apartment
building with ten units in it. And what they end
(04:20):
up doing is, for the most part, is you can't
sell that property because if you did, would happen is
and now we're talking about tax issues, what would happen
is you'd do what's called recapture because during the period
of time you own the property, the government, when it
(04:40):
wanted you to build more housing, gave you accelerated depreciation
on what you ended up buying or building, and so
you have written off all of your investment in terms
of taxes and more so, and if you saw the
property for the value that you currently have, you'd end
(05:05):
up having not only not make any money, but you
end up paying taxes on it.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So the ability of an owner of a ten unit to.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Use that as an example, apartment building only has the
choice of training it I shall call ten thirty one
exchanges or just letting grandma and grandpa run it out
and give it to the kids. And that's a transfer
that's free of any tax because they get what's called
(05:38):
a stepped up basis. So you're with me so far, Bert, Yeah,
can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay, So I want to make sure, yeah, I'm with
you on that. And you know, to your point again,
places like San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, just about everywhere,
there is no longer the starter homes, right, you know,
when you're talking about you're getting a condo for uh
(06:12):
for one hundred thousand, sometimes less, depending on where you
were at. Those things are non existent. My son and
his and his wife just bought their first home and
it's a three bedroom and they paid over four hundred
thousand dollars for it, and it's and it's exceptionally far
(06:35):
right they had. They had to move an hour away
just so they can get a house that is somewhat affordable.
And then, to make it even more shocking to me,
norm is, instead of offering them a thirty year mortgage,
they have now a forty year mortgage.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah, you pay more or less less each month, but
you pay it for a longer period of time. And
and that's that's not everything you say is not surprising.
You just had a friend that is looking for something
between San Diego and Idaho, and they couldn't find anything
that they could afford. What they wanted started at a
million dollars, and so it was it was didn't exist.
(07:19):
But let's let's say we we had a magic wand
and we could change the federal tax law, and we
could do it in a way that said, all right,
mom and pop, you have a ten unit apartment building.
(07:39):
That's let's say it's it's worth a million dollars. Okay,
just for round numbers, and that's one.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Hundred thousand dollars a unit.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
And we don't want to wait for you to to
die before we get some of that money. And you
get some of that money and figure out a way
without tax benefit tax issue. So what if mom and
pop could condomize that building and not suffer any tax consequences.
(08:13):
In other words, they instead of putting the property on
the market for a one buyer and a million dollars,
they could put it on a market for ten buyers
at one hundred thousand dollars each. As a condom those
units at one hundred thousand would be readily marketable and saleable.
(08:38):
And if the law was such that you'd suffer no
tax consequences, well then that would be the way financial
advisors would tell you to go take the money, condomize it,
sell these units as is no construction liability, and you
(08:59):
can sell pad you can sell off all of them.
But the bottom line would be there be no federal
or state taxes on the income and no recapture. So
that would then with the magic wand create a tremendous
group of available properties. And it goes and these properties exist,
(09:22):
you know, and you know they in San Diego, a
unit in a beach area, for round numbers, it would
cost you if you had a ten ten unit property
would be five hundred thousand. A unit would be five
million dollars. Well, there's no one stepping up for five million.
(09:45):
That's that's going to be. Someone would live there. But
if you could condomize it and make it five hundred
thousand each, he'd probably you would sell out all the
all the units make the same amount of money without
a recapture. And he's incentivized that. Then you have an
abundance of affordable housing. You follow me, yes, And that's really,
(10:13):
you know, that's the dream. If you want to make
America great again, you got to change the tax law.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, absolutely, and specifically we need to change the tax
law for the middle class. It's it's you know, here's
one of the things I love about Warren Buffett. Warren
Buffett has come out on multiple times and says he
doesn't pay enough taxes, and you know, he follows the
tax code, follows the law. And he says that if
(10:39):
you wanted to make America solvent, and you basically start
making the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. And
I think that's a very interesting idea coming from one
of the wealthiest men in the world who owns multiple
companies like Sees Candy, Dairy Queen. He also owns Geico
(11:04):
Insurance and just a massive list of companies that he owns.
He's coming out saying I don't pay enough taxes and
my companies don't pay enough taxes. It's not my fault.
I'm just following the tax code. But right there, when
you're talking about taxes, that's a huge thing, especially if
(11:26):
you're living in a place like Phoenix or I'm sorry, Arizona,
or California or some of these other places that charge.
Hawaii is another one that has a I think Hawaii
has the highest state tax. I think they're at twelve
or thirteen percent. But you know, if you're living in
one of these states that you're having to pay a
(11:47):
state tax, then you pay a federal tax, and you're
being taxed all the time. And so yeah, I think
that we need to do something with our with the taxes.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
The idea is is that you want to incentivize the
mom and pop that own that ten unit apartment building
that has a value of five hundred thousand a door,
which is five million dollars. Instead of looking for a
buyer at five million, they're looking for ten condo owners
(12:24):
at five hundred thousand each.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And it's a win win situation as long as the
mom and.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Pop don't suffer any tax consequences. To the other extreme,
if they incentivize the fact because they if they sell
it that way, they'll pay no taxes, no recapture, and
they can say it doesn't have a mortgage, you know,
just paying the closing.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Costs and away you go.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
They make the money, they'll spend the money now instead
of the kids waiting for mom and pop to pass away.
And there's ten people that didn't have affordable housing would
have affordable housing, right, So you know that's the concept is,
you know, and no one looks at the at these people,
(13:15):
no one, you know, what can we do to make
it better?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And you know this is you know, not.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
A a hard idea to understand people own it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, then you at the same time that the corporate
world you.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Can end up with with charging more corporate taxes and
obviously there's plenty of room there.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But what our problem is is the oligarchs now control
of this country.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, and and here's what, so what I find so interesting, Uh,
we're gonna we'll pick on on Elon Musk because he's
made himself so public. You look at Tesla, and I
believe Tesla has roughly one hundred twenty thousand to one
(14:08):
hundred and fifty thousand employees. Somewhere within that mix. Out
of all of those people, none of them have a voice.
But Elon Musk, now, as an entrepreneur, I get that.
That's you know, he took the big risk, he gets
the big reward. However, a lot of his you know,
with one hundred and twenty plus employees, I guarantee you
(14:31):
there is a large percentage of those guys that even
though they're working and they got the degree and everything else,
they're struggling. They're struggling everybody else, to make to find housing,
They're struggling like everybody else, to take care of their family.
But yet Elon Musk isn't doing anything for the again,
(14:57):
average working.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Joe that's across the board. And it's really up to
Congress to come back with a better solution than what
they've come back with now, right now. Are the Democrats
any better than the Republicans? I don't think so. No
Republicans any better than the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Certainly not.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
And so we have a group both of whom, as
a group, can you know, talk about, oh yeah, we're
going to help the guy that doesn't have affordable housing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I don't see any legislation that helps them.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And the stuff that was proposed by the Democrats, it
was it was a joke. You know, we're going to
loan you two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars as
a down payment on what you can't get anything if
it was for what one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Right, And speaking of I'm sorry, go ahead, I'll let
you finish.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Well, it's you know.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
It's just the inability to understand both sides of the equation.
Like I'm reading Abundance, you know, the new book that
came out and which is a good book.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But they don't get it either.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
They owe the answer to them is the same thing,
build more houses. Well, you know you're not going to
solve the problem by building more because it's going to
solve for more.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Right, you got to turn back time and the other thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Regarding the the Democrats and the Republicans both have put
out stuff that is rather silly or you know, really
a joke. I mean, what's his name. President Trump comes
out and he writes an executive order that is silly
on its face, saying, I, you know order, you know,
(17:00):
all departments to find ways to make food and housing cheaper.
What just like.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
It's a nice thought. Yeah, you can't turn back time
in a song an executive order, You're not going to
do it. You have to think of something new. And
so this is what I've come back up with, you know,
just in my own personal experience, you know what would
(17:32):
make it. And if you condomize these mom and pop
shops without any negative tax consequences, you'll have more units
for sale where people can buy in, you know, a
piece of the pie for a much smaller price than
would be if you had to buy the whole building.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Obviously, right, and and interestingly enough, one of the things
that came to mind when you when you were talking
about this, we have schools and large box retail places
that are closed that aren't being used. And it seems
to me, and again I'm not an engineer, and I
(18:13):
know that sometimes you cannot retro fit these things. But
I know of one documentary where a family bought a closed.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
A school.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It might I think it was a high school, and
they bought it, you know, from the state or the
city or whatever, for like one hundred grand. And that's
what they're doing. They're going through there and turning them
into condos, and they're they're doing one at you know,
like one or two units at a time, because you
(18:48):
got to retrofit these things. You got to put closets
and bathrooms and plumbing in there. But bottom line is,
to your point, nor this could be solved, and it's
going to take somebody with a little hootspa and a
little creativity. And the reality is we're not going to
(19:09):
solve the housing crisis with old ways of thinking. It
is going to have to be creative. It is going
to have to be somebody who's daring to go the
different route. And so we need some people, some lawmakers,
some politicians to think out of the box.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's the point.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Like, I don't pretend to think that I have all
the answers, but at least I throw something out there
for people to think about without just dismissing it out
of hand. Oh, if this was a good idea, we would.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Have thought about it before.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
No, because the problem we're facing has never happened before.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
There's all these people out there.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They make a decent living, you know, there's people out
here in San Diego making it a a family making
five hundred thousand a year, a husband and wife working.
They can't afford a house, you know that they'd like
they'd have to move, as you said, farther out and commute.
(20:14):
What's the point to that, you know, the idea is
to bring them in. This retrofitting of office buildings, that's
another wonderful idea, and it should be tax credit consumes
for people that will condomize their old office buildings. Not
to make them apartments, because all that's going to do
(20:37):
is just have the same problem. But to condomize the
old office buildings and for people to go and live in.
It's the same idea and it doesn't take you know,
that much to do. You have to get into the plumbing.
You know, there's an issue of getting plumbing. But you know,
(20:57):
exposed pipes are you know the look anyway of today,
So they can make all of that work.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So you know, there's a couple ideas that we talk about.
You know, when we.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Talked about I remember BERTI, you know, oh, we've got
to work on raising the minimum wage in this country
across the board. And we managed to get twenty six
twenty eight states took it up from seven dollars and
now it's up to twenty and twenty five dollars. But
it still doesn't get you into the ownership cycle. Right,
(21:35):
that's what we have to work on. Where's the carrot
at the end of the stick. You know, there is
no care because all you're doing is you're paying a
lot of taxes and you're in there. Supposedly, this new
tax bill they put through, there's not going to be
any taxes on overtime.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Or tips, tips or Social Security checks.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
So see if that actually made it into the last
bill I read about it.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I'm not saying it's in there. I'm not saying it isn't,
but I did read that it was supposed to be
in there.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Absolutely, here's the deal. Look, here's the deal. Time and
time again, we have seen that when something is absolutely
critical that the powers at be, including the people, rally
and get it solved. COVID is just another sample of
(22:35):
that example of that they put together not one not
to but like four different vaccines in a very short
amount of time. And again I'm not saying that all
the vaccines were perfect, but I'm just saying, look, when
it becomes important and urgent enough, we figure it out.
You know, we did the same thing multiple times with gasoline.
We've done the We've done the same thing when there
(22:56):
was a water shortage in different cities or states. It's
just a matter of people giving caring enough to solve it.
And because we for the most part run on money,
you know, nobody's gonna do anything until the masses raise
(23:18):
their hand up and say we're not going to take
this anymore. This is ridiculous. I don't want to pay
five hundred thousand dollars for a one bedroom condo, and that's.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
That's when ends up where these are at. Unfortunately, those
are the evaluations that exist today, and those aren't even
on the market. I mean, you can't find a five
hundred thousand dollars condo in San Diego. You'd have to
have some insteadive to turn it into condos because people
(23:58):
with the redling cup.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
From that you keep it as an apartment building.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So there's there's a big problem because that's where you're headed.
And it's just at some point it becomes out of
the reach of the everyday person, and there has to
be some people with better ideas in our community and exposed.
(24:23):
If the Republicans are against it, exposed them. If the
Democrats are against it, exposed them. But it's it has
to be universal idea to get people into affordable housing
through every tax incentive you can throw at the owners
of the property to put it on the market at
(24:43):
a price that's affordable.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Absolutely absolutely normal. I think, I think again, your ideas
is good, just just the idea of guys. Let's get
out of our own way and come up with multiple
i creative ideas. One of them is bound to work.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
It's the old saying goes, if you bang your head
long enough and hard enough against the wall, money will
come out.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
We're gonna end on that note, Norm Bloomenthal, thank you
so much for stopping by. Good stuff there from Norm Bloomenthal.
Norm Blumenthal, like I said, he's he's a guy who's
got our back, all right. He looks out for the
working class stiffs like you and I. If you want
to find out more about NORM, you can go to
BAM law c A. That's b A M law c A.
(25:38):
Check it out. If you agree with us, let us know.
If you disagree with us, let us know. Let's start
the conversation. Remember you were created to succeed.
Meaning is being recorded. You got that on.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Three two one. Welcome back, Norm bluementhal here with us today.
Norm Blumenthal's an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as
one of the top attorneys in Southern California. Norm was
also inducted and recognized with one of America's most trusted
lawyers in employment law. Norm Blumenthal.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Welcome back, Nice to be here, Bert, and I thought
today we talk about a little bit of derivative issues,
you know, just thinking when I came in and share
a song, if you could turn back time, yeah, you know,
and I think that's the whole point of the past
election was people wanted to turn back time, you know,
(00:51):
make America great again. And so this is where we
kind of are as the people you know, and you know,
when I was starting out, you could get to yourself
a condominium for one hundred thousand dollars, a nice one,
and you could get a house for you know, a
couple hundred thousand dollars, and so that's what people grew up.
(01:15):
If I could live, you know, make my life better
than my kids, then that's where I'll be and have
a house. But these these right now, living space that
you can own where you know, one hundred thousand or
two hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand,
(01:36):
you know, it just doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And everybody, you know, they're blaming it on.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
The Democrats because they didn't come up with the plan,
because they're supposed to be the party of the people.
And you know, I expect that you're not going to
seem much better from the Republicans. So as a people,
we are, know you careful what you wish for. We're
stuck with the Republicans in charge, who are notoriously a
(02:09):
management group. And you know, at the end of the day,
look look who showed up at the inauguration, all the.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
All the oligarchs. I mean, it's all about the money,
and that's people.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And you got this must head he's you know, standing
around for what political purpose, nothing except that he gave
the president more money than anybody else, so he gets
a bigger voice than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So absolutely, I think I think what's incredible here we
see that with this administration, money is the no pun intended,
is the primary Currency're right, they're not, they don't they
don't care about the people. They don't they don't seem
(03:01):
to take They don't seem to care about somebody's background
or or or vetting them correctly. If you have money,
you can play. Oh, you're willing to follow me blindly
and do what I want you to do. Oh, then
let's put you in charge of a department that you
are not qualified for, just because you're willing to jump
(03:25):
when I say jump.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, And that's that's who we have.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Now the question becomes, is there an answer out there
that that all our politicians are missing? And I submit
there is one. And the answer isn't build more housing,
build more housing, build more housing. They can do that
till the end of time, but nobody can afford it,
(03:50):
so they And this now gets kind of.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Into the deep bushes.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
But I'll give you from experience of my clients, there's
a lot of people out there that own real estate.
Mom and pop shops will call them, for lack of
a better term, you know, their family owns an apartment
building with ten units in it. And what they end
(04:20):
up doing is, for the most part, is you can't
sell that property because if you did, would happen is
and now we're talking about tax issues, what would happen
is you'd do what's called recapture because during the period
of time you own the property, the government, when it
(04:40):
wanted you to build more housing, gave you accelerated depreciation
on what you ended up buying or building, and so
you have written off all of your investment in terms
of taxes and more so, and if you saw the
property for the value that you currently have, you'd end
(05:05):
up having not only not make any money, but you
end up paying taxes on it.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
So the ability of an owner of a ten unit to.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Use that as an example, apartment building only has the
choice of training it I shall call ten thirty one
exchanges or just letting grandma and grandpa run it out
and give it to the kids. And that's a transfer
that's free of any tax because they get what's called
(05:38):
a stepped up basis. So you're with me so far, Bert, Yeah,
can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Okay, So I want to make sure, yeah, I'm with
you on that. And you know, to your point again,
places like San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, just about everywhere,
there is no longer the starter homes, right, you know,
when you're talking about you're getting a condo for uh
(06:12):
for one hundred thousand, sometimes less, depending on where you
were at. Those things are non existent. My son and
his and his wife just bought their first home and
it's a three bedroom and they paid over four hundred
thousand dollars for it, and it's and it's exceptionally far
(06:35):
right they had. They had to move an hour away
just so they can get a house that is somewhat affordable.
And then, to make it even more shocking to me,
norm is, instead of offering them a thirty year mortgage,
they have now a forty year mortgage.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah, you pay more or less less each month, but
you pay it for a longer period of time. And
and that's that's not everything you say is not surprising.
You just had a friend that is looking for something
between San Diego and Idaho, and they couldn't find anything
that they could afford. What they wanted started at a
million dollars, and so it was it was didn't exist.
(07:19):
But let's let's say we we had a magic wand
and we could change the federal tax law, and we
could do it in a way that said, all right,
mom and pop, you have a ten unit apartment building.
(07:39):
That's let's say it's it's worth a million dollars. Okay,
just for round numbers, and that's one.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Hundred thousand dollars a unit.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
And we don't want to wait for you to to
die before we get some of that money. And you
get some of that money and figure out a way
without tax benefit tax issue. So what if mom and
pop could condomize that building and not suffer any tax consequences.
(08:13):
In other words, they instead of putting the property on
the market for a one buyer and a million dollars,
they could put it on a market for ten buyers
at one hundred thousand dollars each. As a condom those
units at one hundred thousand would be readily marketable and saleable.
(08:38):
And if the law was such that you'd suffer no
tax consequences, well then that would be the way financial
advisors would tell you to go take the money, condomize it,
sell these units as is no construction liability, and you
(08:59):
can sell pad you can sell off all of them.
But the bottom line would be there be no federal
or state taxes on the income and no recapture. So
that would then with the magic wand create a tremendous
group of available properties. And it goes and these properties exist,
(09:22):
you know, and you know they in San Diego, a
unit in a beach area, for round numbers, it would
cost you if you had a ten ten unit property
would be five hundred thousand. A unit would be five
million dollars. Well, there's no one stepping up for five million.
(09:45):
That's that's going to be. Someone would live there. But
if you could condomize it and make it five hundred
thousand each, he'd probably you would sell out all the
all the units make the same amount of money without
a recapture. And he's incentivized that. Then you have an
abundance of affordable housing. You follow me, yes, And that's really,
(10:13):
you know, that's the dream. If you want to make
America great again, you got to change the tax law.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Well, absolutely, and specifically we need to change the tax
law for the middle class. It's it's you know, here's
one of the things I love about Warren Buffett. Warren
Buffett has come out on multiple times and says he
doesn't pay enough taxes, and you know, he follows the
tax code, follows the law. And he says that if
(10:39):
you wanted to make America solvent, and you basically start
making the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. And
I think that's a very interesting idea coming from one
of the wealthiest men in the world who owns multiple
companies like Sees Candy, Dairy Queen. He also owns Geico
(11:04):
Insurance and just a massive list of companies that he owns.
He's coming out saying I don't pay enough taxes and
my companies don't pay enough taxes. It's not my fault.
I'm just following the tax code. But right there, when
you're talking about taxes, that's a huge thing, especially if
(11:26):
you're living in a place like Phoenix or I'm sorry, Arizona,
or California or some of these other places that charge.
Hawaii is another one that has a I think Hawaii
has the highest state tax. I think they're at twelve
or thirteen percent. But you know, if you're living in
one of these states that you're having to pay a
(11:47):
state tax, then you pay a federal tax, and you're
being taxed all the time. And so yeah, I think
that we need to do something with our with the taxes.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
The idea is is that you want to incentivize the
mom and pop that own that ten unit apartment building
that has a value of five hundred thousand a door,
which is five million dollars. Instead of looking for a
buyer at five million, they're looking for ten condo owners
(12:24):
at five hundred thousand each.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And it's a win win situation as long as the
mom and.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Pop don't suffer any tax consequences. To the other extreme,
if they incentivize the fact because they if they sell
it that way, they'll pay no taxes, no recapture, and
they can say it doesn't have a mortgage, you know,
just paying the closing.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Costs and away you go.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
They make the money, they'll spend the money now instead
of the kids waiting for mom and pop to pass away.
And there's ten people that didn't have affordable housing would
have affordable housing, right, So you know that's the concept is,
you know, and no one looks at the at these people,
(13:15):
no one, you know, what can we do to make
it better?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And you know this is you know, not.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
A a hard idea to understand people own it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, then you at the same time that the corporate
world you.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Can end up with with charging more corporate taxes and
obviously there's plenty of room there.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But what our problem is is the oligarchs now control
of this country.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, and and here's what, so what I find so interesting, Uh,
we're gonna we'll pick on on Elon Musk because he's
made himself so public. You look at Tesla, and I
believe Tesla has roughly one hundred twenty thousand to one
(14:08):
hundred and fifty thousand employees. Somewhere within that mix. Out
of all of those people, none of them have a voice.
But Elon Musk, now, as an entrepreneur, I get that.
That's you know, he took the big risk, he gets
the big reward. However, a lot of his you know,
with one hundred and twenty plus employees, I guarantee you
(14:31):
there is a large percentage of those guys that even
though they're working and they got the degree and everything else,
they're struggling. They're struggling everybody else, to make to find housing,
They're struggling like everybody else, to take care of their family.
But yet Elon Musk isn't doing anything for the again,
(14:57):
average working.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Joe that's across the board. And it's really up to
Congress to come back with a better solution than what
they've come back with now, right now. Are the Democrats
any better than the Republicans? I don't think so. No
Republicans any better than the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Certainly not.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
And so we have a group both of whom, as
a group, can you know, talk about, oh yeah, we're
going to help the guy that doesn't have affordable housing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I don't see any legislation that helps them.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And the stuff that was proposed by the Democrats, it
was it was a joke. You know, we're going to
loan you two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars as
a down payment on what you can't get anything if
it was for what one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Right, And speaking of I'm sorry, go ahead, I'll let
you finish.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Well, it's you know.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
It's just the inability to understand both sides of the equation.
Like I'm reading Abundance, you know, the new book that
came out and which is a good book.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But they don't get it either.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
They owe the answer to them is the same thing,
build more houses. Well, you know you're not going to
solve the problem by building more because it's going to
solve for more.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Right, you got to turn back time and the other thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Regarding the the Democrats and the Republicans both have put
out stuff that is rather silly or you know, really
a joke. I mean, what's his name. President Trump comes
out and he writes an executive order that is silly
on its face, saying, I, you know order, you know,
(17:00):
all departments to find ways to make food and housing cheaper.
What just like.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
It's a nice thought. Yeah, you can't turn back time
in a song an executive order, You're not going to
do it. You have to think of something new. And
so this is what I've come back up with, you know,
just in my own personal experience, you know what would
(17:32):
make it. And if you condomize these mom and pop
shops without any negative tax consequences, you'll have more units
for sale where people can buy in, you know, a
piece of the pie for a much smaller price than
would be if you had to buy the whole building.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Obviously, right, and and interestingly enough, one of the things
that came to mind when you when you were talking
about this, we have schools and large box retail places
that are closed that aren't being used. And it seems
to me, and again I'm not an engineer, and I
(18:13):
know that sometimes you cannot retro fit these things. But
I know of one documentary where a family bought a closed.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
A school.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It might I think it was a high school, and
they bought it, you know, from the state or the
city or whatever, for like one hundred grand. And that's
what they're doing. They're going through there and turning them
into condos, and they're they're doing one at you know,
like one or two units at a time, because you
(18:48):
got to retrofit these things. You got to put closets
and bathrooms and plumbing in there. But bottom line is,
to your point, nor this could be solved, and it's
going to take somebody with a little hootspa and a
little creativity. And the reality is we're not going to
(19:09):
solve the housing crisis with old ways of thinking. It
is going to have to be creative. It is going
to have to be somebody who's daring to go the
different route. And so we need some people, some lawmakers,
some politicians to think out of the box.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's the point.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Like, I don't pretend to think that I have all
the answers, but at least I throw something out there
for people to think about without just dismissing it out
of hand. Oh, if this was a good idea, we would.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Have thought about it before.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
No, because the problem we're facing has never happened before.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
There's all these people out there.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
They make a decent living, you know, there's people out
here in San Diego making it a a family making
five hundred thousand a year, a husband and wife working.
They can't afford a house, you know that they'd like
they'd have to move, as you said, farther out and commute.
(20:14):
What's the point to that, you know, the idea is
to bring them in. This retrofitting of office buildings, that's
another wonderful idea, and it should be tax credit consumes
for people that will condomize their old office buildings. Not
to make them apartments, because all that's going to do
(20:37):
is just have the same problem. But to condomize the
old office buildings and for people to go and live in.
It's the same idea and it doesn't take you know,
that much to do. You have to get into the plumbing.
You know, there's an issue of getting plumbing. But you know,
(20:57):
exposed pipes are you know the look anyway of today,
So they can make all of that work.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So you know, there's a couple ideas that we talk about.
You know, when we.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Talked about I remember BERTI, you know, oh, we've got
to work on raising the minimum wage in this country
across the board. And we managed to get twenty six
twenty eight states took it up from seven dollars and
now it's up to twenty and twenty five dollars. But
it still doesn't get you into the ownership cycle. Right,
(21:35):
that's what we have to work on. Where's the carrot
at the end of the stick. You know, there is
no care because all you're doing is you're paying a
lot of taxes and you're in there. Supposedly, this new
tax bill they put through, there's not going to be
any taxes on overtime.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Or tips, tips or Social Security checks.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
So see if that actually made it into the last
bill I read about it.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I'm not saying it's in there. I'm not saying it isn't,
but I did read that it was supposed to be
in there.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Absolutely, here's the deal. Look, here's the deal. Time and
time again, we have seen that when something is absolutely
critical that the powers at be, including the people, rally
and get it solved. COVID is just another sample of
(22:35):
that example of that they put together not one not
to but like four different vaccines in a very short
amount of time. And again I'm not saying that all
the vaccines were perfect, but I'm just saying, look, when
it becomes important and urgent enough, we figure it out.
You know, we did the same thing multiple times with gasoline.
We've done the We've done the same thing when there
(22:56):
was a water shortage in different cities or states. It's
just a matter of people giving caring enough to solve it.
And because we for the most part run on money,
you know, nobody's gonna do anything until the masses raise
(23:18):
their hand up and say we're not going to take
this anymore. This is ridiculous. I don't want to pay
five hundred thousand dollars for a one bedroom condo, and that's.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
That's when ends up where these are at. Unfortunately, those
are the evaluations that exist today, and those aren't even
on the market. I mean, you can't find a five
hundred thousand dollars condo in San Diego. You'd have to
have some insteadive to turn it into condos because people
(23:58):
with the redling cup.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
From that you keep it as an apartment building.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So there's there's a big problem because that's where you're headed.
And it's just at some point it becomes out of
the reach of the everyday person, and there has to
be some people with better ideas in our community and exposed.
(24:23):
If the Republicans are against it, exposed them. If the
Democrats are against it, exposed them. But it's it has
to be universal idea to get people into affordable housing
through every tax incentive you can throw at the owners
of the property to put it on the market at
(24:43):
a price that's affordable.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Absolutely absolutely normal. I think, I think again, your ideas
is good, just just the idea of guys. Let's get
out of our own way and come up with multiple
i creative ideas. One of them is bound to work.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
It's the old saying goes, if you bang your head
long enough and hard enough against the wall, money will
come out.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
We're gonna end on that note, Norm Bloomenthal, thank you
so much for stopping by. Good stuff there from Norm Bloomenthal.
Norm Blumenthal, like I said, he's he's a guy who's
got our back, all right. He looks out for the
working class stiffs like you and I. If you want
to find out more about NORM, you can go to
BAM law c A. That's b A M law c A.
(25:38):
Check it out. If you agree with us, let us know.
If you disagree with us, let us know. Let's start
the conversation. Remember you were created to succeed.
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