Do You Really Own Your Home? The Ugly Truth About Our Housing Crisis

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Scott Bessent is floating the idea of a “housing emergency” ahead of the 2026 midterms—and the White House may lean into it this fall. But here’s the truth: affordability has collapsed, and government “fixes” could make it worse.
In this episode of Watchdog on Wall Street:

• Why mortgage rates aren’t the real problem—property taxes and insurance are
• How government subsidies prop up overpriced homes and flood-zone mansions
• The corporate scam: Wall Street firms buying entire neighborhoods and gaming comps
• Why homeownership isn’t an “investment”—it’s a bill

Yes, America has a housing emergency. The question is whether Washington will solve it—or make it permanent.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Will the President call a housing emergency? Yeah, they're putting
it out. Scott Vessant, Secretary of the Treasury, is kind
of alluding to the fact that housing emergency. They're going
to make that the two thousand and twenty six mid
term election running point. They may kick it off this fall. Aken,

(00:42):
Is there emergency? Yeah, Yeah, that's an emergency. Okay, it's
an emergency. I certainly hope. I certainly hope, because we've
talked about this s great like the President doesn't go
and again try to do all sorts of nonsense usurping
his power, extending the power of the executive branch of

(01:04):
government where he's just going to get knocked around in
some court somewhere. There are a myriad of different things
that they can do and run through Congress to get
this done the right way and make it permanent. People
have been listening to this program. They understand that we've
explained that homes have never been less portable than they

(01:28):
are right now based upon the medium price for home
medium income here in the United States, and granted, grant's
a big country housing market. Real estate, it's all about
certain areas, and you know there's going to be other
areas that are more inflated than others for a myriad
of reasons. I get all of that, but it's insane.

(01:50):
And it's not about mortgage rates. It really is. It's
not about mortgage rates. One of the things I've tried
to explain to people of this this is important. I
know I've done this before, but pay close attention. Okay,

(02:11):
someone wants to go out, they want to buy a home.
Young family wants to go out and buy a home.
They have a certain income. There's calculations that are put
together in regards to how much they can afford on
a thirty year mortgage. Now, but it has owned a home. Okay, mortgage,

(02:31):
housing payments, you've got taxes, you've got insurance, you've got interest,
you've got principle. Now, if the interest element of that
equation drops, if that drops, well, okay, guess what the

(02:54):
seller of the home knows that money is less. Okay,
real estate agents know this, meaning that they can charge
more for the home, So there's an inverse relationship. Oftentimes,
when interest rateshrop mortgage rates drop, the price of homes
goes up because guess what, You've got more money that
you can spend. Now, those other two areas, Okay, insurance

(03:20):
first and foremost. One of the problems we have here
in this country. I've explained this before, is the government
should never, ever, ever, ever, ever be involved in the
insurance business. Just shouldn't. Okay, that's a scam. Okay, that's
welfare for rich people. We live in a flood zone. Well,
don't live in a flood zone. How does that sound?

(03:43):
The sound crude, rude, whatever it may be. Okay, I'll
give point myself out for this. Okay, I don't live
in a flood zone. I live in Florida. Okay, I
didn't want to. I could have gone and gotten a
house on the water. You think I want to deal
with that nonsense at my age and have to you

(04:04):
know what, my hurricane might come in and have to
deal with flooding and all that. No way, no, how Okay, Yeah,
I'm the stones throw away from the water, but I'm
not in a flood zone. Okay, many homes here in
this country. Insurance companies don't want to underwrite their insurance. Well,

(04:24):
the government steps in, meaning who you and I? Why
the hell do I have to subsidize the insurance on
your million, multi million dollar house on the water. That
is the biggest bunch of BS I've ever seen in
my entire life. Now, what does that do? Well? It
makes those homes under water a lot more expensive, doesn't it? Again?

(04:47):
You can see why real estate agents love this, because
they sell homes and it's based upon the price to home.
Now play for tens here. Okay, there's no subsidies, no more,
No more government subsidization of any sort of home insurance whatsoever?
Will Chief wiz? Then? Okay, insurance companies don't want to

(05:08):
ensure the home. Well, guess what You're gonna have to
pay cash for the home. How many people can afford
that the price of the home will come down? You're
solving major affordability thing here. When you take the government
money out of the equation, they make everything go up.

(05:30):
And I can go off on all of the you know,
subsidized mortgages and a myriad of other things that quite frankly,
shouldn't happen. Should not happen. Now we've gone over here
in the program. The problem we have with corporate home ownership.
You really want to knock the price of homes down.

(05:51):
I know Marjorie Taylor Green keeps beating this out there,
and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. You know,
get eliminating the capital capital game means tax on the
selling of a home. It's gonna help a tiny little bit,
just a little bit. Again, if you're smart, you own

(06:13):
a home, you keep track all the money you put
into your home over all of those years. You can
factor that in and you can, you know, get yourself oftentimes,
even if you own a home for a long period
of time, underneath that five hundred thousand dollars, you know,
extent tap you have that that goes above on that.
The other issue is home tax rates, property tax rates.

(06:38):
They become oppressive, they become absolutely oppressive in many markets.
Get that knockdown. Okay, this would be a great way,
great way to crush. And again this is part of
the problem because again I don't think the donkeys or
the elephants have any interest in wishing the blackstones of

(07:01):
the world and other types of corporate ownership of homes.
I'm a big believer owner occupied, owner occupied homes, real simple,
no property tax, no property tax, or you come up

(07:21):
with something, you know, a much more reduced rates, and
then every municipality is different. You don't want the federal government,
you know, messing around in little towns, places here, there
and everywhere. Okay, but you have to have some sort
of break, some sort of break. We see this all
the time, and again it's awful. We live in a

(07:43):
country where people have busted their ass their entire lives.
They they moved to an area, and that area would
become looks fine, it becomes gentified, more people want to
move there. The property values go up, but again their
property taxes have gone through the roof, and they live
on a limited budget and they can no longer afford

(08:08):
they can no longer afford to live in the home
that is bought and paid for because of property taxes.
Story the end of the day, this poor guy, this
poor guy bought a piece of property. It's kind of
like this old house situation. Okay, he's a handyman, Okay,
he knows how to fix things. A rich guy He

(08:31):
fixed the entire home himself, did everything there on the house.
Property assessor did it himself. Property assessor comes in, reassesses
the home at a new valuation. He has to move.
He can't afford to live in the house that he
bought and he fixed up by himself, because the property

(08:52):
taxes are too high. You tell me, yep, Land of
the free, Home of the brave. What a bunch of bullshit.
I said this again and again and again. People were
all suckers. Okay, you don't own a home. You don't.
You Basically, when you purchase a piece of property, your

(09:13):
home here in the United States, you've bought with basically,
you've bought usage rights. That's all that you have. You
don't pay your property taxes. They take it, and you
have all of this waste in local government. You want
to talk about doze. We need to doze that. We've

(09:34):
got to go towards a consumption tax, which we had
at nationally as far as federal tax is concerned, but
on states as well owner occupied homes.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
No, No, you can't be paying a property people can't
avoid it. That's you get rid of that. The afforded
people be able to afford a home. That is a major.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Problem that we're dealing again also as well, the monopolistic
nature of a lot of this corporate ownership we've gone
over before, buying up entire neighborhoods, playing the game there,
playing the game. Oh look at you know, we bought
all these homes for five hundred thousand dollars. We'll sit
on them for a period of time. We'll sell those

(10:19):
homes to ourselves and another fund for two hundred thousand
dollars more. Look at that, we sell three or four
of them. Now we've got comps because that's how the
industry are. How we got comps. So jeez, right, you
knows homes seven hundred thousand dollars, we got to sell
that for more. It's a scam. It's a scam. I mean,

(10:41):
you know, talk about various different anti trust stories here
on the program. How does this scam benefit the consumer?
Does it? And I said, we go after Google, you
go after that, We go after these tech companies which
are lowering prices and you know, doing various different things.
Why not go after this. It's a damn racket. So, yeah,

(11:06):
do we have a housing emergency here in the United States?
Absolutely would our kondomy be much better, much more dynamic,
if people had more disposable income rather than having to
spend it on their homes. Absolutely, big life lesson, And

(11:28):
again I hate conventional wisdom. We defied all the time
and that's why we're successful. The idea out there that
your home is this wondrous, terrific investment is stupid. Okay,
it is a bill. It's a necessity. You have to
live somewhere. They've they've got people believing that it's this great,

(11:52):
all this stuff. It's not. It's not. It's a bill.
You do not want to become house poor. Once people
fully understand this, this nature can I This financial planner
is what we do to explain this. You don't take

(12:12):
your home into account with anything. It's a bill. Okay.
Oh you want to put that kitchen in, great, put
the kitchen in your home. You want to improve it
because you want the kitchen, not because you're going to
actually get your money out when you sell your home,
because you're not. It doesn't work that way. That's a
lie anyway. Yeah, housing emergency. Yeah, would this be a

(12:35):
surefire winner if it's done the right way? Yeah? Will
it be a surefire loser and problematic for years to
come if the government starts stepping in and pushing more
types of subsidies out there. Absolutely watch dog on Wall
street dot com