America's Housing Nightmare: Can't Buy, Can't Rent, Can't Sell

[00:00:00]Whether you're trying to rent a place, sell your home, or buy a home, the housing market is a real problem right now because everything is harder than it should be. The reality is home prices versus income are completely out of sync. Most people cannot afford the median home price of over $420,000 in 2026. And of course, because that's like luxury pricing. And again, whether you are even just trying to rent an apartment right now with the terms that landlords are asking or the application fees or if you are in HOAs and now the HOAs are having a lot of issues. It seems like all across the board, there are so many problems right now with basically putting a roof over your head.

[00:00:41]For $2,000 a month, you can have a two-bedroom, one bath town home with mold, 2,000 a month.

[00:00:56]This is not a half a million dollar home under any circumstances. It's not. Okay?

[00:01:04]You would think, "Oh my god, $550,000.

[00:01:06]It has to be on like 30 acres." It's not.

[00:01:10]This is listed at 550 over half a million dollars in an area where the average income of a single human being in the higher range $60,000. Now, I'm going to let you do the math on that. If you can, I'll help you out, but they cannot afford the mortgage for a half a million dollar three bed, two bath ranchstyle home in a small town. Here's one better. This house was purchased um for $113,000.

[00:01:43]That means that this has appreciated in value over $350%.

[00:01:50]You're joking. It hasn't. It was $53 a square foot. Oh, it is $243 a square foot. How? It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense. Oh, they painted the walls grayge. Oh my god. How amazing.

[00:02:07]That makes all the difference. It doesn't. And I like to say I don't understand. I don't understand. What I don't understand about it is the audacity. The audacity to think whenever you bought this home that you were able to pay $113,000 for it, offering this home, the same home that you bought for $113,000 for $515,000.

[00:02:28]You are pricing out the people who have been born and raised in this town. You are pricing them out of being able to continue to live in this town. Where are you pricing them out to, you ask? I don't know. Tents in the woods, campers in your backyard. I don't know because nobody can afford anything anymore because what people are doing on top of listing their houses for $550,000 is they are buying a house so they can make passive income and charging the mortgage plus a profit. So, you are looking at double mortgage to even rent something in this place, any place at all in America.

[00:03:08]>> I'm going to say something that may piss some of y'all off. It may be a hot take, but um why is every home a million dollars? Or if it's not a million, it's half a million. Why? I'm so sorry. I hate to break it to some of y'all, but some of these homes are not worth half a million to a million dollars. the their basic homes with with a roof and and walls and a little backyard. And here's the thing, I'm not looking for much, you know? I'm looking for a a a driveway, a backyard, some land would be nice. I love a garden, but right now, I cannot fathom ever owning a home. I cannot fathom ever not living in an apartment.

[00:03:54]I became an adult in 2020 and honestly it feels like one of the worst timelines to ever be dropped into this [ __ ] because everything is so expensive. And I hate that word, but everything is so expensive. My car, it used to take $25 to fill it up. I drive a 2015 Honda Fit and now it takes nearly $45 to $50. And listen, I understand the state of the economy is down the [ __ ] right now if it's ever been.

[00:04:23]But something's got to give. And it's either going to be the economy or some of y'all or it's going to be me. Because right now, I want off this rock. We may lose our home. $10,000 for homeowners insurance. I think I have cried so many tears in the last probably what 18 hours that I don't even think that I have tears anymore.

[00:04:48]I am stressed beyond belief. we may lose our home and that is a hard reality. This is the home that we brought Noah home in.

[00:04:59]Um this was our first home that we ever bought and we are quite literally in the trenches.

[00:05:09]So if you have not seen my last video, you may want to go check it out. Um a lot of the comments on there are this is not a mortgage problem, this is an insurance problem. I I know that I stated that in the video. I know that it's a an insurance problem. So, our insurance, our homeowners insurance went from 3,200 something to over $6,000.

[00:05:33]Okay. Um, our mortgage went from $1,800 $1818 to almost $2,500.

[00:05:45]Speechless is an understatement at this point. We have called every single person we can think of. I'm also waiting on some call backs from just a few of the local people around here that do insurance. We have been quoted everywhere from $6,000 to over $10,000 and that's bare minimum coverage.

[00:06:13]$10,000 for homeowners insurance. They're about to see a lot of foreclosures. Okay?

[00:06:20]They're about to see a lot of foreclosures on and the bank's about to take a lot of homes and they ain't going to be able to sell them because nobody can get any dang insurance.

[00:06:28]>> The application and admin fees to move into apartments right now are literally insane. So, why was an application fee, an online application, $310?

[00:06:41]And then the administrative fee for the online application was $375.

[00:06:48]So what administrative work did you do for $375 for an online application that costs $310?

[00:06:59]What?

[00:07:01]Almost $700 for an application for an apartment application for a twobedroom.

[00:07:09]We are relocating to an expensive state.

[00:07:13]Yes. However, this is insane.

[00:07:18]Thank God we don't have to pay a deposit because this this is robbery. My mortgage on my starter home is $4,845 every single month here in Columbus, Ohio. And one of the things that I think is so frustrating for me is when I talk to people who like bought homes in like 2015, 2014, or people who are like older than me. I'm 28, or people who are in their like late 30s, early 40s. And it's just like you guys really don't understand how unaffordable housing has become.

[00:07:58]Like my house years before I bought it was a $300,000 house and it still is a $300,000 house because there were no updates made to the home whatsoever. It had all of the original things in it and it was so outdated. And it's just one of the things that I feel like is really frustrating for me to look around and see. I have an income where my base salary is well over $300,000 annually.

[00:08:25]And still having a $5,000 mortgage every single month is insane. Like, it is so much freaking money. I don't know how people my age, I don't know how this generation is going to be able to save because child care and food and gas and everything and electricity, everything is so expensive right now. So, how are you even supposed to save to get the down payment? But even if you get the down payment, how like who can afford these mortgage prices? Like I understand that I am in a unique position, but that's not the norm. Like how are normal American families able to afford housing? Like how something has to change. And it's one of the things that I think about constantly and it really stresses me out. It stresses me out for my friends. It stresses me out for my children. It's just so sad because being able to afford a home and be a home owner and like start a family and do all of that and have your own space is so important. It's a part of the American dream and it's it's quickly becoming a thing of the past. It's everyone is going to be stuck renting if things don't fix.

[00:09:30]>> Am I the only one seeing huge increases in property taxes? I just got this notice in the mail and my payment is going up $200 in 2026. My monthly payment has increased almost $400 per month since closing on my house 5 years ago in 2020. This is one of the many hidden costs associated with owning a home. Even if you have a fixed rate mortgage, you can see an increase year-over-year with an increase in property taxes as well as insurance. So, if you are on the market for a home, make sure that you're taking this into consideration. Look at the city and county in which you're looking to purchase a home. look at the tax history and make sure that you're taking that into account in terms of what you can afford. And what is everybody's increase in 2026? Again, mine's almost $200 going into next year. I live in Utah. I'm curious to know if everybody else all around the country is seeing similar increases.

[00:10:20]>> So, the mortgage industry is showing signs that our economy is in a bad place. It's like the dam is breaking because it's one of the first things you start seeing. I know that there were high delinquency rate on credit cards.

[00:10:34]Credit cards are first. That one they're not reporting on a lot. But I do know that even good credit people have been going late. But now there's a 32% year-over-year increase in foreclosures in January. Now, if you've ever been through a foreclosure, you know that the month they foreclose on you is not the month that you started with your problems.

[00:11:01]So, I went through this with the 2008 collapse. I took out an RM loan and my ARM loan came due and it tripled my payment and I would have to refinance it, but my house lost value and I had to come up with $33,000 in cash, which I just didn't have.

[00:11:19]So, I basically voluntarily handed over my keys. But the problem started six months before they foreclosed. And that's exactly most the time the frame the timeline that it takes to get to foreclosure.

[00:11:34]Some banks are faster, but most are around that six month mark. So that means 6 months ago, which means probably around July, June, July, August, people were starting to go late already and nobody was telling us about that. That there were a lot of people at risk for foreclosure all the way back then.

[00:11:56]So, our economy has been struggling since June of last year, and it's all been under the current president number 47.

[00:12:08]It's his economy that's leading to this, but we are now at the levels we were at.

[00:12:14]That kind of number is the same thing.

[00:12:16]They're calling it a bloodbath, but it's basically the same thing as the 2008 collapse. As I sit in my pre-foreclosure condo, I want to talk about the risks of buying a condo in 2026 because the risks are bigger than ever. I know this might be a hot take and condos look like an affordable option, but I don't think people are talking about the risks enough. You don't just buy the unit, you buy into the HOA's finances, mistakes, and liabilities. HOA is underfunded.

[00:12:42]Special assessments. The HOA fees are getting out of control and the higher they go, the more it hurts your property value. And if the insurance changes, lenders can just stop lending on them overnight. And when lenders stop lending on the property, the buyer pool shrinks down, which causes the value to go way down because there's less buyers. There are so many things that can cause unwarrantability. Too many renters, too many neglected repairs, lawsuits, underfunded reserves. All of these things can substantially impact the ability to resell your unit and substantially impacts the value of your unit. You could have your unit remodeled perfectly and the value could still be going down because of what's happening to the other units next door. Condos are risky because you're basically relying on everyone else to make the right decisions to keep your property healthy.

[00:13:33]One person's not playing their part or one thing goes wrong, it can cause the whole deck of cards to come tumbling.

[00:13:39]Also, for those who will say, "Well, check the financial docks." That's a snapshot in history. Okay, the reserves can look healthy. The HOA docks can look healthy because it's a snapshot of history that's not going to predict what's going to happen and change in the future, which is what happened with me.

[00:13:56]>> I drive through this neighborhood once a week, these big giant mansion houses.

[00:14:01]And and I'm sure a lot of people think, "God, this is the dream. This is the dream. If I just do my slave job long enough and I work hard enough, I'll get one of these big mansions."

[00:14:13]And I don't understand that. I really don't like when did we get convinced that this was the dream? When did we get convinced that this is the way that we're supposed to live? I don't know if you guys know this, but it's not. This is fake plastic garbage.

[00:14:31]We should be living communally with with our families, multi-generations, building something of value. Not this.

[00:14:39]Not this. My HOA will be putting a lean on my house and then starting the foreclosure process. Story time. I bought a house in May of 2024 and my house is in an HOA. Now, when I bought the house, I didn't know of any issues or any work that needed to be done on the property. Everything was great for the first few months. And then in March of 2025, this year, I was notified that there was going to be work that needed to be done on all of the properties. and my portion was going to cost $23,000.

[00:15:14]This amount was later reduced to $22,000.

[00:15:17]And um I started reaching out to my HOA explaining to them like, "Hey, this must be a mistake because there's no way that I owe this money. I haven't even lived here for a full year." My HOA tells me that I need to reach out to my realtor and the seller. And I do so, and I find out that the seller provided information to my realtor that showed this work was going to be done. and my realtor never forwarded that information to me so that I can make the final decision on if I actually wanted to purchase the property or not. I've tried to work with my HOA so many times explaining to them that I don't have the money to pay for this. I wouldn't have had the money last year. I wouldn't have had the money the year before that. Like, this is $22,000 out of pocket. And so I reached out to my realtor and I called her out on our mistake. And I've spoken with her boss and I've been trying to speak to any attorneys with this company, um, any higherups, and they basically told me that they will not be cutting a check for this mistake.

[00:16:15]This money was supposed to be due by April 30th. And I do think that I had an extension till June 1st because I was originally told that the payments would be June 1st. Um, but it is now June 3rd and I still don't have the money and I won't have the money. And so I'm pretty sure that they're going to put a land on my house and then foreclose it and I'm going to be out of a home because my realtor did not forward me documents stating that this work was going to be done. Okay, this [ __ ] is wild. I've been out today looking and touring apartments. Okay, the amount of money these people are trying to charge in fees alone will have your head spinning. For instance, the nice apartments that I looked at are affordable. It comes out to be 16.84 a month. That includes internet, cable, and trash and a pet fee or yeah, the pet rent it says is going to be $25 a month. Okay, so 16.84 84 total for rent and trash, my pet rent and internet and cable. Okay. 1684 for a two-bedroom, two bath. It's very nice.

[00:17:34]Got a nice pool, nice gym in a great area. Afton Ridge Apartments. If you guys from North Carolina Concord area, y'all know Charlotte area, y'all know where that is. Anyways, but the application fees for me, my boyfriend, and my 18-year-old son, anybody 18 years old and over, you have to pay $100 for the application fee. So, that's $300 right off top. That doesn't even secure your apartment because you could be turned down, right? So, $300 that you might lose right off the top. Okay. Then they have uh an administration fee for 150, a pet deposit fee, we have a cat, a pet deposit fee for $250, a pet fee for $ 250, um and amenity package fee, $99.

[00:18:36]So that's what $5650 750 plus the $300 that's $1,50 in fees the $300 for the application fees. $1,050 in fees alone. Okay. If you get if you get um approved after your application, there's still an application deposit for 500. you can move in for. So, what's that? You know, that's not okay. It's so much. So, all the fees they give plus the application deposit is 500. So, we're up to what about 1,500,550 plus first month's rent. So, that's $3,000 over it's like because it's your first your first month's rent 1684 plus all those fees. So, we're talking about about $3,100 just to move in. Now, if your credit's not quite good enough, the application deposit can go up to $1,500.

[00:19:45]So, you're looking at possibly $4,100 just to move in.

[00:19:53]$4,100 just to move in these apartments if you get approved. Okay.

[00:20:02]So, I have to look at a lot of things. I have to say, do I want to stay in my $2,100 $2,100 a month huge house that we don't need or do I want to pay $4,000 possibly at the most $4,000 to move in to an apartment, but would save us probably about $600 a month.

[00:20:27]So, you got to do all the math, right?

[00:20:29]And it still ends up being if we move, it's still going to save us if you add the $4,000 in and then plus the 1684, you know, times 12 months and then you take, you know, your your energy bill into consideration also all the utilities which were very high in the house where we're at now. It still would be better. It would still save us in the end about $400 a month. Even with all the fees to move in this apartment and everything, we would still save about $400 a month with, you know, in the next year. That's what it comes out. That's what the math equals up to. So, I guess I'm we're going to do it. I'm going to put in our application and see what's happens. But, I'm going to be pissed off as hell if we don't get approved because that's $300 just down the drain for nothing. So, I think some sellers and realtors in my area are smoking crack. I I can't think of anything else. I have a listing appointment tomorrow, meeting with homeowners. And so, I'm doing my business, right? Pulling up past sales in the neighborhood, gathering all the data and whatnot, everything that I need. And currently, there are four houses in that neighborhood that are active and one under contract. The one under contract took like 200 plus days to go under contract and three out of the four of them that are active have been on the market for six, seven months. Six, seven. Um, I'm like, this is, you know, this is a little odd. We we are in a balanced market now. You know, things don't fly off the shelves.

[00:22:07]There's obviously anomalies, but for the most part, seeing something on the market for 2, three months isn't the end of the world or crazy. There hadn't been any closed sales in the past 6 months.

[00:22:17]So, I went to 7 to 12. And sure enough, there were three or four listings that had closed in this particular neighborhood over the past 7 to 12 months. The price difference is night and day. We're talking like 50,000 difference from what closed 7 to 12 months ago to what these houses are listed for. Like we haven't been doing that for quite some time now. I have no idea. And I even went outside the neighborhood to get very similar neighborhoods, similar houses, square foot, you know, the the most similar things I can. And that doesn't even justify these prices.

[00:23:02]And you know, I'm staring at all of this like, what am I missing? I have to be missing something. there there is no way four or five different realtors and sellers are just doing this. But no, um it's it's either a crackpipe or you know maybe the first seller, the one that's been sitting the longest, the one that's almost been on the market for a year, you know, they were just shooting their shot and realtors are looking at that price like, "Oh, well, if they're here, we're here." And everybody just started following a leader. I don't know. But uh I I'm not playing that. We're not playing that. I' I'm I've got all the data and I'm I'm going to show it to them. I never say my suggestion first. I want them to see it and form their own um opinion and and see and then we go from there. But uh yeah, this might be a tough conversation. I don't know. Wish me luck. So, first of all, every single time your house shows, your realtor should be giving you feedback. Based off that feedback, you should have a pretty good idea as to why it's not selling.

[00:24:05]95% of the time it's simply overpriced.

[00:24:08]I know you don't want to come down on the price, but that is realistically the number one way to get it sold. Sometimes the house smells like smoke or cat urine or the layout is terrible. You can't do anything about the layout, but you can adjust the price to make up for the crappy layout. Sometimes it's the area.

[00:24:25]Can't do anything about that. Again, price adjustment. A lot of people think that you need to change realtors.

[00:24:30]Probably not. Your realtor's probably doing everything that they can. And if you change realtors, you're just going to end up with a listing identical to what the current realtor has already done. This is assuming that they've taken professional photos and done a 3D tour and have been marketing it. So, make sure that your realtor is doing what they're supposed to do. If they're not, fine, change realtors. But usually, it's not a realtor problem. It's a price problem. Now, we have five houses in our little neighborhood for sale right now.

[00:24:56]It's It's crazy. We've never had this many houses sit on the market for this long. And a couple of them are like updated, you know, ready to go. I live in an older neighborhood, like our house is 40 years old. And so most of the houses, you know, in this neighborhood, if they've not been updated, they'll need updated when people move into them.

[00:25:16]But a couple of them are updated. I mean, they're really nice. And, you know, I know for sure our neighbor two door down, like it's movein ready. And it's so weird that nothing is moving in.

[00:25:28]All five of these houses have been on the market at least 2 months, if not longer. So, I don't know. I find it kind of crazy that things just are not moving.

[00:25:39]>> So, 40% of people have defaulted on their mortgage.

[00:25:45]And well, 2027 is when the reckoning is coming when it comes to mortgages.

[00:25:54]And let me explain.

[00:25:56]You see, back in 2022, that was the last of the cheap money.

[00:26:02]And when I say last of the cheap money, I mean it was 175, maybe 2%.

[00:26:10]And now people are going to refinance.

[00:26:16]And even on a three-year, you're now into a new mortgage agreement. And when I say that it's going to affect the whole market, well, people who 40% of people who have missed a payment on their mortgage are now going to be in a different mortgage lender. You're not prime anymore. you've missed a payment in in anything, whether it's your uh um phone bill or your hydro bill, gas bill, or any myriad of bills.

[00:26:58]You now go into a different institutional lender, be lender, private lender, and those 2% rates are a long gone. You're now into six, seven% and a lot of people are going to lose their houses.

[00:27:24]And that is a shame.

[00:27:27]The people who will be losing the houses are the people who couldn't afford them to begin with.

[00:27:33]They were hoodwinkedked by uh real estate agents telling you don't miss this opportunity.

[00:27:44]>> Google search term can't sell house is like at an all-time high. And if you recall from my old-timers from guys who go back quite a ways, there's a there's an old video I did like three years ago.

[00:27:55]got like three million, three and a half million views on TikTok and and a whole bunch of hate because I I told a bunch of landlords I told them the truth. I said, "Listen, I'm speaking as a former landlord myself. I've owned multiple doors in my lifetime and I'm not in it because the numbers don't support this, not what's going on." This was three years ago. I was telling guys this three years ago, I I had mentioned, you know, hey, you may want to consider an exit strategy and kind of go out on a high note. You know, you you never take a loss by taking a profit, right? Right.

[00:28:27]That's how that's how it works. So, go out on a high note. I mean, who cares if somebody bleeds the last 2% out of something like that, dude? Leave some meat on the bone. But, you know, a bunch of people didn't take my advice on this one. Those who did, you know, they're not stuck in this mess now where they're trying to figure out how to sell a house that has a $6,000 mortgage on it that they can't rent for 2500.

[00:28:52]and and and those and those numbers are coming down because like like dude you priced Americans out.

[00:28:58]Americans have priced out so many Americans now particularly young people because that's usually who is doing most of the the majority of the renting at least early on right while they try and save some money to buy their own place or build their own place or whatever.

[00:29:08]And look at what's gone on here. the numbers are so out of whack with with incomes and and they have been this was again remember three years ago I was talking about this that you were too far outside of the market that most of the landlords were pricing things so far outside the market that like there's no way to sustain that people can live on credit cards for a little while but eventually the credit cards are going to run out and you know people can they they can double up on a roommate they can do a lot of different things but that only goes for so longer or later people's incomes are just not going to support any of this. And of course, on top of that, you've got a whole bunch of people now that are being laid off. You know, they're saying it's because of, you know, AI. It's not AI, dude. It's just they're importing a bunch of They're importing a bunch of cheap labor from other countries. And yeah, so I mean, like, this is becoming a big issue now. It's starting to actually come home to roost. And it's like, yeah, I mean, I I I would tell you this, man. In fact, I said it three years ago.

[00:30:07]If you could fire sail it and get out, man, get out. you're better off. But now some of you are trapped. You know, you you you're trapped in these positions where you've got these houses that are not worth anywhere even close to what you paid for them and you can't find an actual buyer and there's nobody nobody can afford the rent on it. So now you're going to have to either eat the rent, you know, eat the loss. So rent it out for 13,400 a month, which is probably what it should be renting in some cases 900 a month realistically.

[00:30:37]um just to keep somebody in there to just to pay the taxes on on the place and then you have to eat the rest of that and it doesn't mean that the house is going to go up in value because I know that there's this idea that gets that gets bantied about and all the airport marriott husters all talk about this stuff and it's talked about on CNBC and all the other scam artists that say, "Yeah, real estate always goes up." No, dude. It doesn't always go it's not supposed to any kind of market isn't supposed to just perpetually go up forever. That just means your money's being devalued. Your currency is being devalued. You're debasing your currency.

[00:31:09]That's all that means. So yeah, I mean, for those of you who got out, congratulations. For those of you that are still stuck in this trying to figure out how you're going to make this work, well, you can either take the losses and and pray to God that maybe in the next 10, 15 years or so, they print enough money to offset your losses, which means that you didn't really do anything. All you had was just 10 years of stress for no no real good reason. Um or you just take the keys back to the bank and you drop them off and say, "Here you go. Not my problem anymore. Sorry." Um and I and I predicted that was going to happen too. Again, this old video 3 years ago, you have to go you have to scroll like way way way back in Tik Tok. But yeah, I mean I just remember telling people this that like this was this was coming that a day of reckoning was kind of coming.

[00:31:59]And it looks like we're approaching it now as as as people realize that they cannot continue to get these absurd rents from people that just don't make any they don't make any money. And wages in the US aren't going up, they're coming down if anything else.

[00:32:16]>> So no matter which way you look at it, renting feels hard, buying feels hard, selling feels hard. This is a time where everything is very difficult and a lot of people feel stuck because of this.

[00:32:27]What are you seeing in your local areas?

[00:32:29]Are you seeing prices come down? Are you seeing an availability of places to rent? Are you looking for a place to rent and you're having a hard time? The other thing too that a lot of people are dealing with is that a lot of people are losing their jobs. So then now you have that loss of stability and it really is just a really bad trickle down effect.

[00:32:48]But share your thoughts down below. As always, I appreciate you being here.

[00:32:52]Thank you for watching and I'll catch you in the next video. Take care.