- 2025-11-17
- Posted by: kimsite
- Categories: Commentary, Insights, News
Click here to listen to the full interview.
WILL CAIN: We explained the affordability issue on healthcare, housing, and education, but we know throughout the week that you’ve had questions and concerns, and you have offered me up other considerations when it comes to why certain parts of our economy have become unaffordable. So we want to address some of your concerns. Here to help us is Kingsview Wealth Management CIO Scott Martin.
Scott, thanks for being with us here today. I want to go right into housing. We spent a week talking about housing — we’ve talked about supply and demand, the role of immigration. We have talked about various contributing factors into why it is so hard now to buy a first home.
And one viewer named El Louis — she writes into us the following: “Why does no one ever mention BlackRock and others buying up all the homes?”
What do you think about this? This is not something that is new. I’ve heard about this — big investment companies like BlackRock reducing the supply of homes by buying up so much of the inventory and turning them into rentals.
SCOTT MARTIN: Yes, and then Will, charging exorbitant prices — renting these homes at prices that are well beyond what a private person would rent them for, and also well beyond what they would be normally rented for.
BlackRock, a big conglomerate, a big company that has massive amounts of access to capital — massive amounts of money in the bank, very low interest rates — basically, boys and girls, for which they buy homes, if they even have to borrow, Will — therefore just make a massive profit.
And you talked about this with the good doctor. As you have less supply or prices get skewed, it pushes out those that can, frankly, build or buy the home. So therefore, those folks that are hurt — but she’s exactly astute.
There is a group of people that, because of BlackRock and other folks — even the Chinese and other foreign folks — are coming in and absolutely skewing the prices and taking away these homes and dream places for Americans who can’t afford them all of a sudden because these big companies are coming in and skewing the prices and messing them up.
WILL CAIN: What can we do about that, Scott? To what extent is it that there are several contributing factors to the housing market supply problem — including, for example, some thirty to forty million illegal immigrants taking up some percentage of the housing inventory?
But what about these big companies — these big investment houses? What about BlackRock? How much of a role are they playing? I hear you. I hear El Louis. They are playing a role — how much?
SCOTT MARTIN: Well, here’s the story. Something that’s funny about BlackRock and the foreign investors is they do things where it’s kind of a convoluted effect, where you don’t exactly know how many folks are in there, how many companies are in there messing around. They put things in funds and things like that, so it skews.
You’re looking at the teen, twenty percent of some of these home prices now — the effect on those home prices is because of these conglomerates coming in.
Great question: What can we do? Wow — there’s a lot of things I’d like to do to BlackRock. There’s a lot of things I’d like to say to BlackRock, and even on cable I won’t do that.
But you can start to, let’s say, let the government know what’s going on. The problem is — we know government. Government, for some reason, they don’t say anything, or we don’t have any regulations to prevent them from doing this.
But the reality is, as long as this message gets out, I think the banks especially maybe can start to take a role in some of the lending. At least lending can become… at least these prices — maybe put some price caps on things. Not allow BlackRock to jack up the rates like they do.
WILL CAIN: Alright, Scott. One of the things we’re doing today is I’m responding — I’m hoping to respond — to viewer concerns and your contributions to these conversations.
I will tell you, I got emails, I’ve got notes about the role of the Baby Boomers, and I know I have many Baby Boomers watching today. And this is not to place blame in any particular position, but they are holding onto a lot of the housing inventory.
Donal writes in, and she gives us a reason as to why. She says many empty nesters and Baby Boomers would love to sell their homes and downsize, but they have so much equity in their homes that the capital gains tax would eat away much of that equity.
“It’s time to raise the capital gains tax exemptions on single and married homeowners and give them the incentive they need to sell and move.”
And that would seem to address, Scott, what I’m hearing from some younger buyers as well, who feel like these homes are being held onto for decades and not re-emerging into the housing inventory.
SCOTT MARTIN: I actually disagree. I think the gains exemption at $500,000 is pretty fair. If you think the average home price, Will — just under about $500,000 — sounds great.
Donna, I know some people — and maybe herself — have a bigger gain than that that she’s gonna get taxed on, which would be, think about it, $500,000 if it’s your primary residence. So that’s actually pretty fair.
I think the problem is — and you mentioned Peter Doocy — the red tape, the regulations on building homes. Some communities, some cities have made it very difficult for new builders or even existing builders to come in and expand supply, which, as you noted so astutely, well — expanding supply is what’s going to be the fix.
Price… I don’t think it’s so much a tax reform here, because the fact is, you know tax reform — Republicans make tax reform, right? And then Democrats take it away in two or three years.
So the reality is we’ve got to get the regulations down and get more builders out there giving more supply, and that will actually make the market more free.
WILL CAIN: That’s true. It is true also that existing sales seem somewhat frozen at the moment. There are a lot of contributing factors to that, including the current interest rate. But there’s just not a lot of turnover right now in the housing market, and it’s making it difficult.
And we appreciate you addressing a lot of these viewers’ concerns today. Thanks for being with us, Scott.
SCOTT MARTIN: See ya!
