How are High Schoolers preparing for an unaffordable future?

[MUSIC] >> It's the Elijah Harsho, Medi-3-3 AM 560 KWTO. [MUSIC] >> Welcome back to KWTO on this beautiful Monday afternoon, second week in a row. We're going to have a conversation about what do young people in Missouri, particularly South Las Vegas, think about the issues that you and I faced on a daily basis last week we had Johnny Scholar on here to talk about what do you think about AI? Are they worried about their jobs and what kind of diplomas and degrees will matter in five or ten years this week? We're talking about a whole separate issue, and joining us today again, Johnny Scholar and his friend Jake. What's your last name? >> Hodson. >> Jake Hodson from Willard, Missouri. Before we kick things off Saturday, Saturday is 4th of July. It's also the 250th anniversary of America. What do you guys plan to do to celebrate? Johnny, we'll start with you. >> I'll probably hang out with my friends, go watch some fireworks. >> It's probably a-- >> So boring. Now go into like, not going to go to Mount Rushmore, or go to Boston, or anything like that. >> We might buy some fireworks. >> There we go. That's a start. Jake, what about you? >> I fear I'm also not very interesting. I'm probably just going to go to a family cookout. Fireworks is set off there, so. >> That's probably like what back, but we-- So I've got five kids, and we had this conversation months ago. Should we go to DC, should we go to Philadelphia, should we go to-- We are now, I think, going to go to Jefferson City. Like, we scaled it back quite a bit, but at one point, I was like, you know, I don't know if I will be alive. I was not alive for the bicentennial. I don't know if I'll be alive for the tricentennial. I'd be like 94 at the time when we're 300 as a country. So I'm like, this is like my one shot, but I think Jeff City is where we're going to settle it. >> Okay, John, what are we talking about this week? >> We're talking about affordability, specifically with like grocery prices, and essential goods, like groceries and housing, things like that. >> Now, you are-- did you just finish your sophomore year at high school? >> Yes. >> And Jake, and you're getting ready for your senior year. >> That's right. >> How much do you worry about a four-- I mean, don't your parents just buy everything for you? >> They do, but that doesn't mean that it's not important to me, especially whenever you look at like a neighborhood level. Like whenever my neighbors aren't worrying about buying food, it's generally like a better time. Like it's a better experience as a whole as like a country. Whatever people are able to easily afford things. >> Jake, and you're staring graduation coming up, it's in the near-- when you start to think about affordability, do you think about through the lens of how I'm going to pay for college? Or do you think about it? How will I afford everything else in life while I'm in college? >> Well, I think about it from like a lens after college, right? So like pretty much I'm going to college like hopefully to attain a career. And I'm worried that even with that career, even with these employable credentials, that I won't be able to afford like a home in the near future. >> What's like hypothetically, you're sitting now with President Trump right now. Like I'm worried about how I'm going to be able to afford a home. Is the issue, the price foam, is it the mortgage rate, is it the lack of homes being available in the market? What's the concern there? >> I think like a lot of the problem is simply supply. There's not enough housing to go around and as such, I mean the demand for it is just through the roof. I think the problem there is just lack of supply. And so I think our elected officials need to do something about that. >> And it's interesting because that whole supply issue, one, we got all jacked up during COVID, and you had all these issues going on there. But then two, you've also got this added element where you've got these large scale institutions, BlackRock or whatever, they go in, they buy up all the single family homes. Suddenly there's nothing to buy, there's just stuff to rent. And we have heard that. And I think there's a real true populist strain that goes through the Midwest of, we need to restrict BlackRock from buying up family homes. The old school, the 1990s conservative news like, oh, the government shouldn't tell private industry what to do. But I feel like under mega, there's this new strain of thought that's like, wait, if we live totally capitalist, we won't have homes to buy. Well, because all the institutions will buy them up and they'll just rent them to us. And so there's this move away, there's this move towards like, it's okay for the government sometimes to restrict private market. Do you agree with that? Well, one, I would like to say that the government's already in the market. Like there's already incentives. Very valid point. Like if you want to, like if you're trying to beat the government to the market, you're already a little bit too late, why not use it for like what's helpful to us? Yeah, I hear this a lot that conservatives like for 25 years, we were under this belief that, oh, if we're just free market, everything will work out. But it's never that way. The government's always in the market in some way, shape or form. And to be truly free market would require us to pull back on somebody fronts that will never happen. You agree? I agree. Yeah, people can't see it nod in your head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, and Jake and I have talked about this like a home buyback could be like efficient on like getting homes back to people, rather than just like taking it away, which is what like is popular in the populist movement. Walk us through what is a home buyback? Jake and do an expand on that? Yeah, so pretty much right now, like Congress has already passed laws that restrict corporations from buying homes in the future. But the issue is that they don't restrict like what they already have. And so what a home buyback would do is pretty much incentivize companies like BlackRock for example, to take a certain amount of like a check for example, to like give that housing back to the market. Interesting. How would that, would that be a mandatory program or a voluntary program? So it would be voluntary, but the government would essentially provide like a pretty big financial incentive for BlackRock to like take the buyback. Interesting. And I don't have this in numbers in my hands, but like how many, how many homes do we have? Do we have an idea of how many homes BlackRock currently has in their portfolio? Somewhere around 100,000 right now? Yeah, which is number one, it's an impressive, you know, but number two, think about that. You take 100,000 homes out of the supply across the United States of America. I talk about this all the time in South Austria only because I've, I've been, I moved to my home 14 years ago. And the plan was, it was going to be a five year home. And in the last five years, I've been sort of like semi shopping. And I swear it's the same houses still in the market. It's like whatever's available is still out there, but nothing news coming on the market. They're either being bought up quickly when they when they first come on or there's just there's a, there's a, there's some sort of mist gap in the supply demand for people that either first home, second home, or whatever it is, the next time you want to rate like move to the next level, whether it's the mortgage rates, the cost or there's just like a supply, there's no way to graduate to that next higher home. Yeah, like like Jake said, it's a supply issue like there aren't options for people. And I think that when a buyback would specifically do well, would be provide like more homes that currently aren't on the market or at least to like normal people that aren't trying to rent. Now, Johnny, you're not looking at housing any time soon. No. So from your perspective, what's the affordability issue you see as, as most, the most stark for you? Well, I'm not trying to buy a home, but like Jake said, like I am inheriting like the housing market in a couple of years. And like I would like to be able to buy a house before I'm 40. The biggest issue, I like I'm going to be honest, I have privilege like I'm not struggling to get things. Look at you with your, your 21st century, I have print ledge. We're going to a land acknowledgement next. I am, I'm very fortunate. I don't have to worry about those things. But like there are like people at my school and like friends that I have that aren't able to like get a like a nice meal every night and that aren't able to like go out and like a vacation very often like at all because they don't have money available to do that. So the question is, is that is that because the affordability is an issue or has we have a society gotten so used to certain things being normalized that we forget, you know, 100 years ago, I don't think most people, most people when they bought a house, they bought it with, you know, they're down 40% down now we're like, oh, I have to put 5% down. That's a lot of money. Most people 100 years ago didn't go on vacations every year or two or three. Like I almost wonder if sometimes we think our economy is bad because we've normalized a certain standard of living is like, well, if you can't meet the standard, the economy is bad. Is it or historically is that kind of good? Like, is that, are we just reverting back to the mean? I have something to say about that that I'll ask what Jake and has, but like I would say a better economy is one that families can afford to go on vacation. Like we should strive towards something that like you have abundance of wealth so that way you can have a vacation or you can have a $28 meal every now and then. Like I think that that's okay to strive towards even if it's luxurious or extravagant. Yeah, and I mean, honestly, I think that we do have a higher expectation or like standard of living than we have at any point in history, but I would say even by like a pretty low standard of living, most Americans are like $400 away from bankruptcy, right? Like that's one unexpected expense. And so I think the problem is that unaffordableity even like with not high standards are still impacting the average American family. I think you're right. And I think that's one of the problems I have is people think, okay, we should be able to do a vacation. We should be and you probably should, but it's also we we have a plethora of Americans who, as you mentioned, they have no money in reserve. They literally live payment to payment credit card statement to credit card statement. And as much as I'm like, the economy is okay. We're like one puff away from suddenly, you know, a million Americans declaring bankruptcy or being for close spot in like a three month period. More than a recession. Like more similar to yeah, especially if you look back, I came out of law school in 2008. Now is at the height of the housing crisis. And so when I wanted by my first home, it was almost impossible to get a home loan. but we went through this. this area during COVID when all the rates came down. So I refinanced my home at two and three quarters percent. Now look at the average home. Like 6% we can't do that. But in the late 1970s, interest rates were like 18% and people were buying homes then. So it's always hard to sort of maintain this longer look at that. But I do think there is this concern that people are-- there's no money in reserve. You usually have both spouses working. Everybody has a two parent working household to make ends meet and maintain a standard living. All right. So anything else on the subject while we're on it? I mean, I think I'm all good. Yeah, I'm good. All right, very good. All right, we'll be back next week. We'll check in again. We're going to be right back. Don't forget, five o'clock hours coming up. We're going to have Secretary of State, Danny Hoskins on. He's going to talk about why he is the most sued man in Missouri and how's that compared to his predecessors in the Secretary of State's office. I'm Elijah Har here on KWTX. [MUSIC PLAYING]