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Industry News: Florida Property Tax Cuts, Job Site Immigration Enforcement, and Buyers Priced Out - TLP201

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Industry News: Florida Property Tax Cuts, Job Site Immigration Enforcement, and Buyers Priced Out - TLP201

This industry news episode of the Land Development Podcast, hosted by Ryan Glick with Charles Covey, covers property tax ballot measures, immigration enforcement, and deteriorating builder and buyer conditions. The hosts first examine Florida's Amendment 3, which would phase in a $250,000 homestead exemption by 2028, cap non-homestead assessment increases at 5%, and require a four-year residency before new residents qualify. Despite support from Governor DeSantis and the state GOP, the measure needs 60% approval and polls far below that, with critics warning of $12 billion in annual local revenue losses. Similar measures appear on ballots in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Wyoming, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Georgia. The discussion then turns to immigration enforcement, where builder-reported labor disruptions have surged from 13% to roughly 65%, with foreign-born workers comprising over half of drywall workers, roofers, and painters. The hosts challenge the administration's claim that deportations will lower housing costs and discuss the National Association of Home Builders' support for the Dignity Act and H-2B visa expansion. Finally, the episode reviews grim market data: builder confidence at a 14-year low, record-low pending home sales, declining housing starts, mortgage rates above 7%, and renter savings far too low for down payments. The hosts conclude that rates alone won't fix the market, structural problems will take years to resolve, and the likely outlook is a flat market through 2027 with possible improvement in 2028.

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Speaker 1here, rates are not the only factor. And we saw that over the last couple of years. Rates are not the only factor. They're a significant factor, but they're going to have to drop a tremendous amount to really create significant movement in the marketplace. So all the things that you're talking about are significant structural problems in the way that people have the ability or have the thought process about buying a home. And none of these are going to change quickly. It's not possible. Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Land Development Podcast.
Speaker 2I am your host, Ryan Glick. We have an industry news episode for you today. And joining me as always is Charles Covey. How's it going, Charles? Hey, Ryan. Going great. We've got a ton of stuff to get into today. We've got a lot of things going on in the industry. Tomorrow, of course, when this is released is going to be the midterm election. So a lot going to be happening tomorrow based on those results and everything. Just a quick look at what we're going to get into here today. We're going to start out taking a look at a property tax amendment that's on the ballot in Florida, as well as six other states with property tax measures that are going to be on the ballot tomorrow. From there, we're going to revisit immigration enforcement. And it's impact on our industry. And there's actually new numbers from John Burns that show this as having a much bigger impact on the industry than we saw earlier in this year. So we're going to dig into some of those numbers. And then we're going to close out the show by digging pretty deep into what things are like right now for buyers and builders, and then ultimately answer the question of what can renters actually afford to buy. So with that said, let's get into our first article. This one comes to us from Tax Foundation and Kiplinger. Headline reads, Florida votes on a $250,000 homestead exemption. So Amendment 3 is going to be voted on tomorrow. The homestead exemption goes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. The annual cap on non-homestead assessment increases, drops from 10% to 5%. New Florida residents get a $50,000 homestead exemption for their first four years. And local governments are estimated to lose about $12 billion a year once it's fully phased in. So here's what this looks like as far as how, you know, what would be needed for this to actually pass. So it needs a 60% approval in order to pass. There's a few different polls that have taken place over the last couple of months. The closest any of those polls have come is a 55% approval. For this, and that was back on October 1st. Since then, it's dropped. The latest poll from St. Pete Polls shows that the approval was about 44%. So I don't think it's likely or expected that this is going to pass, but I think it's an interesting concept what they're looking to do here with decreasing property taxes for homeowners in the state of Florida. Now, a few thoughts here from some key people down in Florida. We have Ben Alberton, which is the Florida Senate President, Republican, who is voting no on this. He said Amendment 3 would eliminate up to 30% of resources for Florida's rural counties, gutting essential services for law enforcement, emergency response services, and critical infrastructure. And then Mike Gibson, mayor of Bonita Springs, Florida, via the Fort Myers News, says if entities like Mosquito Control and the Fire Department can't bring in enough revenue through the reduced property taxes, they may have to switch to a fee-based tax. Still be on your property tax bill, and those fees are typically a flat fee to everyone instead of being proportional to your home's value. And then lastly here, just a look across the country. So some of you listening in may have one of these measures on your ballot tomorrow when you go to vote. So we mentioned Florida has Amendment 3 for the homestead exemption increase. Oklahoma has SQ 847 for home assessment cap to drop from 3% to 1.75%. And you can see there's a few others here on the screen for North Carolina, Wyoming. Tennessee, Louisiana, and Georgia. So quite a bit going on related to property taxes, which is, of course, one of the levers to help make things more affordable. But I think states are struggling. States and municipalities are struggling a little bit on how they're going to fund things with a decrease in property taxes. And so not exactly sure what's going to happen here or how many of these will actually pass. Any thoughts on this, Charles, as far as starting to see more states thinking about doing something related to property taxes?
Speaker 1Well, it's definitely positive, right? Texas did this last year, I believe it was. So theirs is $140,000. And then if you're over 65, they add another $60,000 to give you $200,000 total. So Florida's going to then beat that. I think Texas should consider stepping that up. I think that this is becoming necessary. Don't you think, Ryan? I think that there's states that have income. Texas is a good one. Texas has, as a state, has a surplus. So it has lots of ways to bring dollars in. And bringing it in from the lower demographic levels is really not how it's designed to work anyway. So giving relief for somebody at the lower end of that demographic and finding ways to bring in income from businesses, resources, oil and gas, those kind of elements, that does make sense.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, I think it's interesting, too. I was looking at who supports this down in Florida. So DeSantis and Byron Donalds and the state GOP do support it. However, the state GOP does support it. So I think it's interesting, too. The Senate president, who's a Republican, does not support it. There's other Republicans who don't. So there's, yeah, so there's a split.
Speaker 1Did it say why, like what his specific reasons are?
Speaker 2Well, his, you know, his was one of those quotes that I looked at there a second ago where he was, yeah, where he was basically saying that, hey, this is going to eliminate 30% of resources for our rural counties. So he's worried about the rural communities and how they're going to make up the difference in lost property taxes. Whereas, you know, the mayor of Bonita Springs says, hey, we are going to be missing out on things. If we can't, fund our fire department and some of the other, you know, services, we might have to do a fee-based approach to it, which would make sense, right? You're going to do it more of a usage-based or you're going to charge people who are getting the benefit of that versus just taking a lump sum of property taxes and then spending it as you, you know, as you wish in that community.
Speaker 1Well, this is not a popular take amongst municipalities and governments, but they don't do a great job often of managing the dollars that they get. So I would love to see that. I would love to see them run these more like a business as opposed to just giant piles of money that they can maybe not be as efficient with. So let's see them be more efficient. Let's see them do the fee-based model. Let's see this run more like a business. And it's probably good for everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2One other thing to add on the Florida, I didn't include it here, but I think I mentioned it just briefly in one of the bullets there, but it, it basically blocks people from moving to Florida and then taking advantage of this immediately. You have to live there for four years. At the old, old homestead exemption value, I think it's $50,000 homestead exemption over those first four years. And then your fifth year, you finally would bump up to the new homestead exemption hire number if it was to pass. So yeah, people can't just like move there and take advantage of it immediately. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You have to establish yourself there for several years.
Speaker 1Yeah. I don't know if that's an element on the Texas one. I don't see that. And I was just doing a little research on it. I don't see that as an element on the Texas one, but that's an interesting way to do it. And I like that. It's probably a, probably a great way to keep people from taking advantage of the system.
Speaker 2Yep. Well, let's go ahead and move on to the next segment, which is from the comments. I've got a couple of them here for us today. First one comes to us from TikTok. And this is from the user name user 2 1 1 9 6 0 6 5. So this must be an auto created username. I don't think somebody would pick that. That's kind of random. Anyway, the comment is normally you would have people looking to move into those houses. Houses from a starter home, but those people locked in rates and mortgages that do not justify buying that upgrade. The historically low rates basically locked that group into whatever house they have. So many starter homes that would have gone on the market won't ever actually come up for sale. So this was in response to one of the clips I pulled from our last episode, Charles, where you were talking about the I think we were just talking about the homes that were going to be coming up from some of the boomer generation. And how they're not really starter homes and the people who are in starter homes that might move up to one of those, those homes are kind of staying put because they're locked into lower rates. So definitely a spot on here. And then next one here comes to us from Cindy Bogert 6062 on YouTube. I've seen some empty stores being converted to residential living areas. They're in construction now. I don't know what exactly they look like when they're done. One is in New York. The other one is in the city of Dallas. So I think that's a good reference to you talking about Dallas and
Speaker 1a lot of the parking lots and everything there. So yeah, because with some of those parking lots, sometimes you have an abandoned big box store. And it's tough to get that big tenant, right? There's not that it's not that big of a list of tenants that want to come in and take an enormous store. So that conversion is really interesting. I don't think it works in every case, but but fascinating in some places.
Speaker 2All right, well, let's go ahead and move on to our second article here. This one comes from biz now Wall Street Journal National Host Association of home builders and the Pew Researcher. are listening in and not necessarily watching. I have a graph up on the screen, which is showing the percentage of builders who reported labor disruptions. A year ago, it was 13%. March 2026, it was 23%. And then the latest data from just last month in September 2026 was just about 65%. So it's a pretty drastic increase in the number of builders who are reporting labor disruptions. This number is a little bit different from the National Association of Home Builders, who has it closer to 30% to 40%, not necessarily 65%. So there's two different surveys being done with builders. But it's definitely, regardless, it's a higher percentage of builders who are reporting disruptions across the country. Now, one thing I was interested in when I saw that is I was wondering what percentage of workers in some of the key trades related to building are here, are foreign-born, and then how many of them are here illegally? Because this obviously goes directly into what type of impact it would have on the industry with an increase in immigration enforcement. And so I have four different trades here. I have drywall, roofers, painters, and then general laborers. And according to this data, which comes from the National Association of Home Builders, as well as the Pew Research Center, drywall workers, it reports 57% or estimates 57% of all drywall workers to be foreign-born, 33% of all drywall workers to be illegal immigrants. Roofers, 53% foreign-born, 32% illegal immigrants. Painters, 53%, and then 28% illegal immigrants. And then lastly, the general laborers, 43% foreign-born, 24% illegal immigrants.
Speaker 1Hey, Ryan, is this kind of a national, you know, just everything into one bucket? Do you know?
Speaker 2This is, and I think on the next slide here, I think this is a national, you know, just everything into one bucket. Do you know? I think I break out, it's a much, there's a much bigger impact or a higher percentage of this in the South than it is like in the Midwest and everything. But yeah, these are, yeah, these are national numbers. And yeah, so 71% of contractors say immigration enforcement has not affected them. So that's, yeah, so less effect.
Speaker 1But again, that's, that's also national. So I think if you go to certain, if you go to certain pockets, there are smaller cities that just haven't been on the ice radar. And then you go to some other areas where they've had big pushes and put lots and lots of agents. And they're really making an impact. I think you might get different responses.
Speaker 2Yep. Yep. And then, so 42% of Southern contractors reported an impact compared to with only 17% in the Midwest. So definitely a difference across the country in different areas. One thing I came across that was interesting in this, this report from Alabama. So basically in Alabama, a worker who is a U.S. citizen was detained a couple different times on job sites before a judge had to step in. I've seen stories of this happening in other parts of the country. So, I mean, when we look back at the last slide, we've seen a lot of people who were detained. And I think that's and you see that a big percentage of different, you know, laborers and workers on homes are foreign born, but they may be here legally. Um, they're, some of them are getting caught up in some of the immigration enforcement as well.
Speaker 1I can imagine being in that situation. And I, and I know this because some of my staff have had the same thing. They've got their Texas driver's license, all their paperwork is in order, but they're still pretty concerned about moving around. And if we've got jobs out of town, I got to go through, you know, certain places that they've heard are, are challenging. There's no reason they should be fearful, but yet they are because they hear these stories. And I've heard things, you know, someone who's perfectly legal done all their paperwork and they're locked up in an attention center somewhere and can't get out. Like what a horrible situation for somebody that has done it the right way. But you do hear these stories. I don't expect they're that common, but you hear enough of them that it does. It is creating some fear in people that shouldn't have to be fearful of anything.
Speaker 2Yeah. And so, uh, from biz now here, Trump administration argues that deporting illegal immigrants will help bring down housing costs. And it urges builders to hire us citizens.
Speaker 1Where, where, where are they getting, where are they getting this information? Cause I don't know that anybody listening to this podcast would agree.
Speaker 2Right. And that's, and that's one of the reasons I put it in here because this is the administration's stance on this, but there's nothing in here that is explaining how it's going to drive down housing costs. And yeah, cause they don't have that information, right?
Speaker 1They don't have anything to back this up. This is, this is purporting that immigrants, illegal immigrants are taking American jobs away from us citizens. It's not real. This is not happening. The reason the demand for them is here is because the Americans don't want the jobs won't do the jobs. Wow. Yeah, this is this to me, this gets me a little bit worked up because it's just laughable and it just shows a complete lack of understanding of how the industry works.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I hadn't heard of this, but the National Association of Home Builders is backing a bill called the Dignity Act. And so this is something that's, uh, well, they're, they're backing this and pushing Congress to pass this along with more H2B work visas. But this, uh, Dignity Act is a bill, a bipartisan bill, excuse me, from representatives Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida and Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from Texas. And, the, I guess, idea behind this is that people here since 2020 could work legally if they pass a background check and pay $7,000 over seven years. Um, it doesn't create a new path to citizenship and it would make E-Verify mandatory, uh, for businesses. It hasn't, uh, had any hearing or a vote yet. So this, I hadn't heard of this, but this is something out there. I don't know if this would even get any legs or anything like that, but this is something the National Association of Home Builders is, uh, is backing.
Speaker 1Yeah. The premise is good. I think the E-Verify mandate is tougher for some people to, uh, to make that work. But if you've got a path, I think that that's the, these things kind of go hand in hand. So it's a cart before the horse scenario. So you're now you're, you create a bit of an issue because while this process is taking place, now you've got people that would be kicked out of your system because of the E-Verify. So, and so the, there, there's this, this dip you've got to accommodate somehow of, Hey, I can't have you here anymore. There's a new program that you can use, but you got to do that process. And we it's not going to happen overnight. So this, you've got, you've got a good thing and a bad thing, both in the same bill that, and the timing of that and that overlap would be the challenge. So it could be done, right? If they would create some, maybe this thing takes place and then this E-Verify take, you know, then that could become mandatory 90 days later or six months later. There may be a way to work that out. And I've been saying this for a long time. We need a better way and a faster way to allow people who are good at what they do, who are needed for the jobs, who are not criminals, who are just wanting to be law abiding and just make their money, like let them work. We need them. So it seems like AI should be helpful in this process, right? It shouldn't take six, eight, 12 months to, to get somebody a ability to work. It's in many cases takes longer than that. So there should be a way to make this much more efficient. Government's not really good at efficiency though. And so we don't see it happening.
Speaker 2Right. And we've talked about it. I mean, many times on the show that, Hey, the people who are here committing crimes, they're not going to be able to do it. They're not going to be able to or who are here illegally. Yeah. They need to, they need to leave the country, but we've talked about people who are here and have been here and have families here and who have done a good job in their work. Now I know this is a tricky thing and I'm sure there's a lot of people listening in that have stances on either side of maybe where, where, what we're talking about, but something has to be done regardless. And so what's going to be done here, whether this has a chance to pass, I don't really know. I'm sure a lot of it depends on what happens in the election tomorrow and you know, who gets voted in or out and what happens in the election tomorrow. What, what their belief is on this as well. So we will see, and we'll continue to follow this in the coming months. This episode of the land development podcast is brought to you by groove. Full disclosure. I co-founded groove back in 2020 to help land developers manage and sell their lots. It brings your lots, homes, pricing, and availability together in one place. Your builders can see their lots and takedown schedules without having access to everything else in your account. And that same information connects to an interactive map on your website. So when you update a price or mark a lot as sold, your website stays up to date too. If you want to see how it works, head to let's groove.com slash demo. That's L E T S G R O O V.com slash demo on that page. There's a less than two minute video you can take a look at. And if it's something that seems interesting to you, you can schedule a demo with me right from that page. All right, let's get back to the show. All right, well, let's go ahead and move into the last article here. We have several different sources on this, but the headline is builders and buyers are both stuck. So we've got a lot of data in this one. We're going to dig into, we're going to take a look at some different charts here. We'll try to describe them the best we can. For those of you who are just listening in, we're going to start out here with the builder confidence being at a 14 year low. So what we're looking at is a chart that goes from 2016 to 2026 and basically a score of 50 or confidence level of 50 is neutral. So anything above 50 means that builders see good conditions, more good conditions than poor conditions. Now back in 2016, the score was 61 worked its way up until the pandemic, which in April, 2020, the score went down to a confidence of 30 and then quickly rose up to 90 and just kind of went up and down all the way till today where we're at a 29. So I thought this was interesting because we're actually lower than the time when the it felt like the most uncertainty in this country in April, 2020. And so to me, that's not necessarily a good sign. seeing that this score is actually lower than what it was in April 2020. Now, next one here we're looking at is pending home sales also hit a record low. So this comes to us from the National Association of Realtors, their pending home sales index, which looks at contracts signed on existing homes. Now, it's currently at an index of 66, which is the lowest since this has been in been in use since it started in 2001. And so this follows almost an exact same trend as what we saw on the last slide with the builder confidence. So you see this, I mean, exactly looks about the same where it dips way down in April 2020 to 69, goes up to 132.8 in August 2020, and then it just works its way back down to 66. So another low score here for the pending home sales index. This one here looks at the housing starts being down 10%. So we have the top 10 markets by housing starts. And you can see over the last four quarters, Dallas on the top here with a negative 10%. We have a down 37,000, Houston down 34,000, which is down 8%. And then you go to the flip side, we have Sarasota, which is actually a positive 20%. So growth happening in Sarasota, where housing starts are actually up. But everywhere else, Phoenix, San Antonio, Atlanta, Austin, Orlando, Charlotte, and Tampa are all down. And then mortgage rates, we talked about this two weeks ago, obviously back above 7%. And we had the Fed met this past week and decided to hold rates steady. There was a 10 to 2 vote. Cook and Hammock both wanted to have an increase of 0.25. Their next meeting is going to happen on December 9th. And I think there is expected, based on what I've been reading, there's expected to be a rate hike at that time. Of course, a lot can change in two months. But I think there is expected to be a rate hike at that time. So we'll see what happens. But Charles, what are your thoughts on, we have a lot more stuff we're going to get into on the consumer side here, but from the builder side and rates and everything, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1This is not 2008. We're going to try to compare to other times. So we're not seeing this massive, you know, everything's in free fall. You know, it's terrible. It's not as good as it could be. And it's not as good as it has been. But it certainly is not a crash that a trough, probably a lower point in the market. The question that I'm trying to answer and the research that I've been doing is what is the timeframe of that trough, right? So for all of us that work in the business, whether we, whether we own a company in the development space or whether you work for a builder or you work for someone in that whole supply chain, what's that look like for us, right? Houses are still getting built, of course. So if you're supplying brick, if you're supplying concrete, all these things are happening. Talking with people in that business, it is tighter and it is, there's less money to go around. So it's less about laying everybody off. It is more about, Hey, this is probably not the best time to ask for a raise, right? Because if you're not, unless you're driving major dollars to the bottom line for your employer, they're probably feeling it a little bit because most of the people in the market are. And some of that's natural, right? We know that home building and we know that construction in general is cyclical. It has been, as long as I've been involved with it, which is all of my career. So we're in one of those lower points in the cycle. And I don't think 27 brings us a lot of upside, but it's probably not a dramatic difference from where we are now, right? Even if rates go up a little bit, people adjust, people still have to have houses. The underlying demand is enormous. So there are still houses to be built. There is still work to be done, but we're not in a boom. It's probably pretty flat for 12 to 18 months. It looks like, it looks like, that 28 could bring some improvements. Again, hard to, hard to look at the crystal ball and say for sure, but I don't think there are really any realistic expectations of improvement prior to 28. So it's about hunker down, get efficient, make sure that you're adding value to your employer, find ways to integrate AI, find ways to create efficiencies, find ways to really add value in a time when it matters.
Speaker 2Well, you mentioned asking for a pay raise. Well, if we look at this next chart here that I have up on the screen, looks from 2016 to 2026, looking at inflation versus wages and where they're at. So currently inflation is at 3.7%. Wages, wage growth is at 3%. So even as people are maybe having an increase in their salary slightly by this 3% on average, it's still, they have less buying power because of where inflation is at. So it's, it's not something where we're seeing a lot of increase in wages right now, which I would say is a good thing. I would expect that to continue that way. And this is obviously problematic because even as you do get an increase in pay, you're being able to afford less with that money. One other thing I wanted to look at here, cause this was really interesting to me. So I came across some data from the National Association of Realtors where they were looking at the income needed to buy the median single family home, which assumes that they can make a 20% down payment versus the median family income. Now, one thing to note about this, this is obviously not a good thing. It's not a good thing nationwide. And I think the, the nationwide median price, single family price home is like $440,000, right? So that's what we're talking about here. So the chart basically goes from 2016 to 2026. And in 2026, the median family income is $113,145. The income needed to purchase that median single family home, again, assuming a 20% down payment is made, is $107,328. Now, what's interesting about this is that this does not take into account homeowner's insurance. It does not take into account the, um, or property taxes, I should say. That was the other thing I was looking for. So it doesn't take into account that. And so these numbers are actually a little bit different when you consider it. Plus how many people who are looking for a home or would consider buying a home can afford a 20% down payment, which is over $80,000. I wanted to answer that question. So we looked at the renter families earning between $90,000 to $100,000. $140,000. And one in nine could cover a 20% down payment, which is $84,500. So only 11%. One in five could afford a 10% down payment or $42,300. So that's about 21%. And in this group here of these renter families, the median savings and investments outside of retirement accounts for all these renters is only $10,200. So not, anywhere on average, the median, I should say, is not anywhere near that 10% down or 20% down. So next, what I wanted to look at was what's the monthly payment for that median priced home if they're able to make a 20% down payment or 10% down and so on. And in this graph here, I actually take into account not just principal and interest, but mortgage insurance. If they're not making a 20% down payment, they're going to have mortgage insurance. You have property taxes, you have And so at 20% down, you're looking at about a $2,800 per month payment. 10% down, you're looking at almost $3,300 per month. And then $20,000 down would be $3,600 a month. And so you're looking at a pretty significant payment. And most of these people who are renting are not able to afford it, which brings us to the next chart here, which shows us, without that 20% down payment, one income is actually needed. And the number jumps. And what's interesting about this chart here is it shows us that there are far more people, more renters, who have a higher salary, a higher household income than they do savings. So people are, there's a lot of people, a lot of renters who make really good money, but they don't have any money saved to be able to make that down payment. And then that causes the price of the home or the price of the payment to go up significantly. So what we're looking at here is if for the families that can actually afford the 20% down payment, you have about 2 million of 46.5 million renters could afford this. And that payment is actually, or the amount they would need is actually $122,000. So I'm not going to read through the rest of this slide, but the main thing I wanted to get across was that there's far fewer people who can actually afford those payments. And there's far fewer people out there who have money saved up for a down payment than what we would think. And that's a big part of the reason why we're looking at this chart here. Not very many people are saving or they've been dipping into their savings to spend on other things and not to save for a down payment on a home. A couple other things here, and then we're going to discuss this quick, but another thing you guys might've seen, and this is from Lenar's third quarter earnings call back on September 17th, but it was basically reported that almost half the people who are coming into in some of their markets and looking at homes don't qualify for a mortgage, which fits into what we just saw there with that data. And so that's a big part of the reason why we're looking at this chart here. And so that's a big part of the reason why we're It seems like it might even be more than that based on some of the renters that we were looking at there. And then lastly here from consumers and consumer sentiment here, we have 17% of consumers say it's a good time to buy a house. 74% say the U.S. is in a housing crisis. And then 63% don't think the midterm elections will improve the housing market at all. So I don't know, Charles. Again, I said this on the last one as well. I'm not trying to be doom and gloom or anything like that. You know, you talked about the housing market. I'm not trying to be doom and gloom. You know, you talked about where we might be in 27 and 28 based on what we're seeing here with some of these numbers and just the lack of savings that people have to afford a home. Any different thoughts or, you know, when you see this?
Speaker 1Well, there's nothing here that can change quickly. Interest rates, even if they did go down, it's not going to happen quickly, right? It would happen maybe over 12 to 24 months in 12 to 24 months. So that could put us at a 36 to 48 month time frame to really see any meaningful change with rates. But as you're showing here, rates are not the only factor. They're a significant factor, but they're going to have to drop. A tremendous amount to really create significant movement in the marketplace. It's not possible. And so we're in a position to probably see things be much like they are now, maybe up a little, maybe down a little over the next maybe few years. And I hate to say that we're in a long term. Situation, but it does kind of appear that these things could be improved, but none of them could happen quickly. How are you going to create significant savings through significant increased income across all of these people in a short time frame? Right? Literally impossible. You've got to you've got to create dramatic income changes in those businesses they work for, which then flows down. Again, it takes a long time to do. And we're in this. It's not seeing the economy being in a position to do that. Where are those dollars going to come from? So, yes, we are in a situation that likely stays this way for a while. And this may be our new normal. Again, there's work going on. There are things happening. Find ways to be efficient. Find ways to do it better. Maybe the status quo of the last couple of years wasn't good enough. Maybe there's a way. I think and the way that we operate generally is that there's always a better way to do everything. So what are some of those better ways? And finding those better ways in your business, finding those better ways in your job. Those are the things that are going to make a big difference right now.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I as I look at this, I think that there are some things I feel like have to happen in order for us to start heading in the right direction. I think the war in Iran has to come to an end. We have to see that come to an end and wrap up. We have to get inflation under control. We have to stop spending, you know, having so much government spending and increasing our our national deficit and everything. I think a lot of that stuff plays into this and everywhere else. It's not just it's not. It's not just our industry that's seeing an impact on this. And then there's also questions about, you know, where I can help, where it can cause some problems, because if I, you know, if there ends up being a loss in jobs from AI and everything, are those people going to be able to afford homes? Where are they going to get their income and everything? So I think there's a lot of question marks right now, but there are things that can be done. A lot of it's outside of our control, outside of what you talked about, Charles, there with with things that people can look for in our industry and everything. So. We'll continue to track this. We'll continue to watch, you know, what this looks like, and we'll see what happens tomorrow during the midterm elections. I don't think there's an expectation that anything in our industry is going to drastically change based on the results of the election tomorrow. But, you know, we're going to have to pay attention to that and see see if there is is there, you know, housing has been a big topic for many candidates. So are they going to if they win, are they going to follow through on some of the promises that they had made to the voters? All right. Well, that brings us to a close here. Charles, as always, all of you listening in, if you want to see any of the articles or go look at any of the data that we've been talking about here, you can go to the description for this episode and there's a link there to the show notes page. We put all of the articles and reference all the sources and everything there. So if you ever want to dig into any of this deeper, you can go there and take a look at it. But otherwise, we'll come to a close here today. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. And we will see all of you back here tomorrow on Election Day for our next interview episode. Thank you. I'll see you next time.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The podcast opens with a preview of midterm election ballot measures, including Florida's Amendment 3, which would raise the homestead exemption to $250,000 by 2028 but requires 60% approval and currently polls well below that threshold.
  2. Similar property tax measures are on ballots in six other states, reflecting a broader push for affordability, though municipalities worry about lost revenue for essential services like fire departments and rural counties.
  3. Immigration enforcement is increasingly disrupting construction labor, with builder-reported labor disruptions rising from 13% a year ago to roughly 65% in the latest survey, and key trades like drywall and roofing relying heavily on foreign-born workers.
  4. The administration claims deportations will lower housing costs and urges builders to hire U.S. citizens, a stance the hosts criticize as lacking evidence, while the National Association of Home Builders backs the bipartisan Dignity Act and expanded H-2B visas.
  5. Builder confidence has fallen to a 14-year low of 29, below even April 2020 levels, and pending home sales have hit a record low index of 66, with housing starts down 10% across most top markets.
  6. Mortgage rates are back above 7%, the Fed held rates steady with a 10-2 vote, and a rate hike is expected at the December 9 meeting.
  7. Renter affordability data shows only about one in nine renter families earning $90,000–$140,000 could cover a 20% down payment, with median non-retirement savings of just $10,200, and Lennar reports nearly half of prospective buyers don't qualify for mortgages.
  8. Consumer sentiment is bleak, with 17% saying it's a good time to buy, 74% believing the U.S. is in a housing crisis, and 63% doubting the midterms will improve the market.

Summary:

This industry news episode of the Land Development Podcast, hosted by Ryan Glick with Charles Covey, covers property tax ballot measures, immigration enforcement, and deteriorating builder and buyer conditions. The hosts first examine Florida's Amendment 3, which would phase in a $250,000 homestead exemption by 2028, cap non-homestead assessment increases at 5%, and require a four-year residency before new residents qualify. Despite support from Governor DeSantis and the state GOP, the measure needs 60% approval and polls far below that, with critics warning of $12 billion in annual local revenue losses. Similar measures appear on ballots in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Wyoming, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Georgia.

The discussion then turns to immigration enforcement, where builder-reported labor disruptions have surged from 13% to roughly 65%, with foreign-born workers comprising over half of drywall workers, roofers, and painters. The hosts challenge the administration's claim that deportations will lower housing costs and discuss the National Association of Home Builders' support for the Dignity Act and H-2B visa expansion.

Finally, the episode reviews grim market data: builder confidence at a 14-year low, record-low pending home sales, declining housing starts, mortgage rates above 7%, and renter savings far too low for down payments. The hosts conclude that rates alone won't fix the market, structural problems will take years to resolve, and the likely outlook is a flat market through 2027 with possible improvement in 2028.

FAQs

Amendment 3 would raise Florida's homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. It would also cut the annual cap on non-homestead assessment increases from 10% to 5% and give new residents a $50,000 exemption for their first four years.

It needs 60% approval to pass, but the latest polling shows support around 44%. Opponents, including the Florida Senate President, warn it could eliminate up to 30% of resources for rural counties.

The share of builders reporting labor disruptions rose from about 13% a year ago to roughly 65% in the latest data. The impact is strongest in the South, where 42% of contractors reported an effect versus 17% in the Midwest.

According to NAHB and Pew Research data, about 57% of drywall workers, 53% of roofers, 53% of painters, and 43% of general laborers are foreign-born. Many of these workers are in the country illegally, which makes enforcement a major concern for the industry.

The Dignity Act is a bipartisan bill that would let people in the U.S. since 2020 work legally if they pass a background check and pay $7,000 over seven years. It would also make E-Verify mandatory for businesses, and NAHB backs it along with more H2B work visas.

Builder confidence is at a 14-year low of 29, below the pandemic low of 30 in April 2020. A score of 50 is neutral, so this signals builders see far more poor conditions than good ones.

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