In this episode of Rush to Reason, John Rush tackles the prevalent narrative that young people are being priced out of the housing market. Through personal anecdotes and listener calls, John explores the differences between today’s first-time homebuyers and those of past generations, emphasizing the role of expectations and financial discipline. Join the conversation and discover practical insights for anyone considering purchasing their first home.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is Rush to Reason. You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush. My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job, sir. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, Hour No. 2, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate it. No guests this hour, so if you’ve got something on your mind, something you want to talk about for this week, give me a call, 303-477-5600. Text line, of course, 307. 200, 82, 22, 307, 200, 82, 22. All right, this is something that actually came up in the podcast this week that I made some mentions to. And then when I saw this particular article, I thought, okay, this is one of those where I’m going to, you know, delve into this a little farther than what I maybe have in the past. I’ve talked about this to some extent in the past, although I don’t think it gets talked about enough. And this is… One of those topics that I think is pushed hard, especially from the left, although our side buys into it as well. And I mean that sincerely. Our side buys into this narrative as well. And that is… Young kids can’t buy houses. They’re too expensive. Millennials are frozen out of the housing market. This is an article out of the Washington Post. And this article even goes on to say the reality may be more interesting. Now, I read the entire article and not one time in the article does it give you what I think is really happening. Yes, houses are expensive, no doubt. And in relation to the actual cost of living, in relation to where we were even 40 years ago versus today, is it more costly to live in a home now than it was then? Depends is the answer. In some cases, yes, it depends. But the one thing that never is factored in, and again, I talked about this on the podcast this week. You heard that a little earlier. is the simple fact that the wants are way different today than they were when I bought my first home. Way different than they were when I bought my first home. So the issue is not necessarily that homes are much more expensive. They are. We’re making a lot more money, though, today than we once were. And it is relative to one another. But the one thing that you never read, you never see. Now, this article does talk about the National Association of Realtors, and they feel like the average age of homeownership isn’t exactly what this article even says, which this particular article says that average first-time homebuyers is now 40. The National Association of Realtors say that’s not a true statement, that that’s not exactly true. that there, in fact, are some young people that won’t buy a house for themselves to live in, but they buy one to rent out and start building their own portfolio while they still rent. So it’s not quite what a lot of folks out there will tell you. And believe me, the narrative is because they want to blame, especially in this case, the right, the conservatives, for the fact that, you know, everything’s too expensive, and you can’t live in a home today. And for comparison, and I know some of you have called in on this, and you’re free to do that now. In fact, how big was your first house? 303-477-5600. Mine was about 900 square feet, not quite 1000. And I had to save up, which I was able to do. And I was 22, I want to say, when I bought my first house. And nobody helped. Didn’t get a loan from my folks. Nobody gave me any money. I sold some things that I had had, motorcycles, things like that. You guys know the drill. You guys that are older especially, you know the drill. You do whatever you have to to round up enough money to put down and hopefully qualify and buy a house. That’s what I did. But I’ll tell you, it wasn’t a glamorous house, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I had to go in and basically, I shouldn’t say gut the house for a remodel, but I did a ton of work to my first house at a very young age. Keep in mind, I’m 22 years old. I mean, everything from concrete work to landscaping to the whole place needed painted. The carpets were absolutely shot. The bathroom was hideous. I mean, on and on we go. There were just certain things that I went in and did to make the house quote unquote livable and in turn flipped it and made some money. Not a lot, but enough to get to my next house. And the next one and the next one and the next one. And you guys know my story along those lines. I’m one of those people that I don’t believe in a forever home. I don’t think they exist. In my world, they don’t exist. Now, I’ll stay in one for a while because it’s hard to replace what I have, but I’m not one of those that says this is my forever home because everything I have is for sale. I don’t care what it is. You’re going to buy it. It’s yours. I don’t hang on anything, nor will I. It’s not in my DNA. I had somebody ask me the other day, you know, what’s the one, in this case, car that you sold you wish you would have kept? And I’m like, I don’t know. That’s a hard question because I look at everything as really disposable and Once it’s gone, I can replace it with something else. And, you know, a car is a car is a car. Yeah, some are different than others. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, there’s no one rolling off the assembly line as we speak. I don’t get too attached. And a lot of people do. And I’m okay with that. And, I mean, we’ve had this discussion on Drive Radio. A lot of people name their car. And people think I’m weird because I’m a car guy, and I don’t. I’ve never named a car because, you know what, I’ve never loved one enough to name it. I did re-buy one. Charlie said, yes, but you re-bought one. Yes, I did re-buy one. So the story there is I had a car growing up in high school. I had bought it from my great aunt. And when my kids started to grow and all that, I mean, it was a car, you know, it’s a classic car. So it’s not really a car that you are going to drive on a daily basis, 68 Buick Grand Sport. So as time goes by and that car gets older and older, it’s just not practical to drive on a daily basis. And as my kids started to to grow, and I needed cash for, in this case, another home. I had sold that car, and at one point in time later on, 20-some years later, I actually saw the car for sale again and was able to put a deal together, and I actually bought that car back and still own it, so I still own my car from high school. And yet, that’s a car today that my family members will tell me, you can’t sell, but frankly, you want it, it’s yours. You give me the right kind of money out of it, it’s yours. Again, it’s not really sentimental to me. It’s kind of cool that I own the car I drove in high school, but I don’t care. If I could sell it and make enough money off of it, would I? Sure. Again, I have family members that disagree with me on that, but I honestly don’t care. Personally speaking, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t hang on to things tightly, houses included. But going back to this whole article that, you know, are millennials frozen out of the housing market? Here’s my answer. No, they’re not. It’s a matter of do they want to lower expectations? Do they want to sacrifice things to be able to buy said home? Now, I get it. There’s good and bad when it comes to homes. Some people have done really well and made good money on homes. Others, not so much. And it just depends. And I’ll give some pointers on that here. Got a call coming in. Let me do this. Let me take a break. We’ll come back. I have plenty of time for a call that way and not get behind. Golden Eagle Financial coming up next. Al Smith, who did a great interview of late. Listen in. Find Al at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do I need to keep talking, Charlie?
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, let me do this. Who’s our caller? I’ll just take the caller. Well, and I… Oh, Soren, what’s up, Soren? Sorry, I couldn’t hear Charlie talking to me. Go ahead, Soren.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, not much. I was just saying… I was going to say, we’re taking a financial stewardship class here at school. And one of the case studies that we had to do was see if we could buy a home making $80,000 a year before taxes. Yeah, before taxes. And if you could make that work in Fort Collins. And I found out that if you’re going to do that, You’re going to get killed on interest, but you’ve got to find a cheaper house. You’ve got to lower your expectations of what you’re going to buy.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I found a house that you could buy for $400,000, and I figured out how to pay it off in, or no, $350,000. And I figured out how to pay it off in 10 years, but that was eating full rice and beans, nothing else.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm-hmm. Good job, by the way.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think a lot of… I think a lot of the issues with the millennials and Gen Z is that they complain a lot about house prices, but they don’t have the mentality to say, what can I do to fix this so that I can afford a home?
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
You can go pick up an extra job and bring in an extra 20,000 a year.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct. Great point. You might have to work a little harder, but… Well, and Soren, you were cut from a different cloth, and in a lot of ways, I was like you at your age, which I think that’s why I appreciate you like I do, because you understand this. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of folks even twice your age… that haven’t figured out what you just said because they have this high expectation of, for example, most – it’s not in this article, by the way, so I don’t know what the average square foot of a quote-unquote starter home today is, but I’m guessing it’s probably going to be 1,500, maybe even 2,000 square feet plus – And I go back to my example of the first home I bought was around 900 square feet. So, you know, one car garage, etc. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, Soren, you’re right. You have to lower expectations, figure out budgetarily how you make this work, make the sacrifices necessary to make it happen. And all of a sudden, voila, it works.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, yeah, you’re going to be able to have 15 streaming services. That’s an extra $200 a month going out.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, yeah, in fact, you may find yourself having none.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, well, if you have none… That $200 a month extra that you have to put towards food.
SPEAKER 02 :
Food, the house payment. More of a payment on a house. That’s right. Well, and I said to you the other day, Soren, on the podcast, that these same people that will complain that, hey, I’m a millennial, I’m younger, whatever, I can’t afford a new house, they’re also the couple that have two new cars.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, you aren’t going to be able to drive the flashiest car. you aren’t going to be able to go buy a brand new Suburban when you have to pay off your house.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. And again, that’s kind of what I’m talking about. And my point with all of this, and you understand, Soren, my point with all of this is none of these articles ever give you what I’m saying. All they do is sort of glamorize the fact that young people can’t buy a house. They don’t delve into the fact that that’s because they’re not buying the same first home I did.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s a lot easier to complain about something than go and fix it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know what? Great point. Great point. Wise beyond your years, Soren.
SPEAKER 06 :
You can go complain that you’re going to buy a new house, but, hey, work a little harder and you can do it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct. Absolutely. Good point. Soren, I’ll let you go, man. I appreciate it very much. Can we take a break now, Charlie? All right, we’ll take a break. Golden Eagle coming up next. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. Find Al at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
And we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Okay, I just asked Chad GBT, AI, what the average square footage of a first-time home, you know, first-time buy home in the United States is. And it varies a little bit by region. But on average, it’s 1,400 to 1,700 square feet. Now, the average new home… Not first-time buyer, but new home is 2,300 to 2,400 square feet. And I did get a text message from somebody that said, listen, you’re not going to go buy a new home for less than X because builders don’t make any money unless they’re at a certain price range, typically around that $500,000 range. I get that. I understand that. And by the way, I don’t think most first-time buyers should be buying a new home. I’ll just say that again. I don’t think most first-time homebuyers should buy a new home. And the reason I say that is because there’s a lot of extra hidden costs in buying a new home nobody thinks about. Now, before you go off on me and say, yeah, but you’ve got less maintenance, and it’s like buying a new car, and this, that, and the other, blah, blah, blah. It’s not quite the same with a home. I live in a home that was built in 1974, and some of the plumbing and piping and stuff in it is still from 1974. And you know what? I’m still living in it, and it works fine. So you can buy an older home, and as long as things are mechanically sound in it, and if not, you can do some upgrades. The reality is in a lot of cases, by the way, that old home might actually be built better than a new home as far as its structure is concerned. Yes, you need to make sure you have a good inspection done and that things are in working order and so on. But my point is I don’t think first-time homebuyers should buy a new home. And here’s why. People forget that when you go buy that new home, there’s lots of things that it doesn’t come with. Drapes and blinds for one. Now, you can buy typically packages and so on that may come with the home, but you’re always doing something as soon as you move in. And a lot of times they maybe do the front yard, but then you’ve got to go do the backyard. I can go down the list of all the different things that happen. And some of this I know because I’ve bought new homes in the past. I don’t have one now, but I’ve owned new homes. No, it wasn’t my first home. In fact, in my case, I didn’t buy a cracker box new home until I think my third or fourth. So anyways, I get that builders aren’t building quote-unquote affordable new homes because it’s hard for them to do so cost-wise. I get that. And this wasn’t an attacking text message. This was just an informative text, and I appreciate that. So yeah, I’m not looking at it in any way that way. So thank you. But proving my point… that there’s a far cry from a 900 square foot home to even a 1,500 or 1,700 square foot home. 1,700 is almost twice as big. Huge difference. And my answer back to this particular person is this is why I feel like first-time homebuyers, back to what Soren said, even as the example he was using in school, you’re going to have to buy an older home. And in some cases, it may not be perfect. It may not be exactly what you want. It may not be in the school district that you think you need to be in for your kiddos or whatever the case may be. Furthermore, I’ve said this before, I’ve never once in my entire life bought a house based upon the school district. You already know my feelings on all of that. I’ve never bought a house based on a school district. People have cars. Kids can be driven. They can be taken to wherever you want them to go to school. To me, that’s a complete non-issue. But I get it. Some people will buy in a particular area because that’s the school district they want to be in. Whatever. That’s fine. But my point going back to all of this is don’t forget that my main point with this is to destroy the narrative that young people can’t buy new homes. That’s not true. It’s only true if they’re not willing to lower expectations and put some elbow grease into a home that they buy. Yes, if that’s the case, if they want that 2,000 plus square, or in this case, a new home on average is 2,200 to 2,400 square feet. If they want that new home, they want 2,400 square feet. They want all the amenities, all the bells and whistles and so on. Okay, yeah, you’re going to spend more money. And it may be out of reach for you until you get to be older and can save up enough money to do so. I get that. But that’s not that’s not a fair narrative then to say, you know, young people can’t buy new homes. That’s false. You should have a disclaimer to that that says young people can’t buy new homes. It’s hard for a first-time homebuyer to buy a home because their expectations are too high and they want to live like their parents. That’s what the answer should be. But we don’t add that second addendum, if you would, at the end of that sentence. We just say, oh, they can’t afford a new home. Because, folks, I can tell you right now, they can’t. I have kids that are far underneath 40 that have bought homes. So it can be done. And no, I didn’t write the down payment check for them. They’ll all tell you that. They did this on their own. So at the end of the day, can it be done? Yes. It’s a matter of lowering expectations. In some cases, finding a home that could very well be a fixer-upper. maybe isn’t as cute as the one next door. But frankly, that’s where the most money is made is you go in and buy a house that actually needs a bunch of work done to it. You put a bunch of elbow grease in and do things that you can do yourself that you don’t have to pay somebody else to do. Make it a quote-unquote couple or family project. And before you know it, you’ve built some really good sweat equity into something that you can then take to the next place and the next place and the next place, and that’s how you build wealth. But a lot of people won’t do what I just said, and I’ll give you the reason why. It’s one word, work. It’s a four-letter word, W-O-R-K. They won’t do it because of that. And again, I am one where you guys all know me. You do you. I’m never going to criticize somebody for what they do. Everybody can live the life that they want to live. I am not here to criticize, but I am here to destroy false statements and false narratives. That’s what I am here to do. Because it’s a lie. And I don’t like when people lie. When they tell you something that’s just not true. You know, people can’t buy homes. Well, that’s not really true. And I just showed you why that’s not true. So what I want a lot of you that are listening to do is the next time you hear somebody say that, ask some of these pertinent questions that I just asked. What kind of home are you trying to buy? How big is the home? Where is the home going to be located? On and on we go. You start going down that path, and then you start realizing that, oh, in other words, you’re what John was talking about. Your expectations are too high, and that’s why you can’t buy said home. There’s always ways to work around getting to where you want to go. I think I’ve given you guys stories of the very first place I lived in, and I didn’t have an apartment. In fact, I’ve never lived in an apartment in my life. My very first home that I lived in was a mobile home. With a tilt out. So 40 foot trailer, 10 feet wide, I believe. I think it was 10 foot wide, 40 foot long with a tilt out for the living room area. And it was old. And yes, it smelled like a trailer. And I made it work. And I did a lot of fix up and stuff even to it to make it work. But I saved a bunch of money by living in that for X amount of time so that I could then take that money and parlay it into a house. So I, quote unquote, sacrificed early on so I could save enough money to be able to buy that first home that, by the way, again, I go back to saying was, you know, 900 square feet needed a ton of work. And no, I didn’t have an excess amount of money and I didn’t have any wealthy parents that were funneling money to me to make that work. I did it on my own. I was talking to somebody about this the other day. I think one of the issues that I have today is when you get to a certain level and you’ve done this enough and you’ve had a few successes in your life, everybody thinks, oh, sure, John, you make it look easy. Folks, let me tell you what. My life has not been easy, not by a long shot. I have worked hard to get where I’m at today. Just like a lot of you have. And I hear from a lot of you that sentiment exactly what I just said. And I know a lot of you in on an individual basis, and you work hard. And you’ve learned how to get ahead and doing so good for you. And by the way, in business, there’s only one way to get ahead outwork the guy next to you. outwork your competition. You do that you’ll be successful. But this whole narrative of, you know, things are too expensive. Kids can’t do this. Kids can’t do that. Well, because the kids’ expectations are too high. And I blame that on parents because in a lot of cases, the parents literally, you know, helicoptered or snow plowed out of the way every single adversity that might have come along for that kid, for that child. And then they grow up in one, of course, what mom and dad have and what they’re living in. And typically it doesn’t work that way. I get it. There are some cases where, you know, some kids do really well. They end up with a really good job. They end up, you know, setting themselves up really well. And they might get to the point where they actually live better than mom and dad. Great. Good for them. They did it right. And, again, I won’t take anything away from those kids that have done that. Good for them. I applaud them. I’m one of those individuals where anytime somebody has something bigger, better, nicer than me, I applaud them. I don’t envy them. I don’t covet what they have. I’m happy for them. Good job. I’m glad you were able to attain that. Good for you. The problem is most of us don’t look at it that way. We live on both sides of the aisle, by the way. We look at it in a very envious way and say, why do they have that and I don’t? And by the way, that’s a dangerous place to be, and I’m not trying to get, you know, all theological here on anybody, but that’s a dangerous place to be. Anytime you start playing the comparison game where you’re trying to either outdo the next person or you’re worried about what you do or what you look like or, or, or, or, or, that’s a dangerous place to be. Because when you do that, you’re going to fail. Because no matter what, there’s always somebody out there that’s taller, smarter, better looking, tanner, richer. I can go down the list. Always. It’s always how it’s going to be. There’s always somebody trying to outdo somebody. I don’t care if you’re Elon Musk. There’s somebody chomping at the bit to take his place as the richest man in the world constantly. Every single day, there’s somebody doing that. And even in his case, I can tell you this much. Is there people out there that are better looking, that are in better shape? And yeah, because he’s definitely not the best looking guy in the world. So point being, you can’t play the comparison game. And I’m afraid that in a lot of these articles that we read where it talks about, you know, young people not being able to do X, Y, Z, it’s because they too are playing the comparison game. Well, so-and-so just bought such-and-such, and so-and-so is driving such-and-such car, or I can go down the list. And when you get into that trap, which is exactly what it is, you lose. It’ll devastate you because you can’t keep up that way. It’s extremely difficult to do that. And when you get to the point where you just say, you know what, I’m going to live my life the way I want to live it, and I really don’t care what everybody else thinks, and I’m not here to live it for anybody else. I’m going to do my own thing. It’s freedom. It really is. It’s freeing. And I’ll be the first to tell you that for the longest time as a young person, I felt pressure to do certain things and be certain places and do this and do that. In some cases, family pressures to do certain things and all of that. And when you get to the point where you just say, you know what, I’m doing what I need to do what’s best for me and my family, it’s freeing. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people, right, left, middle, churched, unchurched, that don’t know what I just said. They’ve never gotten to that place where they feel like they can do their thing because they’re worried about living for someone else. And that’s not how it’s supposed to work, folks. Trust me. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. But a lot of people do, and they get caught up in that whole comparison game, and they wonder why they lose. And for me, it’s not hard to figure out why you lost. You lost because… You played the comparison game. And any time you play the comparison game, folks, you’re going to lose. All right. I want to switch gears. I’ve got time before we go to our next break. This is big news. I’m going to talk about this a little bit more on Monday. I’ve got a special guest that’s going to join me. But some of you probably saw the news today. And this goes into the cost of living that I was just talking about a moment ago. Trump and the administration, they’re lowering CAFE ratings. So you’re going to see fuel economy standards, whatever. But it’s corporate fuel economy standards. Corporate fuel economy. That’s the CAFE ratings. Corporate average fuel economy. That’s what CAFE stands for. C-A-F-E. And it’s been set, I believe, it was supposed to go to… I got to double check all this because I didn’t have this in front of me. I think cafe ratings were supposed to be around 50 miles to the gallon by 2030, 2031. Don’t quote me on that, but I think that’s what they were supposed to do. Yeah, by 2031, they were supposed to be 50.4 miles to the gallon, which, by the way, on an average across the board, unachievable. Unless everybody drives a little box that gets, you know, 60 miles to the gallon. Because remember, there’s going to be cars getting 40 miles to the gallon. So if you’re going to average 50, you need X amount doing 60, X amount doing 40 to get your 50. Or you pay fines. And as I’ve always said, who pays the fines? We do. The corporate, you know, GM, Ford, all of them, they’re not paying those fines. We are. The consumer does. If they don’t have a high enough corporate average fuel economy, CAFE standard, as a corporation, and they pay fines, who do you think pays those? The customers do. So what Trump’s really doing here, and this is what he’s not going to get credit from the left for because all they’re going to do is accuse him of polluting the planet by doing this, which is probably the dumbest thing ever said. Can’t be proven, by the way. Trump’s lowering it to 34.5 by 2031. So we’re in 2026 model year right now. So in five years, 34.5. Which, by the way, is probably achievable. I don’t know what the average CAFE rating is now. It varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. I’d have to look that up. Doesn’t matter. He’s setting it by 2031 to 34 and a half. Now, you’re going to see a lot, and there’s a lot of announcements today by Jim Farley of Ford and other corporate leaders basically saying this is going to lower the overall cost of ownership when it comes to vehicles. Definitely will. Because if you think about it, to get to that – 50 miles to the gallon, either one of two things is happening. They’re either working hard on all the technological advancements they can to get that vehicle to have that type of rating or they build smaller cars or they sell you a larger car that doesn’t get that kind of mileage and you pay a higher price because they’re fined. And that’s typically what’s happening. So, yeah, these leaders are correct in saying it’s going to lower prices because if they’re not having to pay the fines anymore because they can achieve the 34.5, which they’ll be able to do, by the way, relatively easily, in doing so, yeah, it lowers the cost because we’re not paying the fines anymore. And we have been. So you’re by the way, what I just said, you’re not going to hear anybody on the left just explain it the way I did. They’re not going to tell you what I just said. In fact, they’re going to be whining and complaining and crying that this is going to destroy the planet and it’s going to add to climate change and this, that and the other. And by the way, nothing could be farther from the truth. I’ve talked about this on Drive Radio many, many, many times. The small amount of pollution that comes out of a new car in today’s world, it’s negligible. It’s minor. So, by the way, the big beautiful bill passes some eliminated penalties for automakers missing those CAFE changes, or those CAFE ratings, which, by the way, is also a way to lower things. So this overall, though, just lowering the ultimate target, the 34.5 now versus the 50.1, huge difference. So Trump is doing everything he can in spite of the Fed, which we’ll talk about them next hour with Scott Garlis. But Trump’s doing everything he possibly can in spite of the Fed to lower your overall costs. We don’t message that as a party well enough. I’ll be the first to say that, and I’ve talked about that many, many, many times. Andy and I were talking about that Tuesday. We don’t message that well enough, but believe me, Trump is doing everything he possibly can to work around the Fed to lower prices, and frankly, I think he’s doing a good job. This is a great example of what he’s doing. So we’ll see how this actually plays out. It will lower costs when it’s all said and done. Will it lower it immediately? Probably. I mean, this will probably have an impact in this next model year. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. And part of that is because I talked about on Monday that the automakers are struggling because of the price of a new car. So they’ve got to do something to get the price down or they’re not going to be in the game. So they know they need to get prices down, and this in turn will help them do so. All right, we’ll be back here in just one moment. Let’s see. Sorry, Charlie. Cub Creek’s next. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. If you’ve got any problem at all with your furnace, they’ve got a great program whereby you can set up an appointment online. You can go right to Cub Creek’s website and do so. On the same token, they’ve got financing, so if you need a bigger ticket item handled, they’ll help you with that as well. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 08 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. A couple of great text messages, by the way, that came in. Most people, everybody agreeing with me on the expectations and so on. Got a great email from a good friend or a text message from a good friend that also said social media plays into a lot of this whole comparison game. Fact. Sure does. In fact, what I would tell young people, if you really want to succeed in life and you really want to get ahead and you want to build a nice, solid financial future, jump off social media. I’m being serious. Jump off social media. If you want to go back to it later on down the road when you’ve earned some things, built some things, and so on, then fine, be my guest. But for right now, if you’re really looking to build and add value and be financially successful, get off social media. Or only follow those people that will help you gain financial independence and don’t watch anything else. Get rid of the junk. All of the comparison nonsense that’s out there. And by the way, the way the algorithms work, if you start watching some guys and gals that will feed into you some of the financial things and so on, pretty soon that’s all your feed becomes because in my case, that’s the majority of what’s there. I don’t get a lot of the comparison things because that’s not me. They know that. It’s not working on me. And I don’t watch those types of videos. So, you know, one thing else I didn’t throw in, and this is true for us here in Colorado, and I get it. It’s an expensive place to live. It is. We make more money, but it’s expensive. There are a lot of other places in the country you can live for a lot less money than Colorado. And I also got a question in, a listener said, so I didn’t buy all my kids’ homes. No. No, folks. If I had the money, which at that time I didn’t, even if I had it, no is the answer. They need to learn on their own. It’s not helping them to buy them a home. I’m hurting them in buying them a home. They need to learn how to be financially independent on their own, and to their credit, they have. And because I didn’t do these things for them, nor will I do these things for them. They need to learn on their own. One last thing, too, that somebody sent in, which this is also true, and this is a problem here in Colorado, and I fully understand this. At one point in time, even in Colorado, a lot of first-time homes were condos, townhomes condos, condos especially, because they’re a little less money than even a townhome. And because of the construction defect laws that we have in Colorado, the construction defect law, I should say, one single law, because of that, builders won’t build condos. That law, by the way, needs changed. It’s tried to be changed numerous times, and because the tort lawyers continue to fight it, literally, they’re the ones that fight it. The Democrats typically fight it big time because they make a lot of money. on the legal sides of the aisle because of construction defects that they won’t allow that law to go away. So in turn, we don’t build condos. And really quick, what that particular law does is if you’re an attorney and there’s a new condo structure that went up and you can find – I think it’s simply a matter of two or three. It doesn’t have to be a lot. As long as you can find two or three people that have the same problem – So maybe there’s a little bit of a structural issue and there’s a crack in a wall or a door doesn’t quite fit quite right and it needed to be adjusted or, or, or. Plumbing issue, whatever. I mean, go down the list. By the way, things happen when things are built new. Just like new cars have problems, so do new homes and structures. Nothing’s perfect. Men are making it. It’s not perfect. So what an attorney does, he’ll come along, she’ll come along, a firm will come along right after something’s built, and they start sending out surveys, too. And it sounds like it’s kind of this nonchalant, you know, oh, you know, we’re from such and such survey company. We just want to know how your experience is with your new home and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all they’re doing is collecting evidence to determine whether they’re going to file a class action lawsuit against the builder. And I’m not exaggerating what I’m saying here, by the way, folks. This is exactly how it works. They get all these people in. They get all the addresses, the names, and so on, which is public information. And they mail things out, surveys that basically say, you know, tell us what’s going on in your complex. And if they can see a pattern that, oh, man, you know, some of these people’s toilets don’t flush like they should every single time, there’s a class action lawsuit. And now the builder, you know, has to go through all of the headache of fighting that. And the insurance company has to get involved. And it just becomes so expensive that what’s happened is because of what I just said, builders won’t build condos. So this particular texture, you’re correct. We don’t. And I just gave you the reason why. And we’re hurting those that need it most. Because a condo for a lot of young couples, by the way, it’s a perfect place to start. It’s a great place for people to start and end. So a lot of people can start in a condo and they can end in a condo. There’s no maintenance. That’s all done with your HOA dues and so on. It’s almost like living in an apartment that you own. That’s what a condo is. So it really is. It’s impactful. I’m glad you texted it in because it’s huge. And I’ve talked about it on this program many, many times in the past. Because we won’t build condos, new condos in Colorado, we’re taking away one of those initial steps, especially in an expensive area to live like this front range area. We’re taking away one of those particular steps. that a lot of young people could use, first-time homebuyers could use to get themselves started. And we also take away from the elderly that when they’re at the other end where it’s like, you know, I don’t need to take care of this property any longer. In fact, I don’t even want a townhome. I just want to live in a condo. I want that apartment that I own. And when we’re gone, we’ll give it to the kids and they can use it as an investment. They can rent it out. They can do whatever. And off we go. Well, they can’t do that either. So you’ve really affected two ends of homeownership itself, you know, the beginning and the end by not allowing or by forcing builders out of Colorado when it comes to condos. So, by the way, again, thank you, whoever texted that in. I appreciate that. You’re spot on. That is part of the problem here as well. I should probably talk about that more because it’s a big deal. But I tell you what, as long as we’re a blue state, that’s not going to change. Which, let me remind everybody, even those of you that are on the left, especially those of you that are on the left, proving once again, you don’t care about people. I say that all the time, and it’s true. You don’t care about people. Because by the way, if you did, that construction defect law wouldn’t exist. Because you’d allow condos to be built and you’d help people out and people would have another option to get into some home ownership and so on. And it would be a nice stepping stone for a lot of folks. But because you don’t like people, you really hate people, you won’t allow it. So you prove my point constantly that you really aren’t for anyone. You’re for government, government only, and you don’t care about the people. Because if you did, you would reverse what I just said. But every time that comes up, whether it’s legislatively speaking or whether we try to run a ballot initiative, it gets shot down. Because those of you that are out there on the left that claim to really care for people, you don’t. You’re hypocrites because you don’t care. Because if you did, you would change that law. So sorry to get back on going all the way back to the whole housing end of things and so on. But it’s very true. And it’s bothersome because, again, we not only give out the wrong narrative, but here in Colorado, we really take advantage of people by not allowing – those condos to be built. Okay, something else I read today. This is in Fox 31. And this is talking about why folks like myself recommend in the wintertime that people keep a half a tank of gas or more in their car. And this article, by the way, is so far off base. And Maddie Rose wrote this. And Maddie, I wish you would have reached out and talked to me because you’re going down a path that, frankly, just sounds idiotic. A common winter belief… is that drivers should have at least a half a tank of gas in their cars so the gas doesn’t freeze. By the way, I can’t tell you anybody I’ve ever heard that would say that gas is going to freeze. Gas doesn’t freeze. I don’t know. I guess it will if you get it cold enough, but nowhere that I know of. Gas doesn’t freeze. So she goes on to say, but that’s not exactly true. It’s not exactly true. It’s not true at all. gas will free the water in gas can freeze and cause problems but by the way those days are even gone because once we started going to sealed systems with the evaporative system and so on on carbon canisters and so on whereby i mean about the only way water gets into fuel system anymore is if you leave the gas cap off somebody sent me a picture on the text line where somebody was running around town with a gas cap just hanging over the door Yeah, in that case, if it’s super wet and so on, you might end up with a little bit of moisture down in the tank. But even then, the way the flap systems are and so on, you’re not going to have much. The days of using heat, which is alcohol that basically would, you know, kind of dissolve the particles into small, you know, the water into smaller particles. So even if they freeze, they’d still pass through the fuel system. That’s all that did. It’s all heat did, by the way. It’s not alcohol isopropyl. I’ll look it up. I don’t remember what it is. It’s not alcohol, sorry. But it’s something similar to that. It basically makes the water particles break up into more water particles. So even if they do freeze, it’ll still pass through the fuel system. But by the way, folks, those days are gone. Heat is no longer needed. Maybe for some farm equipment and some small engines, something like that. But for your vehicle, no. So again… So she goes on to say there’s several myths when it comes to driving in the winter between all the drivers pumping their brakes on ice to letting newer cars warm up, which, by the way, you don’t pump your brakes any longer because the anti like brake systems already take care of that. But yes, you should let newer cars warm up that that debate I’ve talked about on drive radio over and over and over again. One of the well-known myths is that gas freezes if there’s not enough tank. Again, I don’t know where she’s getting her information from and where that myth came from because I’ve been doing drive radio for like 27 years now, and I can tell you that not one time I’ve ever talked about gasoline freezing and that you should keep your tank above half a tank because it will freeze. I don’t know where she’s getting her information from, but— I tell people in the wintertime keep at least a half a tank in it because you never know when you’re going to get stuck someplace where you might have the engine running for quite some time and you don’t want to run out. It’s not because it’s going to freeze. It’s because you want enough. I would go as far as to say try to keep a full tank as much as you possibly can in the wintertime. Again, not because we’re worried about gasoline getting contaminated, freezing or anything like that. You just want to have enough. Some of these pileups I talked about on Monday and Tuesday both where some of these drivers in certain cases on I-70 have waited six to nine hours for a traffic jam to relieve itself. Six to nine hours. You think you’re going to get by with a quarter tank of fuel? No, you’re not. You’re going to be turning it on and off, on and off, and you’re going to be cold. have enough fuel where that’s not a problem so yeah we’re not telling people i’ve never told somebody keep more fuel in the tank because i’m worried about the gasoline freezing no it’s so you’ll always have enough fuel in the tank to handle what i just said she goes on here to say it’s important to keep more gas in the tank in the winter as the gas tank itself can freeze No, it can’t. Again, these are non-car people writing articles about things that they are ignorant of and shouldn’t be writing articles on. This stuff, by the way, just drives me crazy because these reporters will never reach out to people that really understand the industry like myself, and so then they write idiotic articles like this. It’s important to keep the gas in the tank to minimize space for water condensation to form, which could enter your fuel system and freeze. And I just explained that a moment ago. With closed systems and the evaporative systems we now have, that’s a thing of the past. My old car, my 68 Buick I talked about earlier, that’s a car where this potentially could have been a problem in the wintertime. But it’s an open system. It’s a vented system, we call it. New cars for the past, gosh, however long cars have been on the, you know, whatever the average age of the fleet is, is like 14 years. Add a couple of decades to that, and we’ve had evaporative systems on cars where this hasn’t been a problem for multiple decades now. 40 years, and I’m not exaggerating. So reality is this, again, is somebody that’s writing an article about something that she knows absolutely zero about and went to AAA for some advice, and they’re just as dumb. Sorry, being honest. They’re just as dumb because they fed into this whole thing with her. And, again, they and her, neither one, have no idea what they’re talking about. So if you read this article, disregard it because it’s utter nonsense. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. What’s not nonsense is making sure that your roof – is in great working order. You don’t have any leaks, no ice damming. Everything works throughout the winter. You’ve got gutters working the way they’re supposed to and so on. When it’s all said and done, get a free roof inspection from Dave. You might be a great candidate to have your roof extended, life extended, the roof rejuvenation through the RoofMax product itself. 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 10 :
This isn’t Rage Radio. This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, we are back. And somebody just told me before we close out this hour that there’s, I think, Costco up in Thornton had fuel for under $2 a gallon. $1.98, I think, is what somebody just texted me a moment ago. So perfect, by the way. And, yeah, sorry, just going back to that whole article about gas freezing and why you keep the tank where it is and so on. If you happen to run across that, just ignore it, move on. It’s utter rubbish that’s inside of it. And another example of people in media not knowing anything about vehicles but yet still writing about them. Hour number three is next. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m a rich guy.
