TROI BACHMANN | Ep. 104 | Finding Dwellness in a Housing "Crisis" Part I

Northwestern Vermont Realtors Association CEO Troi Bachmann brings vital stats and discussion to shed light on WTF is going on with housing prices and what we - both consumers and real estate pros alike - can do about it. 

What is The Dwellness Podcast?

Join couple-preneur Ruth and Brian Steinmetz as they share their expertise in real estate, design and social activism. As co-founders of “Steinmetz”, a real estate brokerage and interior design firm serving mainly Chittenden County, Vermont, they explore the intersection of wellness and the art of conscious dwelling through what they call dwellness. They’ll cover topics like equity- in all its forms, environmental and social justice, conscious consumption, mental and community health and so much more. Each week, they discover more about dwellness through unfiltered and nuanced conversations with change-makers, dreamweavers, and many more awesome and inspiring people.
Change your life, your home and your community by discovering what dwellness means to you.

 Welcome to the Dwellness Podcast. I'm Ruth Steinmetz. And I'm Brian Steinmetz. Join us on our journey to discover the connections between physical and mental well being and our dwellings.

Quote of the week. Quote of the week. Uh, yes. One of the first billionaire industrialists ever. Uh, and of course he came from America because that's how America rolls. Uh, Andrew Carnegie. You may know him from Carnegie Hall in New York. Um, it goes like this. 90 percent of all millionaires became so through owning real estate.

More money has been made in real estate than an all industrial investments combined. The wise young person or wage earner of today invests his, her, their money in real estate. What do we think about that? Is that still true? No, first of all, is it true? Was it ever true? It, no, it was not true then. It wasn't true then.

You don't think It wasn't true then? No. Um, I, that discounts the lineage in human culture of, um, family money and generational wealth, um, that was given to people. Hmm. Inherited by them. Yes. So like, Whoever the king or queen was by whatever stroke of luck in Western culture, right? Um, says, okay, yeah, Brian, you can be a Duke of Sussex and like, here's your land.

And then your family's set. Yeah. You're good. You're good. And you have serfs to work the land. So you don't have to. And what he's talking about is landlord ship. Exactly. Which is essentially serfdom. Sure. Where you own somebody else's house. Yeah. Which is where they live. Uh, and so that's what he's talking about in terms of like building up that millionaire status.

And you essentially have to screw somebody else over in order to get your own money. For sure. And I would say, like, at that time in America, You know, like there's this myth about America that it was self made and And it was a Just the whole, like the whole way that most people are taught about American history is Is Mythology.

It's not, it's not actual historical fact, and there was a brief period of time where if you were white and your family happened to be the right religion, and you happened to live at the right place, you could make yourself whatever you wanted to be, but that's just not the reality for the large majority of American history, um, and American present.

Like, it's just not true. So what is true? If you were to rewrite that quote or give us your own? Um, I didn't rewrite it, but um, Homeowner, I would say homeownership is definitely an amazing wealth builder, but if you can attain it, great. Have at it, whatever. Um, diversify your assets, whatever that means to you.

Um. Crypto. Bitcoin. Yeah. Dogecoin, if you will. Um. I mean, it just has dodgy in the title. Yeah. So you should know. Yeah. I don't know how I would rewrite it, but I think the key thing when thinking about this quote is like, Andrew Carnegie was a billionaire. Yeah. He was literally the richest man in the world.

Like really? At a certain point. Yeah. Take what that man says with a grain of salt. I'd say a billion dollar size. Maybe a salt mine. Yeah. Perhaps. A whole salt mine. Yeah. I think that the thing that is an undercurrent of all of this is that land is the source of identity, power, and opportunities for building wealth.

Generational wealth, too. Yeah. Generational wealth. And land has been something that wars are fought over, you know, politics are, you know, rife in all that. Genocide. I mean, look at it. Look at the actual American history. Sure. Exactly. And all the opportunities for disenfranchisement have been centered around ownership of land.

Or ownership of humans. Yeah. Or ownership of humans. Which means... Taking the humans away from their land. Into your own space and then making them work for you. So there is this intrinsic need for humans to have possession of land so that they can have that opportunity to build their own life. And that's not something that we're talking about.

Land is power.

So we have with us today, the indelible, Troy Bachmann. The, uh, I'm very German of you.

Uh, yeah, Troy Bachmann. Uh, who is just a delight. We've already been here an hour and we haven't recorded anything. She is the CEO, right? Of the Northwestern Vermont Realtors Association. Nailed it. Not my boss, but a very influential... If anything, you're my boss. Oh, I suppose so. Well, that's, that's, that's fun.

Cause you see I have my realtor pin here. Uh, I've been a, uh, a member of this board for about five years, and I've been a realtor for almost ten now. Um, which is great, and um, well, great, kinda. We're gonna get into the meat of this thing here. Uh, but first of all, Troy, we have to ask you. How do you find your dwellness?

You know, a couple different ways. So when I was thinking about what that sort of means, it's like, what makes me happy inside my home and around my home? Like where, how am I creating a dwelling for myself? Um, walkability, I gotta be able to walk places. Yeah. Um, I love... It's very un PC of you, by the way. Is it?

You're not supposed to say walkable as a realtor, because people have wheelchairs. Oh, sure. You have to say short distance. Okay. Short distance transportation. Yes. Sure. Um, my bad. Uh, walkability and like character of the home itself in the space. Can you describe your home for us a little bit? I would love to describe my home.

So I currently live, I'm renting a home. Um, I currently live in a like 1908 white, I mean, it's not really a farmhouse cause like. Is it like a colonial? I guess so. I'm not big. I'm not, you know, you know, I'm not a describer of homes, but it's got these beautiful like hardwood floors and like, um, they haven't painted the trim and it's like hand carved, like just very, it does have the little circles.

It's just lovely. And, um, it, it hasn't been updated. So we have original... The windows, um, my dog accidentally punched one of them out. Um, just by bonking his head into it. So they've got those really thin glass windows. Yes. Um, so that's not great in the winter. Do you put the plastic up over them? We do put the plastic up over them, which does hurt the internal...

Interior design vibes, um, but in terms of character, it's just like very, there's some light haunting vibes, which I actually really like. I like to have a ghosty friend in there. Yeah. Um. I just like to hear the house creaking at night. Yeah. There's something about that that's kind of romantic. Yeah. So, and I can't imagine living in a new build.

Like with the millennial gray everything and the luxury vinyl floors. Yeah, like I like the maximalist like Frame are you know, and that's the that's the third thing that helps me find my wellness is I love weird art Like weird art. I have a gift for you. Oh Cool. Yeah, so we have like I would say probably 50 percent of the art hanging in our home is of naked people Like, we have one, uh, I forget who the artist is, but it's called Pornocrates, and it's of a woman walking a pig on a leash.

Awesome. It's amazing. So, the, all of those things A naked woman, I assume? Yeah, pfft, no. Yeah. We actually talked about, in one of our earlier podcasts, we talked about, um, some African art that was Uh, the naked lady, we remind me, yeah, she's a, she's a contemporary artist in, uh, I think California. And she has a lot of like naked women art.

Yeah. Well, I messed that right up. I apologize. You were so close. I was not. Yeah. So all those things combined make a great dwelling for me. Great. A great, keep, keeping me happy home. So you've got a dog, you've got a kid, you've got a husband. Yes, I do. Would you like me to list my other earthly possessions?

No, no, I'm just

saying, like, these things also contribute to that, I should think. I mean, yeah, but I also, I would say that, like, that is, those, Well, no, I've definitely curated those, but I was thinking about it more from the perspective of like, how do I actively approach this? And those are the things that's like, I'd seek out places with character and art and short distances to things I like.

Right on. Right on. That is a, that's an excellent answer. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. Um, now to the meat of things. Let's get into it. Or to the vegetables really because that's all anybody can afford anymore. Tragically. Yeah, we're in the midst of a housing crisis, quote unquote, in this state in particular and all over the country.

They're trying to blame it on the pandemic. I think that the powers that be are manipulating the pandemic to drive prices up so that they get more money. Could be part of it. It's also like inflation and stuff like that. Can we just discuss what makes this Quote, unquote crisis, what's being done, what can we do?

Sure. Um, so I want to kind of push back on it's because of the pandemic is the first thing because the true crisis is there's a wage crisis and that wages are not keeping up with inflation. Prime example, everybody knows it is minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is 725 and it has been since. The seventies the early nineties I think it was I think Bill Clinton got it was like not as significant.

So like when I was 84, it was like five 25 and it's gone up 2 in my lifetime. And so let's look at the cost of housing. Um, my parents bought their three bedroom, two and a half bath home on like two acres of land. Granted, this is in North Carolina, but um, In 1994 for 89, 000. You can't even buy a car for 89, 000.

You can't buy a car for 89, 000. So that is sort of the meat of the, what is being called a crisis. The reason that I kind of put crisis in quotation marks is because if this was a crisis, The government would it. We would be throwing infrastructure at it, and we're not. Well, that's because it doesn't affect the top 1%.

Exactly. They're benefiting from this crisis. Right. And maybe even creating it. And the other layer of that is not just home ownership, but rent, renting. There are people, for whatever reason, don't want to own a home, and that's fine. I don't believe that you have to own a home. Yeah. Um. But, nowhere in this country, there is nowhere in the country that you can work a minimum wage job, um, or even, I mean, hell, even 15 an hour, like, that doesn't cut it, and afford rent on a studio, one bedroom, or two bedroom apartment.

A full time job, you cannot afford. Make rent. So you're suggesting that the federal minimum wage needs to be like 25 an hour? Oh, yeah. So everyone should make 200 a day. If you haven't done You might be able to survive on that. If you haven't done a lot of research on the minimum wage, I wrote a paper on it in my graduate degree.

Nice. And I learned a lot. I know. I worked really hard. So that I will brag on. Um, but I learned a lot of interesting history about the minimum wage that I think would provide some clarity for folks. So I encourage everybody to do some reading about it. Um, I can send you some resources to share the actual like your thesis on this.

I would love to read it and link it to all of our stuff. It wasn't that serious, but I We'll discuss. Um, but all of this to say, there's a great quote, and I wish I had written it down, but there's a great quote when minimum wage was first enacted as a, um, principle in our government. It was designed for people to live a Like you were supposed to be able to buy a home on minimum wage and you could for a lot of like, from the onset of minimum wage to the early nineties, you could work a minimum wage job and buy a house.

I mean, think of, think of like, think of even like our pop culture, like Homer Simpson works for minimum wage, owns his house. And that was true when that started in 1989, but is not true now. I mean, yeah. I, my, my family is a prime example of this. Okay? So my husband and I moved here last July. Um, my husband's in it.

He's, he is granted, he is working part-time and took some time off so we could have a baby. Um, since there's no, uh, parental, paid parental leave in this, um, that's a whole other, another other thing, whole other thing. I'm glad to talk about that too. Um, but. I make six figures, not like I'm not into the six figures, but I make what I would call fine money.

And my whole life I was like, okay, once I get to six figures, I'll be fine. Like whatever. And it is so not true. Yeah, it's absolutely not true. And I cannot imagine how anybody is doing it with less money than we have. And we have what should be enough money. So let's talk about how we got. To the cost of housing being what it is, um, so this is, I want to sort of make everybody feel better, though, this isn't really gonna make you feel better.

This is a nationwide issue. This is not just a Vermont issue. This is not just a Chittenden County issue. This is nationwide. I worked in the real estate industry in North Carolina, and they are having the exact same conversations that we are here. Exact same conversations. Um, so this is a long-term nationwide issue.

It did not, the pandemic did not, um, it maybe set some things in clearer light, but I wouldn't say it may be accelerated, you know, accelerated some of the crisis. But a lot of this can actually be drawn back to the crisis in 2008. Mm-hmm. . So building because of the great recession. Um, Decreased tremendously, so we were, we are now historically underbuilt.

Yeah, about like 2 million units? Yeah, yeah, so we're underbuilt, and that stems from when everything sort of screeched to a halt in 2008. Like, we are not recovered from that. We had some great recovery, but we are not recovered. Um, so that, on top of a labor shortage, um, I know my generation was told, go to college, get a real degree, um, and you'll be set for life.

And so that's, that's a lie too. That's a lie too. And the number of trades people has decreased tremendously. Um, and so that makes labor more expensive. Uh, basic supply and demand. Um, and then another thing is the cost of building materials. Absolutely through the roof. They're coming back down, thankfully, um, but all of these things are like a perfect storm for there's not enough supply.

There's too many people, um, and not enough people to build the housing. That is not even the full picture though, because, um, people are living longer and we talked about this a little bit, you know, when we, when I first got here of like the, The length of people staying in their home is, has gone up tremendously.

I'm going to read a statistics, and I would like to caveat, please remember that statistics can be interpreted however you would like to, but they are helpful in understanding the context and full picture of an issue. You totally went to grad school. I did. Well, I also should caveat, I'm not a data scientist, so this is from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard.

You know, ivory Tower University World. Um, but here you go. The number of householders ages 65 and older grew by nearly 40% between 2012 and 2022 to a whopping 35 million households, and we're only 2 million shy. Yeah. And 2 million of those people would just. Either perish or, um, choose to live in a retirement community.

Right. The housing crisis would be much less impactful, I think. Yeah. So, and that, you know, people are living longer, healthier, more independently. And again, the way we live in homes has changed. Um, we're not living in intergenerational spaces anymore. We haven't for some time. Exactly. Um, and that's... And that is contributing to the issue, right?

If we had more people in one house, then not, you know, you have five kids, which is a lot, but let's say you have two kids who can afford that in this economy. Yeah. If you have two kids, then you've got three houses eventually. Right. And you know, mom and dads and then junior and, and. Junior too, you know, yeah, yeah.

So that's another thing. Um, and then the, the last, well, it's not last because there's no end to this issue, but something that I do want to mention is that in Vermont, the decreased supply is by design. Um, you're talking about act two 50. I sure am talking about act two 50. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, act two 50 for those of you who don't know, uh, was.

Came about in the 60s, I believe, when... 1970, excuse me. Uh, but it was in response to the 60s, like, ski craze, where a bunch of people from out of state decided to come here and build ski chalets and etc. etc. That's when Stowe really started to hit the map. Uh, and the skiing in, cause it wasn't as easy to get to Colorado as, as it is now.

Um, and so it became a big thing, especially from like the, the belt of cities. Uh, along the East Coast, Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, et cetera. They all wanted to come up for vacations, they built ski chalets, and the local Vermonters were concerned that They were going to destroy our beautiful green spaces.

NIMBYISM, if you will. Sorry? NIMBYISM. There's a phrase in the housing world, um, called NIMBYISM, which stands for Not In My Backyard. Ah, yes. Of course. Of course. Yeah. So, um, the local legislature in Vermont decided to do something about it, and they created this thing called Act 250, which really put a lot of environmental limits on building.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Act 250 is the, uh, Premier piece of land use regulation in Vermont. Um, and there is a particular there's it's, it's, it's a fat piece of legislation. Like there are a lot of layers to it. Um, and it is maybe not fair to say like, this is why the housing, like it's definitely not the only reason, but it's a major contributing factor.

It's a major contributing factor. And there is a. Um, part of the legislation called the 10 5 5 rule. Are you familiar with the 10 5 5 rule? I believe so, yeah. But enlighten us. Sure. So the 10 5 5 rule says that you can only build 10 houses within 5 years within 5 miles. without triggering Act 250 review.

So an Act 250 review requires your project to be taken through like 10 or 11 different bureaucratic reviews, um, adds a lot of time, adds a lot of money. As we know, time is money, especially when you're. Building. Um, and a 2017 study from the Legisla, the Vermont legislature found that this regulatory review process could potentially add up to $50,000 to the cost of a home.

So again, that's 2017. Um, a lot has happened since 2000. A lot has happened to since 2017. A lot has happened since the 1970s and, and there's been no major provisions to this piece of legislation. So let's go back to the ten five, five rule. How does that make sense? How does that make sense? There's also some, some, some towns also, they have jurisdiction over their own township.

Yes. And they are, I'm thinking of a couple in central Vermont right now, but they say like, Hey, you can't develop, you can't build a house unless you've got five acres to build it on. Right. Why? You can build 20 houses on 5 acres. Right. And, you know, I Well, we love the trees. We do love the trees. But we have more trees in Vermont today than we did in the 1700s.

Yeah. So, like, I think we can spare a few. Also, there's another thing in Vermont where we can't build tall buildings. Mm hmm. Which, I think that in order to preserve the trees Well, the birds would fly into them. In order to preserve the trees, though, and the natural green space, the more populated areas like Burlington, Rutland, Montpelier, uh, would have to go up instead of out.

That would, that would solve a lot of problems. There's a concept in I'm not saying let's build skyscrapers, but like, let's go up to 15 stories. There's a concept in urban planning called sprawl. Yes, of course. Um, the idea that as cities grow, we want them to we don't want them to sprawl. Sprawl is bad. So sprawl is just, you know.

It takes, the creeping fingers of the municipality, it's just, it's very, a geographically large space, but you've got to drive a lot of places. That is the least environmentally efficient way to exist. Um, so you've got to go up. So you've got to go up to decrease that. That's not happening here, but it's interesting that you say that, actually, because I was just looking at some statistics or some information.

Pardon me. I'm the one burping.

Uh, uh, I was just looking at this last night. I was curious about, um, like London, New York versus Burlington. London is about 600 square miles. Uh, New York is about 300 square miles. All five boroughs. Burlington is 15. Between 15 and 16, about 15 and a half miles. What are we, what are we going to do with 15 miles?

You have to go up. There's no other way. Or town. But who wants to live underground? Well, the alternative is that you have to leave. Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to do that. Yeah, right. And what's happening is, like, the, the, the, the people that are coming in for vacation homes, etc. are driving out the Vermonters who want to live and stay here with their families who have been here for generations like myself.

Who can no longer afford it. And, and, not a but, an and, our economy does depend on those people. The way our economy...

Which is a mistake. But it's so frustrated with the lack of conversation around... You know, the source, the root of this, um, issue with preserving the green and preserving the way Vermont looks like. It's so artificial because like, if we go way back to the twenties, thirties, um, with the eugenics movement, what was that all about?

It was about pushing people out so that we want to look and

we attract who we want to attract. That is just it's it's inequitable. It's unfair and it's it's part of the root cause of our problems right now because like we wanted to make this place look like this. And that's why I say it's by design. It's by design. It's by design and we don't want to talk about that.

And then the other thing you were saying labor shortage. That's another like artificial crisis, right? Because like, uh, there's been a significant decline of unions. That Uh, since the eighties, nineties, and yeah, and unions are there to protect employees and employees rights. And people are not taking these jobs because first of all, these jobs aren't paying enough.

There aren't enough benefits. Child care, whatnot, um, and you're, you're not making enough to make ends meet under severe working conditions. So of course you're not going to take that job. It's not about there's a labor shortage. It's about the working conditions in these positions are not sustainable for the labor.

Workforce or for the workforce. Yeah. Why aren't we talking about that? Why aren't we putting these companies to task to make these jobs actually sustainable for its employees? Again, if it was a crisis. Yeah. If, if we're going to call it a crisis. Let's treat it like a crisis. Yeah. Let's treat it like a crisis.

Let's start taxing billionaires. Ooh, Brian.

I

know it's a They don't want to pay taxes. They want to build a little submarine. Yeah. They want a suicide mission. So, so on this show, we've already quoted, we've quoted Andrew Carnegie today. Previously we took, we quoted Teddy Roosevelt. These two guys were at odds in their lifetimes and Teddy won in theory.

But all of his work has been undone by the new billionaire class in, in the, in the middle of this century, granted, we had some serious race issues, but in the middle of this century, we had, um, or in the middle of the last century, excuse me, we had, uh, an actual middle class that was intentionally designed by, by leaders like Teddy Roosevelt that has been dismantled on purpose by the elite class because they don't want to pay taxes.

What the fuck is going on? I do not have an answer to that.

Yeah. I mean the other, the other layer of this too, is going back to the labor issue. Um, is this the issue of student loans? Um, let me take my badge off real quick. Cause I, I, let me caveat, you know, this is not, none of this is the. The position of the Northwest Vermont Realtors Association. This is my personal sort of stuff.

I'll make sure to cut that out. Yeah. Um, we'll get that in editing. Um, but the student loan crisis is a, is a big freaking deal. We were all told my generation, we were all told, and it was true at that small moment in history. It was true that you should go to college and get a good paying job, but the economy that we, our generations were raised for.

Does not exist, does not exist. It was happening right at that moment that as a 10 year old, I was told I should go to college one day and you still need to side hustle. Right. I have a master's degree and we're talking about like, okay, what business are we going to start? Like what? I don't want to work under these circumstances.

Right. Yeah. And the other thing about this too is like the greed is palpable. Yeah. I mean, you can see it, you can smell it. Elon has way too much money. He pissed away 44 billion when he could have solved world hunger with 30 billion. And let's remember that he said he would. And he hasn't because of course he has.

Right. Because anybody absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. Anybody with that kind of money is going to do bad things and hurt other people. And first of all, you don't even get to that level of income without hurting other people. You have to rely on the labor of others in order to build that kind of wealth.

It's. Ethically corrupt. Well, we think it's ethically corrupt. Well, there's a whole contingent of the population that sees no problem with it because of the concept in our culture of he's a self made, he's a self made man. He did this himself. He's pulled himself. He's worked really hard to get where he is.

And unfortunately it all, it does all come back to an equity issue. Like. You know, I've, I followed all, I've checked all the right boxes in my life, right? And I, and I still feel like I am not succeeding. However, I have a huge one up on a good portion of the population because I'm a white woman. Yeah. I'm a white woman.

And so I will be able to get things in this country. That other people will, that people of color will not be able to, and we see that in the housing world as well. Do you want to talk about the homeownership gap? Totally. Um, so why are you here, Troy? That's true. Um, so the housing crisis is important on so many levels.

I mean, and we would be remiss if we did not talk specifically about the effect on people of color. Um, so in 2020, the gap in homeownership rates between white Americans and black Americans was the same. As it was in 1970, which was just two years after the passing of the Fair Housing Act. So in 1968, Lyndon B.

Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act into law, which said that Uh, people of color and six other protected classes could not be discriminated against in housing. Um, we know that that continued under the table. Um, much like every other, um, example of racism in this nation, the, the legal deadline is always different than the reality.

They just do PR service to shut people up. Yes. I mean, you can speak on this better than I can. Yeah. Um, yeah. Two white people talking about this. Um, no, no, we need more white people talking about this. Yeah, because actually our voices will be listened to, unfortunately. And the onus should not be on the people affected to solve the problem.

Exactly. We created the problem. Exactly. We need to solve it. Um, so, I mean, we see, we see this gap even now, and yeah, and the gap between the haves and the have nots in this country is only going to further because of the housing crisis. Yes. Generational wealth. Generational wealth is important. Owning home owning property is the way to, is a, a way to build going back to our quote is a great way to build wealth, but so much of so many people in this country have no way to access that.

No way to tap into it. How do you get even a three and a half percent down payment on a half a million dollar house? Exactly. That's 20, 000. How are you going to do that when you're making seven 25 an hour, right? Impossible. The math just does not work. It does not work. The math is not mathing. Speaking of which, I have some statistics here.

Um, median sales price. This is just Chittenden County? Yeah. This is just Chittenden. Chittenden County. Median sales price of a home. Single family home. 534, 000. For the month of August. 2020. Just for the month of August. Yep. Mhmm. Median days on market. Seven. So you have a week to come up with 534, 000. List price received.

This is where the greed really is palpable to me is 104. 8%, 105%. So everybody's getting 5 percent more than they're asking for. Now I started my career in 2015, which was a very different, things were still recovering from 2008, 2009. And it was more of a buyer's market at that point. Now it's a seller's market and will forever be a seller's market because of the, the uh, inventory gap that we have right now.

Unless all the baby boomers decide to suddenly die, we're in serious trouble. Um, and I think that the greed is palpable from people who have owned their homes for 20, 30, 40 years. They paid 89, 000 for it, and now they're selling it for 534, 000. Yes, because the market tells them they have to. Right. However, they're screwing their children and their grandchildren.

And, and this has been going on, I mean, there's environmental issues too that we can totally get into, but it's just frustrating. And I, I, I am just so upset by the, the green eyed monster that is rampant in this society. Like just sell it, make a 500 percent profit and go to a retirement home. Sure, and you know, or at least like let your kids live with you without like being like, this is my house.

You have to do what I say, because we're not teenagers anymore. But also, also, I'm not completely against these people, right? Let's say that with a caveat, just cogs in the machine. They're just cogs in the machine because all of this has been designed this way. We've had our whole country was founded on inequality.

Like, it genuinely was founded on inequality. What are you talking about? The Constitution? The Constitution is a beautiful and perfect document. Actually, Thomas Jefferson, now that we mention it. It was so perfect, in fact, that they had to immediately change it with ten amendments. Beautiful! Thomas Jefferson said it should be rewritten every 19 years.

It has never been rewritten. Are we going to take Thomas Jefferson's word for it? Well, he was the guy that wrote it. Like, the architect of the Constitution said, It's an imperfect document. We need to rewrite it every 20 years. Every generation needs to be rewritten. It hasn't been rewritten since 1776.

But my rights, Brian. What about her rights? Exactly. Exactly. What about the rights of everyone that's not a billionaire in this country? Well... Yeah. First of all, we have how many billionaires in this country and no Batman? What the hell is going on? It looks like there's a job opening, right? Well, you need to be a billionaire in order to be Batman.

Yeah. And handsome on top of that. Yeah. Well, I've got that down. Well, okay. Let's talk about this, though. You know, when we're looking at the gap in home ownership between black Americans and white Americans and all other, well, there's actually, there was something that happened not too long ago. Sorry to interrupt.

No, tell me. Um, there is, um, like a, a white couple that got... Their house appraised. Oh, that's

what I was the New York Times or something like that did this. Um, and it was like a white couple got their house appraised and it was the same house, 750 K black couple got it appraised like 400, 000. Yes. That's a 350, 000 difference on the same house. It's a whole house. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, you know, three fifths of a house.

Two years ago is a lot. Um, yeah. I mean, and so there are, there are factors at play here more than just the years and years of inequity, which means that the wealth in this country is held by white people. Um, but it's still actively being that, that, um, paradigm is being actively perpetuated. Um, so. Um, there's, um, a lot of research that says that that's, that was not a one off case that has occurred for years.

Um, and that is, you know, thinking about like, okay, well, what are we going to do about this? That's one thing that real estate professionals should be. Actively aware of and actively have a hand in if you have any care about that ethically. Um, is that you have to advocate for your clients of color. Um, And make sure that they are treated 100%, 150 percent fairly, um, in the whole process.

Because they're already treated unfairly by every other metric. Exactly. Um, and so the, the least that we can do ethically as, as realtors especially, we do have a code of ethics. A real estate agent is different than a realtor. Yeah, have you explained that on the show? No, actually, why don't you? I would love to.

So, um, And I would also like to plug an important, uh, book while I'm doing this. So, We love books. We do love books. Um, so the term Realtor is a branded term, trademarked, um, by the National Association of Realtors. In order to be called a Realtor, you must be a dues paying member of the National Association of Realtors.

And I promise to adhere to. The Code of Ethics, which has 17 articles outlining, um, an ethical approach to real estate business, um, standards for how to conduct yourself, how to work with clients, and all of that. Um, so, the National Association of Realtors is the largest association of real estate professionals.

It is 86 percent white, um, and that's a rough number from, um, 2015. Um, but it is not the only association of real estate professionals. Um, so there are other associations, but they are much smaller. So again, this is the thing that we see in the real estate world is that the people guiding others through the transaction are largely white.

Um, if you look purely at just statistics. Um, so. The National Association of Real Estate Brokers has 18, 000 members nationally, um, and that is the association that prioritizes black, minority, and emerging target market segments. So those are the folks that are specifically focusing on black homeownership and building um, black wealth in this country.

Um, one association. That's not even a sentence that you're used to hearing, black wealth in this country. Unless you're talking about Oprah. Or Beyonce. Name another wealthy black person. There's so few of them. That it's like, Maybe I'm overstepping my limits here. You just don't see. And again, you know, I'll agree with Carnegie that it does come back to, um, this concept of generational wealth, where the white landowners in the early ages of America could pass that on to their country or to their, to their children, but their slaves, They didn't get any of that.

They just, they got 40 acres and a mule at the end of it. They didn't even get that. But

there was lip service to that. 40 acres and a mule. Right, when they became sharecroppers. Right. So I taught American history for a few years. My background is in history education, and I used to give this illustration to my high school students. I'm going to give it to your listeners. So you've got two families.

You've got Mr. Smith, a white landowner, and you've got Mr. Johnson, a black person who does not own property. Um, if they did not do anything, they did nothing other than what they were born into. Who has more to pass on to their children? Mr. Smith, if they somehow were able to scrape together a living of some sort, keeping in mind that Mr.

Smith already owns property and Mr. Johnson does not. So Mr. Johnson goes to work and he is paid at a lower rate, a lower rate. Then Mr. Smith is if they even have the same job. So again, who has more to pass on to their children? Mr. Smith. And what's the big difference here? Landowning and white. And that, that is just the facts.

Even if, even if we've got all this great legislation protecting the rights of people of color in this country, supposedly. But that's again just lip service. Right. From the start it was unequal playing field. So, I don't want to, like, dishearten people and say, like, there's no solution to the housing crisis.

But there's not one solution, and I, we've got to think about it from, uh, with a historical perspective of, like, this, this has been designed this way. So, we have to actively design it another way, which means we have to dismantle things like Act 250. We don't have to change everything, we don't have to completely scrape it from the table, but we've got to look at these.

So, the, the 1055 rule. There was a change, there was a change proposed last legislative session to change that to 2555. That's a lot of fives. So, then you could, So what's the 25? The proposal was, instead of you can only build 10 units, you could, you could, Build 25 units within five miles within five years, right?

So that's a very small change. Ultimately, when you, when we think about housing stock, it got struck down because of environmental concerns. And again, we do need to preserve the environment. We know climate change is real. We know that that is important, but the way to do that is not going to be to make housing sprawl out further.

Yeah, like a building, one building in Manhattan, one apartment building in Manhattan probably has, I don't know this for, this is purely conjecture, probably has a smaller carbon footprint than, well, everybody walks a subdivision. And more mixed use, getting away from, yeah, yeah, because, and then this, this whole infrastructure of like, let's build the suburbs and have the suburbs like 15, 20 miles away from the city.

It just does not make sense. I want to be able to walk to work, walk my kids to school, walk to a shopping center. I mean, we're already facing that problem in, um, In Winooski where it's basically like a, a, a, a, a, a food, what is it called? Food desert? Food desert, yeah. Yeah, is there a grocery store in Winooski?

You shouldn't have to ask that question. No, I shouldn't. You're right. Corner markets, and a big problem of that is like, you know, the grocery stores want a big parking lot. Everyone's walking! Everyone's walking! So, that whole infrastructure of grocery stores wanting that big ass parking lot does not make sense.

Have people have food carts, and you know, those shopping carts, where they can walk to the grocery store, get what they need, and walk back home, and not need to even drive that car to get there. This also will help solve the obesity problem in this country. Um... If people walked more. Let's have another show about that, because I think the obesity epidemic is not real.

Hmm. In what way? Oh no, we may have to edit this out. Um, I, uh... Just briefly. Well... Um, oh gosh, how do I boil this down? So, yes, people are in larger bodies than ever before. Um, but the term obesity is sort of a classist and ableist term. In the sense that, just because you are what is considered obese by the BMI, which is generally the indicator of what obesity is, BMI was developed, again, White people.

White people, men, um, I feel like one doctor was like, my wife is too fat, I'm going to make this thing. Probably, I don't know the whole facts. But, yeah, so the whole concept of obesity is sort of like, Okay, but what does that mean? It's manufactured. Right, like, people existing in larger bodies can be just as healthy as someone existing in a small body.

So, my main concern about the obesity epidemic is, um, is really the lack of exercise and the amount of sugar. Yes. So it's really a diabetic epidemic. Right, well, okay. I just read earlier today that a doctor chops off a body part 150, 000 times a year due to diabetes in this country. Yeah. Toe, foot, whatever.

Right. And so again, that's not necessarily an obesity problem, that's a diet problem, which we can probably blame on big sugar. Also, food that's affordable. Food that's affordable. Is crap food. Exactly. That leads to monoculture is not helping us. Exactly. Yeah. Which is a big part of, like, industry. And it all comes back down to...

Us getting screwed, like the lower 90 percent of the population getting screwed by the top 10%. And it's housing, it's travel, it's obesity, it's all of these things. So I forgot to plug the Reaganomics that trickled down to us. How dare you mention his name. Um, I, uh, forgot to plug the book. Please do. But the book that I was going to tell you about was The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.

Um, if you've not read it, it had a lot of buzz a couple years ago. Um, but it Describes the history of housing and housing legislation in this country. That would be an interesting read. And it says, I mean, it was by design. Black neighborhood segregation was by design. Redlining and all that. Redlining. The, even the food deserts are by design.

Like that's, urban planners get to make those, a lot of those decisions. And who are urban planners? Typically white people. White men. Yeah. Sorry white guys. Um. Don't apologize to white guys. We've been screwing everybody else over for so many years. And like, and like even like, the way my brain was intentionally programmed from youth was to be a white supremacist.

And I had to break that down and I'm still working on it. Just in my own mind, just like, I shouldn't be thinking these things. What is wrong with me? Well, I grew up in a white supremacist society that said, You're a white guy, you can do anything. Right, so Andrew Carnegie, I'm entitled to run this country.

Okay, so maybe we add something about that to Andrew Carnegie's quote. Yeah, if you're a white man, well he, the quote is in, is man centric. I changed it. But it's it's yeah, he's talking about the wise young man of today. Yeah. Um, well, because what year was that? Could women own property then? Yes,

the people writing it, we're just thinking about them. You know, there weren't thinking about women, children, people of color, and whose land are we on? And that's the thing that we When I, I keep coming back to by design, right, to get out of the housing crisis, which like we're not going to build our way out of it.

We're not like, there's no way that we can. People don't have to be building around the clock to build our way out of this. Um, we would have to be building a house for every baby that's born. Exactly. Every day. Every second yeah How many babies are born in a day like 20, 000 say we'd have to build 20, 000 houses a day right and that's not happening No, so we're gonna have to be creative and we're gonna have to be intentional with how we can How we get out of it.

Um, so I would like to suggest high speed rail would be a great way to start doing some of this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Transportation is especially in Vermont. I was gonna say like, it's a privilege even being able to be in a walkable area in Vermont, because that's not really a thing. You need a car. Vermont was designed to have pockets of, of population, long stretches of road so that the Strip the spots between each pocket of population could be nice and scenic and beautiful and people white people could go hiking And you know, let me let me give a caveat here.

Um which may not be necessary, but I don't I don't I genuinely I don't think that every single person involved in the land use regulation Design, Act 250, back in the, back in the day, I don't think everybody, like, sat out and was like, you know what? We should make Vermont as small as possible. And we should have no economic growth.

And we should design it so that our whole economy is dependent upon tourism, but I think a lot of the planning in this country is very short sighted, um, and that is the case with housing. It's very like, let me finish my term in the Senate and then we'll peace out and whatever happens happens. Exactly, and that's, and that's how we're, that's part of why we're here is like, we have to stop looking.

20, 30, 50 years in the future. Yeah, which who knows if we're even going to have that. But like, right. Because of the other shortsightedness. Exactly. Yeah, and I think that's... There's a great quote that I love. I think it's either Buddha or Confucius. But it says, uh, uh, Wise men, uh, plant trees that they know they'll never sit in the shade of.

And no government official does that. Yeah, no. Nobody plants a tree being like, okay, this is for my child. They, they, they steal somebody else's tree and plant it in their yard and sit underneath the shade themselves. Yeah. It is disheartening. Um, but I do, I have some hope that like, our generation is looking to Well, we're having these conversations, so that's good.

Um, but The problem is, the previous generation needs to give us their houses in order for us to actually be able to do anything. Yeah, but they need a place to live too. Yeah, I don't have the statistics I'm not trying to say like, let's kill all the baby boomers or anything like that, but like Well, but that's a, that's part of the issue too, is like, these baby boomers that do have these big houses also have nowhere to go.

There's not places for them to step down. Yeah, this is true. And who wants to step down with this interest rate? Like, some of the, these people probably have their house. They have so much equity in their house, they do not need to worry about the interest rate. But they don't, but that is like, that's thinking for right now though.

Yeah. And also put yourself in the shoe of like, let's say an 80 year old who you have the equity. You don't want to move. And then think about all these, uh, retirement homes. First of all, the people working there are paid like shit. So they don't care. And so that trickles down to the way they treat the people there, there's a huge loneliness pandemic that we're not really looking deeply as to how we can build infrastructure to reduce loneliness in all the generations, starting from our children to the older generations.

And then there's not a lot of like intergenerational, um, um, community, you know, where we have our grandmothers interacting with our kindergartners, right? So that just kind of perpetuates this whole, like isolationist kind of mentality and then not wanting to be in that position where you're vulnerable in this expensive home, uh, home in terms of like retirement home and being treated like shit for the rest of your life.

Until the day you pass. So I sympathize with that. I do too. Yeah, I would rather have that autonomy, but then the society hasn't been thought through to think about what these people really need in order to live out quality lives to their last day. And so we're just kind of dignity to like the old folks homes.

Like we had to put my grandma in one of those and she spent the last 10 years of her life really just Lonely and sad and just really terrible. And this is not what we should be doing to our elderly. We should be revering that. I've never met a person who had to put their loved one in one of, in a retirement home and been like, Oh, it's so great.

Right? No. They're having the time of their life. Like those are probably few and far between, but again, it's an infrastructure issue. Like we don't have the social services to take care of the population. Yeah. Period. And usually what happens is they live in their home until they cannot anymore, they need full time care, and someone coming to your house for full time care is much more expensive than going to a retirement home.

Oh yeah, let's get back to like, yeah, the to sell their home in order to pay for the retirement community, and then oftentimes that money runs out, and then what are you going to do? Exactly. Um, do you want to talk about some ways to maybe address it? Yes. Let's get to that and then get to our last three questions.

Oh, awesome. What do we got? Um, so a couple of things that are going on right now, both in our market and nationally, um, that can contribute to making everybody's lives a little bit easier. Let's talk about that. Um, I'm all about an easy life. So multiple occupants in a home. So you're talking about like a multifamily home?

Yeah. Nobody wants a roommate. Yeah. Um, however, intergenerational living. freeze up housing. Mm-hmm. , and we're seeing more and more of it. So that is a, that is a thing to think about. And we're not just talking about kids that, that finish college and then go back with their mom. No, we're talking about, we're talking about elderly people who have to live with their children.

Right? Yes. And we're talking about, we also, we also are talking about parents allowing their kids to live at home. I mean, I was not kicked out by any means. In fact, my parents told me I could live as, live at home as long as I wanted to. And I'm very lucky in that they, they told me that. But a lot of parents just say, all right, you're 18, get the fuck out, sayonara, um, And what 18 year old, what job are you qualified for?

You're qualified for a minimum wage job, which we've already established. You cannot pay rent. So you have to live with like three of your friends. Exactly. Um, which is great. Cause you do have some community there. Um, So that's a thing to kind of think about. We are seeing more and more people purchasing multi-family houses.

So like a duplex mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. a quadplex, um, and living in one unit and renting out, um, the other units to pay their mortgage. Um, which isic you shouldn't have to rent out half of your house in order to pay the one mortgage that you have. Sure. We're also seeing an influx in. Uh, mother in law suites. Yep.

And accessory dwelling units. Accessory dwelling units for Airbnb purposes so that they can actually afford their mortgage because everything costs half a million dollars. Yeah. Everyone's making 30, 000 a big buzz right now in the housing world talking about missing middle housing and, um, I'd like to talk more about that.

And, uh, accessory dwelling units. So along with Changing where we build houses, we've also changed how we build houses. And part of that is because, like, the financing doesn't work for the building materials unless they're a mega mansion. So, like, if you think back to the 1950s Sears and Roebuck catalog house, what would you say the average square footage of one of those probably was?

Thousand square feet. Yeah. What would you say the average square footage of the house is now? When I think of those houses, um... Double, triple? Yeah. Easily. It's 3, 500 square feet is the average. Uh, when I think of those houses, I think of like North Avenue. Yeah. Yeah. And those are beautiful little tiny homes.

And they're not tiny. But they would be classified adequate. Yes. They're adequate for a family of three to five. Right size housing. Exactly. And so now, we had a, we had an epidemic of McMansions in the 90s. Yeah. When the economy was relatively good and people actually could afford things. And they were just like.

I, I'm making, you know, six figures was good money back then and they would want to buy. I mean, my family did it. We moved from, from Essex to Essex or from Essex Junction to the town and we, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, we, we doubled our square footage nearly. Yeah. Was that necessary? Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.

I mean, I'm 62. If you want to, if you want to own a big old, nice, fancy house. You should be in this country. You should be able to, you mean in the richest country that's ever existed? Sure. Um, one would think, yeah, you should be able to, and I don't want to stop anybody from doing that, but I do want builders to build some things that are reasonable because I've lived in a.

Big big house and it's so much to clean and I don't want to do it There are many people like me who are like I just want a little house I would rather have a little house with like decent stuff in it Yeah, and like be able to take a vacation or something. Yeah, then have a huge house that You know, there's this expression, house rich and cash poor.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that is another, you know, a contributing factor. There's a middle ground though. You can be house medium and a great life. And that is, should be, that's the middle class. That should be the American dream is to own a home that's sustainable and, and works for your family or your loved ones that, that doesn't make you drive you into poverty.

That doesn't take over 30 percent of your. Right. But see, so my husband and I have, we don't own, uh, we have owned before I would like to own one day. I know a good realtor. It's funny. You mentioned that. Um, and we were looking, just looking on Zillow, um, the devil, the devil, I might suggest realtor. com you betrayer.

Um, but, uh, we were looking on Zillow and we were laughing because a mobile home. A hundred grand cost six figures. And we were like, are you joking? What? It's not a brand new mobile home either. It's a 30 year old mobile home. That's never been updated. Nope. Probably has some, some pest friends in there because it's been vacant.

Um, yeah. So. So yeah, there's a big, are you kidding me factor in this whole thing? Like it's really disheartening for the average buyer right now. So let's just be like, I, I am never going to get a home. No. Um, I cried about it the other day actually. Um, so it's sad. It's extremely sad. And I had a, a great, I, I, the mortgage lender I was meeting with, um, We were talking about like, how are people doing this right now?

So another way to make it, to make it easier, um, Financing options, right? So we're seeing some banks waive the upfront fees. So if you don't know, a bank charges you all these fees when you get a mortgage, just like any other loan. Um, and we're seeing some more, some mortgage companies are like, yeah, we'll waive those out of the goodness of their hearts.

Um, we're also seeing some employers who have the capabilities to interest point buy downs for their employees. Um, so. Right. Um, so. You know, those are some of the ways to make it a little bit easier. Because again, the, an interest rate of 8 percent on a half a million dollar home means your mortgage payment is what Brian?

Uh, 8 percent on half a million dollars is about 4, 500. Yeah. So it's currently 6. 86%. So 8 percent on an 89, 000 home. Well, even 15 percent in the eighties. Right. On an 000 home is an extra 150 a month. Yeah, so that's not unreasonable, right? So people are going to have to get creative with that kind of stuff.

And here's where the big, we're going to circle it on back to family money. Um, pretty much everybody I know right now. And a lot of the realtors I work with are telling me that their clients are relying upon the bank of mom and dad, the bank of mom and dad, which there is not, we should be doing that.

That's the, my personally, I think that's. Part of why family is important because you do need this village. Um, but it does kind of sting a little bit in the land of opportunity where you're told you can do whatever you want to have to rely on the banker, mom and dad and a lot of people are doing like a lot of people have.

Relationships with their parents or the money comes with a lot of string attached. And again, they have the purse strings. They make the rules. I mean, that's, that's the banks do the same thing. Let's go back to Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson. That's going to Johnson's parents were slaves. I mean, they're not going to, they're wide in the inequality in this country because Most of the wealth in the country is held by white people.

So the bank of mom and dad is white and perpetuating that. Yeah. Um, and it's just, you see, the machine has been set up. It's whitey, whitey, whitey, whitey, whitey, whitey. You see a lot of immigrant communities come together and do that communal, um, um, fundraising. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, it's, it's good. It's good because it really strengthens ties in community.

It helps people feel like they're part of something and be accountable to one another, which is really great. Um, so I see that as like a good thing out of all this and social connections are so important. And I, I just don't like the way the... They're going to have to isolate people further and further, because then that we can slow social ties, which are very much needed for families to just have a way out versus then.

Yeah. Well, it's a divide and conquer. Yeah. I mean, let's face it, the elites have access, more access to. Knowledge than, than the average person with the exception of the internet and stuff like that. But we're too tired at the end of the day to bother Warren Buffett reads six hours a day. I mean, there's a reason he does that.

Wow. I wish I had a, wish I had a job where I could, so this is, this is my point though. Like, like the, the top is actively working on staying at the top. And the bottom just has to survive. Yeah. But, but we, we are resilient. Indeed. We are, um, we have brains and we have. And there's like way more of us too. We have the gumption to just like come together and I, I just don't want to end it on such a.

Sour note. You know, uh, dystopian note because like there's still hope for people to do something and do something well if we have these forums where we can talk these things through and come up with a solution because Waiting for the higher ups, the one percenters, to like grow a conscience, that's never going to happen.

To do something. When has that ever worked? That only ever works in when Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Right. Oh, I used to show that to my kids. You notice it's not Mr. Johnson goes

to you, Ruth. Um, I, you know, a good thing that we're seeing, um, more community land trust. Um, more, uh, As a realtor, I slightly hate that. I wish that they would work with realtors. They, sure. Like.

The Champlain Housing Trust right now actively does not work with realtors like on purpose because they don't want to pay out the extra 6%, but meanwhile, like I still have a family to feed. Exactly. Why cut me out? What did I do? You were cogs in the machine. Cogs in the machine. But again, it's going to take some of these, we're going to have to diversify the way we transfer property in this country.

The other thing about the housing trusts is, um, They take the equity, essentially, which is, which is how you build generational wealth. It is, it is, um, not a perfect solution, but we're seeing more of it, um, which I think, you know, helps. Do you have any more to add? Oh gosh, I have so much more to add, but I know we're on a time crunch.

Yeah. Um, I would say, uh, alternative credit scoring as well. Um, why don't your rent payments go towards your credit? Or your utility payments or even Netflix or your cell phone bill or all of it. Well, that's because, um, rich people control the credit scores. Actually, we're one of the only countries in the world that has credit scores.

Oh yeah. When I found that out, I was like, you mean what? Excuse me? I mean, I don't have to live like this. What are you talking about? Yeah. Um, and then down payment assistance programs were saying more and more of that. And that's luckily, I mean, nobody can afford 20 percent anymore. So like banks have gotten on the bandwagon with like the FHA.

Uh, and RD, the federal programs are usually three and a half to zero percent down. Right. Right. The problem with that is you then get PMI, uh, uh, Mortgage insurance, which you then have to pay until you get to 20 percent and you have to remember that you're at 20 percent and call them and cancel the PMI, otherwise you're still going to get charged for it.

The system is stacked against you. Um, uh, one, you know, one more note on down payment assistance. So this is a fun statistic, not really fun, but enlightening. Um, so the joint center for housing studies did a down payment assistance. Um, study on how it would affect black homeownership rates, so, um, and Hispanic homeownership rates.

So, um, the intervention of 25, 000 in down payment assistance would go a long way, um, and Uh, it could potentially increase black and Hispanic homeownership by 1. 1 million households, which would narrow the black and white Hispanic and Hispanic white homeownership rates by 8 percent and 3. 2%. I see a problem with that because as soon as that gets implemented, um, people uh, everything's 25, 000 more, right?

So again, the system is, we have to be, we have to be active in setting up a system that It provides equity for the disenfranchised, and it's not going to be fair. It's not going to be fair to the peop to Fair housing. Right. It's not going to be fair in the classic sense of the word fair. But Nothing in this country is.

The word fair is not the same as equity. Yeah. We're all, we're all starting at a different, we, Brian, you and I are starting on a different pedestal. Way different ways. Oh, I'm even higher than you are. Right, right. Um. I'm a, I'm a white man. I can do anything in this country. You can't. Well, you can't. And if I was, if I was born, uh, wealthy, I mean.

Oh, yeah. I'd be president by now. You probably would be. Well, actually, I'm not, I'm not in my forties yet, but. Uh, well. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. So like there are, there are things happening, but I, you know, the biggest thing is that real estate professionals and community activists have to be intentional with our actions, um, because otherwise it's just going to, the system's going to perpetuate.

Yeah. It's just going to keep going and going and going. And too many of my colleagues unfortunately are happy with the way things are going because they're making higher commissions. Yeah. And that's great for them and their families. It's wonderful. But they have to live in these communities and they're perpetuating the greedy salesperson trope.

And, and just, and it, it sickens me that I seem to be the only agent that I know that's talking about these things. Hopefully I'm wrong. so I'm happy to, yeah, I get to see in my role, I get to see the broad spectrum of real estate agents and it's. It is heartening. That's good. Because a lot of the people that I work with will go to bat for their clients.

Um, and That, that does make a difference. Um, and getting creative with sourcing the properties that you're trying to get on the market for your clients and all that. Like, there are, don't, don't let yourself get too disheartened by that. Um, and jaded. Because there are people, um, that are talking about this.

Prioritizing it. Um, yeah. With a lot of greedy landlords around here. Yeah. Like that's, that's a real problem. Yeah, we didn't touch a whole lot on that, but Well that's, that's what Carnegie, I think, was talking about essentially, was, was like own land, rent it out to somebody else make them pay for your your stuff, and take a profit off of it like that's how you become a millionaire.

I know lots of agents who have done that. Which, that is the and it's a winning formula for you. And, but and the question that everybody has to answer for themselves is that they're Can I, if I do that? And that is what makes America, America, right? Let people make those decisions for themselves, huh? Yeah.

I think we need to really dismantle this whole concept of what fairness means and think about it in the broad, you know, scope, you know, zoom out to the whole world. What does it mean to be actually fair? Because we need to have a way where. We sustain that opportunity for generations and generations, and we sustain this world right now.

The world is getting destroyed. The oceans are boiling. I mean, yeah, the homelessness crisis. Yeah. Yeah. People are dying out because of natural disasters indiscriminately. Well. More disproportionately for black and brown, and I mentioned Africa, but it's affecting, it's touching everyone now. It's getting to the point where everyone gets to feel that pinch.

Well, and as we see all of those things perpetuating, that's going to affect the global food supply. Um, it's, it's going to touch everyone and it's not okay to be okay with collateral damage or with feeling a little bit of pinch. But not enough to change your behavior for the better of other people because just because it's not affecting you to a considerable degree, or just because, you know, you can get to like donate a million dollars, but still have a billion, it's still not enough and we need to be able to like have better values or raise up our values a little bit because even if you won't get touched, it's Your kids or your kids kids will get touched and what does that really mean for you and the legacy you're leaving if you don't really care to that degree where you want to do something about it, you know, if, yeah, if, if anything else, just for your namesake, yeah, I am reminded you guys are parents, right?

Um, remember when you were a kid and you'd be crying about something and it's not fair. And what did your parents always say? Yeah. And that's, that's the case with how we're going to get out of the quote unquote housing crisis. It's not going to be fair to the people who have already won in the system.

Mm hmm.

Okay. So anything else you'd like to add before we go to our last three questions? Oh God. Um, break the stigma of manufactured homes. I love a house with character, but like, you can live in a trailer. I actually, um, am a big fan of shipping container homes. Because they're cheap, they're, they're, um, secure, they're, they're solid.

And you can, you can build them really equitably, and, um, On very little land and be very comfortable with like highly energy efficient stuff in there. And we've got a gajillion shipping containers that we're doing nothing with. So we might as well make them into homes. Yep. Yeah. I mean I could one more thing us until tomorrow probably.

So you're going to have to cut me off. I'm going to give you one more. No, please don't. No? Okay. Well, coming back to like, you said shipping containers. I saw in, uh, somewhere in Asia they're using these, these big culverts to make homes. Mhm. that are just one, like one unit is a culvert and they design things to fit inside that.

Interesting. It's very interesting. We need to think outside the box. We have all these industrial style things that are everywhere, cheap to make, concrete is ubiquitous. Let's utilize that. We don't need to have a picket fenced structure in order to, like, feel like we're living the American dream or whatever dream you have.

We can think outside the box and use materials that are already there, that are cheaper to make, and look pretty cool. I mean, I don't know how hard you get it. Our profit seekers out there, you can make a lot of money if you innovate. If you want to make money, innovate some creative solutions for building materials, because there you go.

There is money in environmentalism. Yep. Yeah, there is actually. I mean, look at the Elon again, but look at the Tesla battery thing that he's making, um, that he's making a fortune on. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's get to some fun questions. I feel like I've been dominating this. Why don't you ask some? At the butterfly ending.

Yeah, I need to be in chrysalis mode and just incubate some really good ideas. I like that. Chrysalis mode. Yeah. I really like that. Speaking of chrysalis mode, um, I read something not that long ago that said, um, you know, so many people just want to become a butterfly. , but they think that they just have to strap wings on their backs.

But really what happens is the caterpillar becomes goo and like destroys itself and then rebuilt. Yeah. Our housing market is definitely in the goo, right? Yeah. But it's not actively being brought down to be rebuilt. It's just a mess. Yeah. But there's, there's systemically designed to be a mess. So what happen needs to happen is people need to actively break it down and to then rebuild it more equitably.

That's my, that's what I think. I'm still on the side of, because you know, at the core I'm an artist, and a lot of artists are the ones innovating right now, you know, reusing with everyday materials, not wasting things, not throwing things in the dump, and just re, reviving things, and I think that we need to just keep inspiring people to be those kinds of thinkers, because that's what's going to help us.

Uh, we don't need to be regurgitating what our ancestors did because that's leading us to a, you know, well, it's leading us to having 30 tons of trash in the, yeah, but we can be creative. Um, and that's okay. Yeah. I feel hopeful because as, as a parent, I still want to have that. I want to impart that hope in my children.

I want them to feel like. We haven't screwed things so bad that they have no hope of making any, um, substantial changes in their environment. I really don't think that that's the truth. What I'm saying is that there is hope. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And people are resilient. And there's way more of us than there are the Richie Riches.

And let's look at the French Revolution.

Disclaimer.

Shall we ask Truist some questions? Yes! Ask me the tough questions. The tough three questions that we have for every guest. So number one is, What is one domestic task that you do really well or enjoy? You don't have to, like, do really well. to enjoy. I do every domestic task. Well, actually, that's a total lie.

I cannot fold laundry.

It's more of an emotional issue than a, like I can do the laundry all day. I'll, in fact, the thing that I am best at in terms of domestic, domestic things, stain removal. You got a stain? That is a skill. You got a stain? I'mma get it out. I'mma call you the seat. Oh. Carbona. You're not, you're not sponsored.

It's, it's a brand of stain removal. Um, and they're, they come in like the tiniest portion sizes, which if you have a baby, it sucks because there's stains everywhere, but Carbona gets a coffee stain out, I'll send you a picture, um, uh, stain removal, but yeah, the folding of laundry to me is like. I've done the task.

I've like, washed it and dried it, know, right?

Disney lied to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that's, I'll, I'll give you two. I'm bad at folding laundry, but I'm really, really good at stain removal. I'll take it. Okay. That is an important skill that, you know, It's expensive, too, to get a stain out. Oh, it's cheaper than you think. No, no, like, if you don't know how to do it.

Oh, yeah, then you're stained. Yeah, or you're gonna have to go to the, you know. It comes from a sense of frugalness for me, of like, I am wearing this shirt more than once.

I'm with you take something to the dry cleaner, you spend twice as much to get it removed than you did to buy it. And they'll always go, Well, we don't know if we can get it out, but we'll... Let you pay us to let us try. So I feel you. It's a good one. Okay. Let's get to the second one, which is the second one really quickly.

I'll let you ask you, but let me preface the second one by asking Troy, where did that name come from? My name is spelled T R O I. If you are a fan of Star Trek, the next generation, it might seem familiar to you. My parents were Hugh R. Huge Trekkies. Um, in fact, we met William Shatner this year. Shut up. I did.

There's a, Ticonderoga, New York. My parents came up to visit and my dad goes, uh, William Shatner's going to be at the Star Trek museum. Should I buy his tickets for a photo op? And I was like, why even ask that question? Just buy them. Well, I was like, let's be clear. I am not as much of a Trekkie as they are, but it was going to make them really happy.

So I was like, sure. Um, so anyway. Troy, Deanna, Counselor Deanna Troy, is a character on Star Trek The Next Generation. She is the ship's, like, counselor. Um, which is fitting for me, because I'm all about the emotions. I gotta say, this has been pretty therapeutic. Really? Because I feel more depressed than ever.

No, but there is hope. The fact that we're talking about these things is a big deal. And we're shedding light on them. They say an alcoholic's anonymous, I would know. That the first step to, to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Yeah, here we are. We have a problem. Yeah, yeah. So, there's the story on Star Trek.

Nice. And Troy. I was giddy when I heard that. I was like, Ah, this is perfect! Cause I am a Trekkie. Not, Not geeky Trekkie, but She's not selfie Yeah, yeah. I've got some stories for you about that experience. We can talk about like, because for me, I love, um, what's his name? Picard. Picard. Yeah. Oh, Jean Luc. Jean Luc.

Oh my goodness. I just love that name. He's my, he's my captain. Yes, he is my captain. My captain. Yeah, truly. I that guy. Absolutely. Yes. Here's to Jean Luc. Oh, Jean Luc. Um, so the, the tricky question is if you were a Starfleet officer, which you know very well what that's like, sent on a mission... Enough from first hand experience.

Actually, first hand experience. If you were a Starfleet officer sent on a mission for an indeterminate period of time, and you only had to take three personal items, what would they be? This question almost broke me. Because I was like, what's the thing where you just say, like, give me an apple, trans, what is it?

Yeah, that thing, that, I keep forgetting that name. I'm a bad Star Trek fan. I know, me too. Transponder? Yeah, no. You could just say like, Earl Grey, T Hawk. That's John Luke's name. Exactly, yeah. It was like, or that could just give me whatever I wanted. So, Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah. That, I feel like, That brrrr thing.

Yeah, the, yeah, the, yeah. With the sparkles and everything, yeah. Um, yeah, so, I think it would be paper copies of my favorite books. How many books are we talking about? You can't bring like a library with you. I don't know. There would have to be some narrowing of the book collection for sure. That would be painful.

So we could say a trunk of your favorite books. So that's like 50 books. That's pretty good. Just recycle for an indefinite amount of time. I do that though. Yeah, me too. I read um... I'm a content recycler for sure. Ask me about the next... There's a couple books that I reread like every three, four years. One of them is um, uh, I can't remember, Catcher in the Rye.

Oh! Especially when I feel like nostalgic or whatever because I first read it in high school. Yeah. And I'm just like, I feel like a teenager. So, my next item. Just came to me. But again, I feel like the technology would solve this for me. My favorite content to recycle is the 1999 cinematic masterpiece, The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

Cinematic masterpiece? I use that unironically. Okay. Um, it is, it's the perfect movie. It's not too serious. It's not too, like, romantic. It's not one thing. It's not one thing, and that's what I like about it. It's got a little bit of everything for everybody. And the cast is gorgeous. So, I would probably bring the infrastructure.

For that. To like, be able to watch that. That was a good year for movies, I have a Kindle or an iPad. No, it's different. I need the physical book. So is it like VHS? There's something romantic about having a physical book. So I do have a DVD copy of it. But the quality is bad. It stands the test of time, and I won't hear anything.

It's

like, it comes up frequently in my household. So like, mummy will come out of her sarcophagus, and my husband will be like, Really? It stands up to time, doesn't it? And I'm like, Shut up, . Do you wanna get a divorce? housing is too expensive for us to not live in the same place, . Um, so that, and then the third thing that I think I would bring would be the infrastructure to have some like, Green plants.

Like, I need to be able to touch some grass. Every now and then. We don't need a holodeck for that. No, no, no, no. I need the real thing. I don't know if that would last in space, but I do want just like a little patch of grass to touch. I feel like the Starship Enterprise would be able to have a botany room.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, because I said I was going to bring my bird of paradise. I have to take care of that baby. Yeah. How long have you had this bird of paradise? Oh, we've had it for some time. Yeah, for like two, three years. She's had it for longer than I've had it in the 40 foot ceilings. She is threatening because we have

south facing windows. And she's like. She's a big girl. That's amazing. I will say that the other reason why I don't think that the infrastructure would be. That probably is not the best usage of my personal item. But because I don't have a green thumb. Oh, like I kill a lot of stuff. So I would have to like part of the infrastructure might have to be a staff person.

You can have a sprinkler system and a, and a Roomba kind of like lawnmower. Nobody needs

to be Elon Musk. First of all, you don't need that much money. I just need grass. You just need, there's something I read not that long ago. Just to throw this out there. There's something I read the other day that was like, there shouldn't be any billionaires. Once you get to 999 million, you should get a plaque that says, I won capitalism, and you, and then all your money goes to taxes.

Would that be enough for Elon? No, That's fine. He wants power. Invite him on the show. It's, it's not about the money. No. At a certain point, he's got more money than he needs. Well, you like, who hurt you, baby? Heal your trauma. What happened? Heal your trauma. Bill Gates is pretty obvious, right? Because he was, he was a nerd.

He was picked on. Mom was like, I want you to be the most wealthy person in history. No,

I don't think so. But something happened to the same thing with serial killers and some CEOs and generals. It's a God complex. And so for a long time, I think there were, there were really, it cannot be a dike. Who, who's responsible for making Probably an error, a psychotic, uh, diagnosis. Probably another billion.

There is this really nice, um, um, dissection of why a lot of like CEOs and power people end up being like having the dark triad personality and it all came down to, it's the system that sustains this kind of people. To be able to seek these kinds of position. So it's not necessarily like absolute power corrupts absolutely, but absolute power attracts or the way we've set up the desolate.

Yeah, the way we've set up power is like people who have those kinds of like personalities are the ones who thrive. Um, and you know, I have that kind of personality. You just don't know it. You have a, oh yeah. Wooo! So, last question. Last question. This is like the longest show we've done so far, I think.

Sorry. Uh, it's totally fine. I could talk. Yes, it's all good. No, this is, these are big issues. We have to make room for this. How can we a whole series, so we can bring you back. Uh, last question. What's one thing that can instantly make your day better? There's a lot of things. Bye. Thanks. Uh, walk in the woods, looking at some trees.

That is nice, yeah. A little sunshine. A little forest bath. And grass. And grass! Actually, I did go for a walk, we went for a little hike yesterday, and you know what the thing that I'm always most excited about on a walk, like a hike, is touching the moss on the rocks. It thrills me. Did you know that it only grows on the north side?

Yeah. Who doesn't know that? I don't know. But that's a great way if you're ever lost in the woods. That's a great compass. See, I would be panicking too much, so I wouldn't think about that. I would find my way. I've done it. I've been lost in the woods. As a young man, I got lost in the woods and I found my way out.

That's scary. That is scary. Yeah, I, touch it. I would even... I'm going to edit that. Touching moss makes my day better. Just touching moss. Just touching some moss. I, yeah, I feel like I'm such a kid because I always imagine like little fairies being on the, you know, And the rotting wood. Yeah, it's perfect.

Yeah, that's a good one. Great. Well, Troy Bachman. Thank you so much for today. Thanks for having me, y'all. Yes. We couldn't have done it without you. Um, I mean, we could have, but it would have sucked.

It's been illuminating and, uh, depressing, but grounding. Happy to rant about housing whenever you need. I really think that it's been more uplifting than anything else. It is, the numbers are scary and the fact that billionaires exist and are actively working against us is also scary, but We can overthrow them.

We can rebuild the system. That's your takeaway? No, I'm not.

No, but like, we can have a non violent economic revolution in this country if we all band together. It's going to take all of us being intentional. Yeah. All of us. All of us. Everyone. No head buried in the sand. No. If the outro music isn't Les Mis, then you're doing it wrong. Do you want to pay for the rights to that?

Just for this episode. Fair enough. Today's episode is sponsored by Jean Valjean. 3, 4, 6, 2, 1. What is it? Yeah. Oh, now I got to sing that song. You're welcome. All right. Yeah, we got to have a show.

24601. 24601. That's exactly what it is. That was fun. 24601.

The Dwellness Podcast is produced by Steinmetz and recorded at Dialed Studio at Hula. Our audio and video production is handled by Syntax in Motion. Our audio engineers are Wesley Davis and Will Davis. Our show producers... Intro music is by Sam Barsh and outro by Ian Kalosky. Artwork and promotions by Snicket's Public Relations.

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Steinmetz VT. Or you can sign up for our newsletter and get insights into our lives at our website, steinmetz-vt.com. Thanks for listening!