Real Estate the Ramsey Way - Dave Reacts to Trump’s Plan to Block Investors From Family Homes

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

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Dave Ramsey here and welcome to another episode of Real Estate, the Ramsey Way, where you'll learn how to make smart home decisions, avoid costly mistakes, and navigate home ownership with confidence. So I sat here on the air about, James, how long ago was that? We were talking about real estate fixes. That's probably a month ago. Oh, yeah, it was about a month ago. Yeah, probably right after Thanksgiving.

And this is being recorded the first week of the year. So I said, listen, there's a couple things we can do this housing market. The problem with the housing market is there's always been a shortage of inventory for the last two decades, really. And the shortage of inventory has caused the market to get stopped up. And there's a couple things we could do to loosen the inventory. And one is to prohibit the institutional corporate hedge funds in the Chinese from buying blocks and blocks of thousands and thousands of single family homes and taking them off the market. I would vote for that. and making them permanent rentals.

And so when you do that, you suck out the inventory. When the inventory is sucked out, the market clogs up and stops. And today, President Trump says he will seek a ban on institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Is he listening to the podcast, Dave? I don't know. He didn't call me, Ken. I know that. He didn't say, Dave, I got an idea.

That's huge. You never know, though. You never know. He's famous for watching TV and news and calling in live on shows. maybe he'll call in and you can walk him through how to do it well i just no i mean i'm i'm happy if it's his idea as long as it happens right i don't care whose idea it is yeah this is the other thing we said and if you're listening to president trump we said this one too and i hadn't seen this show up yet maybe it'll come up in a week or two the capital gains uh zero capital gains

on personal residence up to a half million dollars married filing jointly has been in place for like 25 years so here's what you do make that two million dollars oh and you know what happens a bunch of Boomers that are sitting on a bunch of equity would sell their houses. And that would unclog the market and put a bunch of inventory on the market. If you could put $2 million in your pocket and go, you know, to wherever, you know, go buy a condo or move down, some of the boomers, right? They would do it. But right now they got capital gains on everything over a half million dollars. And half million dollars on a lot of gains is not spit.

So if you got no capital gains, tax free up to a half million now, what if you made that $2 million? I promise you, it would move the upper end of the market wide up. open and when the upper end moves open then that lives at breathing room and everything dominoes all the way down to the beginning of the market because everybody can move up then they're not staccola careful dave you're going to give america indigestion yeah because it makes so much sense and those of you're listening and watching you're going you're right dave that would be amazing why doesn't it happen and you can write these two things down because it doesn't happen very often that dave ramesie has a government idea to fix anything well no that's just good legislation i know but i just

the number of times I ask government for help pretty close to zero. Well, this is one of the few things. Both of these things they could do and it would actually have an impact and it really wouldn't take long. But why won't they, Dave, tell America why they won't? Because they like our tax dollars. Well, I don't know who they is, but somebody. They is all of them up there. All of them.

The whole kitten caboodle. It's the machine. The machine. So what we do is, we got to throw the... You sound like conspiracy theorist. No, not at all. Not at all. throw the bums out until they start giving us policies like this.

But listen, really quick, I don't want people to miss what Dave just said. These are two very practical things that would absolutely make a huge dent in this real estate clog. Happen immediately. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to Real Estate the Ramsey Way. Now, if you're here, you're probably thinking about buying or selling a house. It's exciting. And one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. But you don't want to do it with an inexperienced.

agent who will rush you into costly mistakes, like the ones some of our callers find themselves in. You need a pro who knows what the flip they're doing and will keep you on track with your financial goals. That's why we only recommend Ramsey trusted real estate agents. These are vetted, hand-picked pros who actually listen to your needs, guide you through the process, and fight to get you the best deal. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent. That's ramsysolutions.com slash trusted agent. Brooks is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Brooks. Hey, Dave and Ken. Hope you're both well. We are, sir. How can we help? Well, I'll try not to be a wussy on this question.

Out of boy. It's t-ball, baby. There you go. So my question is, should my wife and I withdraw our funds from our non-retirement brokerage and saving the account to pay off our home? How much do you owe on your home? 273. And how much is in the brokerage? 202 and 83 in a Wells Fargo savings account. So enough to knock it out and still have an emergency fund? Yeah, that was my other question was capital gains tax and emergency fund.

What would your recommendations be? An emergency fund and make sure you have the capital gains banked. What's your household income? I'm the only one that works. My wife stays home with our daughter. I make $110 before taxes with the $10. for another 100 in sales. Okay.

Well, 100% of what we're talking about is not taxable, but only the gain on it is taxable, and the money market's probably got very little gain. And if it does have gain, it's taxable, not at capital gains, but at ordinary income. So it's only the brokerage account itself. What did it start out at? What's your basis in that account?

From what I've been able to calculate, it would tax about 81,000 of it. Okay, so 15% of 81,000? Yep. Wow. So it's been sitting there a while. Yeah. Okay.

So, 12 grand, right? Give or take, yes, sir. And so, let me, you said we got 280 to work with, no, no, 80 and two what? The mortgage is 273 and roughly 285 to pay it off with. Because you got 202 in the brokerage. Okay, so you have 15,000 in your emergency fund and you need to save 12,000 before tax time. Yes. I think you can do that.

making 100 with no house payment. Yeah, the mortgage is 1870 right now. If you just took your house payment and put it up, you'd have enough for your capital gains tax when it comes to April 15th of 2026. Would you consider waiting until January to wait for the 2027 tax season? Yeah. Okay. I might.

I might just to help your cash flow. Yeah. Because this is a little tight. I would, if you had zero money left and you had to pay off your house, She had no emergency fund left. I would not tell you to pay it off. Okay. And I would tell you to wait until January.

And we're kind of on the bubble on that. I mean, you got a little bit here. But, yeah, yeah, because that kicks it out almost 14, 15 months then. Yep. By doing that. Yeah, that's a good. Okay. I do, man, but gosh, I mean, be ready like, I'm talking like, you know, Papa Champagne Cork at New Year's and you write a check, right?

For sure. I mean, don't hesitate here. Don't rethink this and overanalyze it and all that kind of stuff. But that's a valid question sitting here in late October. We're only talking about 60 days. I mean, Christmas is only 10 weeks away. Right. So it's not a, if we were earlier in the year, I probably wouldn't.

But since we're right here on the threshold anyway, yeah, that's a good, that's very non-whisified, Brooks. I'm proud of you. That's how we started to recall. wuss or no wuss? To us or not to us. Yeah, there you go. Brooks, you're fun, man. Shakespeare would have loved that.