Real Estate the Ramsey Way - I Can't Afford A Home (I Have Done Everything Right)

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Feeling like homeownership is out of reach can be incredibly discouraging, especially when you've worked hard and done all the right things. We talk through the challenges of today's housing market and what it might take to make buying a home a reality in the future. Next steps: ·   🏠 Not sure what to do next when buying or selling your home? Check out our ⁠⁠Real Estate Home Base⁠⁠ for free tools and resources to guide your next steps. ·   🏠 And if you’re ready to buy or sell your home, ⁠⁠connect with a RamseyTrusted® real estate agent⁠⁠. They’re experts who’ll help you confidently navigate homeownership the way we teach. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

He says, I make $124,000 a year making two jobs more than my parents ever earned. I bought a used car and went to a cheap in-state college. My problem is that I can't afford a home. And my parents, who are retired, have a $650,000 home. I live in upstate New York where property taxes are $1,000 a month, and houses that aren't falling down selling three days. How can I possibly afford a home and how do I stop being this angry about being stolen from by, about being stolen from by the boomer generation and their generation's government,

which is ruining my relationship with my parents. That got dark quick. Oh my gosh. I felt a little anger and then he just said it out loud. Hug Owen. I feel like Owen needs a hug. Wow. And he's mad at his parents?

He's mad at the entire boomer generation. How dare you. How dare you own a home? Wow. And the generation's government. Listen, I get kind of being pissed about the housing situation. That's understandable. It is so.

crazy. It is. It's wild. How expensive things are. I can't wait for Owen to have kids for them. They're going to be so mad at Owen's generation. You ruined everything. You ruined everything. Listen. Oh, no, Owen. Why were you a child in 1992 instead of buying up a home? What were you doing, man? Oh, you're doing at three. That's the running joke. Okay, but I do feel his anger. Yeah. And I actually mentioned not to that extreme. Not to being mad at your parents. But I understand going, I've done everything right. Sure. Even debt free, making six figures. It's still hard. to afford a home where you want to live. Yep.

No matter what your age is. And so I get where he's coming from. But the real question, how can I possibly afford a home, is set a goal. And if you're debt free, you should have no payments. And if you have reasonable rent right now, you should have a pretty good amount of margin in that $124 grand to set aside in a high-yield savings account to start saving up a down payment. I mean, we just talked to a couple, right, right? at this right before the break. And they bring home 5,000.

And she said, they still can probably put away 1,300. And that's with her and two kids and a husband. Yeah. And he makes double that single, no kids. That's what I'm saying. So, like, you can make some serious sacrifices to put some serious cash away. And that's the reality of what has to happen. Now, did that have to be true for your parents for as long as what you're going to have to do?

Maybe not. Maybe not. But it is the reality. And I think that's what's hard is, like, it sucks. And I think we can say that. But then what's the next thing we're going to do? Are we going to sit and complain and be mad? Or are we going to say, okay, let's get creative and figure out how can I put money aside to save up for a down payment?

And we say for first-time home buyers, 5% is a great goal, right? Up to 20 is awesome to avoid PMI, but 5%. Are you going to have to drive 20 minutes further, one direction than what you want? Maybe. I don't know. But so there's there's ways to do it. And people are buying homes. and maybe it's going to take longer

and not specifically where you want to be. But that's where we're at. And that's the solution. That's what we try to do on this show. It's like there's a lot of people that are just, they just complain about it all day, which I get. But also. Venting can be fun for a little bit.

Yeah, vent for some. But what are you going to do after that? If you keep venting, you're going to be getting nowhere financially if you don't have a goal. Yeah. Well, there is some actual stats behind this anger. The median home price is now roughly six times

the median household income. when you look back at the 1970s, it was like two times. Yeah. So it is hard. Three times is hard. I don't want to minimize that. It is harder for a young person to save up for that home. And so that's not just the market being the market.

Part of it is structural. Part of it is supply and demand. Part of it is the interest rates during COVID were so low. Now everyone's hanging on to their house because of the mortgage. Yeah, 2% rate or something. So no one's letting go of their homes. And you've got the boomers who have had these homes for a long time. They've appreciated.

and they're going to have a big tax bill if they sell, so they don't want to get out. But there is something, Rachel, I want to bring up that is actually happening right now in Congress. Oh, yeah. That could actually help a little bit. Okay. So it's not going to be like a silver bullet, but it's a move in the right direction. So you may have heard on the news these large institutional investors, firms that own hundreds of thousands of single family homes. You've heard private equity firms.

Yeah. Well, they've been buying up these homes at scale in cash outbidding regular families, which is really frustrating. People like Owen who are about to go buy that home, it gets bought up by, you know, Blackstone. Yeah, yeah. And so that makes it more difficult. And we believe homes are for people, not portfolios. And so there's actually a bipartisan bill working through Congress right now. It's called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act.

And what's encouraging is the Senate version passed 89 to 10. Oh, wow. That's about as bipartisan it gets. Yeah. So everybody is for these protections to keep large institutional investors from buying up more single-family homes. So it's a good bill, and it actually could help some people buy a home. home could free up some of the supply. So it would basically stop these private equities of buying up residential homes. It would force them to sell off within seven years. And the ones that own 350 or more,

they can't buy anymore. It just blocks them completely. And if you are renting one of those homes, you have the first right of refusal to buy that house. So there's a lot of good things in the bill. Here's the catch, Rachel. This is government for you. So the Senate passed that. But it goes to the House now. Well, the House released their own amended version. And they quietly stripped out these key provisions that gave the bill its teeth. So they kept the name and they removed all the substance and the House vote is happening this Wednesday. And so if this weak conversion passes, these protections are gone, which sucks. So we don't want it now. We do not want this House bill to pass. And so, listen, I'm not a person who thinks I can sway government. But if this matters to you and I think it

should, I would let my House representative know. To say no. Yeah, this is one of those times where you go find your rep 60 seconds. Go to House.com. We'll drop a link in the description. to make it easy for you and tell them to keep the protections in place and to say no to this bill on Wednesday. And, you know, Congress hears from lobbyists every day. They almost never hear from regular people like you and I. And that's the gap you can fill. And we say all the time on the show, Rachel, you know, what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House. But there are structural things happening in the White House that can help the American people. I believe the government's job should be to create an environment that helps people win financially.

That's right. That's right. Not to solve our problems, but to be a part of that solution. So go to house.gov, find a rep. We'll drop a link in the description. If you want to learn more about what's going on, we'll drop a link to an article. Yeah, that's the bait and switch. Good bill in Congress, now bad bill that went to the house. I mean, as I was reading it, I was like, this is like a movie plot. It's like the bad guys are trying to swap it last minute to sneak it in.

And this is how it all happens. It's like late night. They kind of sneak it through the door. Nobody knows about it. No one has time to read it. And then you're voting on it. This is insane. This is why I'm not in politics, Rachel.

It's too much stress from it. I want to actually, we can help someone in seven minutes on this show. I know. Congress has a hard time doing that. But I'm glad we're moving in the right direction. I was needing some help, figuring out some guidance in the situation. My husband and I are in. We recently purchased this home, started out doing small renovations that led us to discover big, massive problems.

So much to the point where our contractor did some digging, realized that the permits that were pulled for this house were never completed. nobody ever inspected this house nothing was signed off there was never a certificate of occupancy and the initial home selling and we have found my nothing in the plumbing the electrical and at this point the building now is up to code nothing absolutely nothing and so my husband and i have already invested close to thirty thousand dollars in renovations that we were already budgeting to do for this house and that's not including all of the plumbing and stuff that we have recently found that are wrong with this. And so we're just kind of trying to get some guidance

on what our next steps are with all the information that we've gathered and have seized work on our new house that we bought. How long have you owned the house? When did you buy it? We closed January 29th of this year. Oh, so super recent. Yeah, we haven't even moved into this house.

Like we were going to do all the small renovations like new flooring, faceboards, some lighting. and then that was it. We were going to move into our first ever home because we had been working so hard paying off all of our debt, like our college debt and everything. So we were super excited for this big step

and then suddenly we run into this massive, massive problem. And there's a lot of people who are incompetent to get us here. And so we're not going to rehash all of that. Let's just talk about what you can do at this stage. Because right now you could be legally liable to get this thing up to code. Exactly. And so number one, I would be contacting a real estate attorney.

Correct. We are in the process of trying to figure that out. I've collected all original tax documents. Do you have the permit history? I am in the middle of requesting it. They will be sending us those documents on Monday. And I even went to the title company. And they have no record of the certificate of occupancy for the people that owned the house prior to us because they were the first home buyers to the new home. And then for us as well. Was their title insurance at closing? for us there was. I don't know if I can't speak for the people prior to us. Well, I'm wondering if that title insurance could help you in this case. It could cover some of

the stuff that was undisclosed. And then the other part is the listing agent. The person who sold you this home, you could file a complaint against them as well with, you know, your state's real estate commission. Yeah. Have you contacted your real estate agent, Victoria? I have. She said that from the legal counsel, she saw out that as a, since this was a new home buy for us that theoretically we were all in the clear not having to ask for a title of occupancy and for any of proof that the permits were completed or anything was up to code with this house. A lot of assumptions made here.

Okay. Oh boy. And you guys didn't get an inspection? We did. So we got an inspection. The inspector never flagged anything that we, there was a couple of things that he flagged, but those were like minor negligible things that my husband's like, I can fix such as like the vent on the top of the house wasn't done correctly.

So things my husband's like, it's not a big deal. Like there's nothing massive. All the problems that we found in this house are all things that were not visibly able to see, obviously. Okay. So it's not something the inspector should have reasonably caught. That's what I'm wondering. Correct. Because if so, they have their own insurance that you could fire a claim against.

But the plumbing and everything, I'm shocked that nothing, I mean, from what you're making it sound like, I'm shocked that there was no level of any problem from the inspector. Oh, yeah, for sure. We're so in shock that somehow we got from, there was, someone had purchased property and then suddenly there's a house, but there were no signatures and no signature trail from A to B. And then somehow, though, we're all connected to all kinds of city resources, though, even though the city's like, yeah, none of this was completed,

nothing was ever signed off on. I mean, nothing is making sense. no dots are connecting. Is the title claim? Like everything's good with the title? That's what I almost would be fair. I'm scared that someone else's name is in all of this too. You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, the way that this is sounding is horrible. Yeah, I have no, I mean, honestly at this point, I feel like the only thing that I felt was in the right direction was to try and go and collect all the original documents for this house and the property taxes and everything. Yeah. Before someone tries to cover something up when they find out that we're digging in it. I mean, of the, well, I guess a little over 90, I mean, close to 90 days. So that, I mean, the time for me, I would think from a legal perspective is on your side because of the window, right?

You haven't owned it for two years and you're finding all this stuff and you're trying to backtrack everything. Right. That this closing just happened. So I would. I would talk to a real estate attorney to probably get some good course of action. Because from, especially from in Texas, like specific state laws and different things, right? different states run things differently. And so they're going to know from a state-specific side how to move forward. But yeah, I would make sure the...

It sounds like you've got some leverage here. Even the titles clean, all of it. Yeah. If there's a lack of certificate of occupancy, I think your attorney's going to have a field day with this one. But it's going to cost you before we can get out of this mess or solve it. So that's the not fun part. This is going to be a full-time job for you guys just to deal with. I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's horrible. So sorry, Victoria. 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.