Will Rent to Own be the Way for the Next Generation?

Housing feels like a moving target right now, and we’re putting the bullseye back in view. Donnie and Eric unpack why first-time buyers are squeezed, how material costs and mill closures ripple through pricing, and where a rent-to-own model might open real doors to ownership without a $50,000 down payment. We move from the jobsite to policy and back again, breaking down what’s changing, what isn’t, and what has to shift to make starter homes a reality again.

We start with the nuts and bolts: lumber futures are climbing into peak building season, domestic mills are shuttering, and tariffs complicate imports. That strain shows up in framing packages, bid volatility, and ultimately listing prices. Then we zoom out to the core math—median home price versus median household income now exceeds 7x in many markets, devouring affordability even before interest rates enter the chat. The three levers we keep coming back to are simple but non‑negotiable: deregulation to shorten permitting and inspections, steady construction costs to keep budgets sane, and lower rates to restore buying power.

From there, we dive into a scaled rent-to-own concept for entry-level single-family homes in the $250–$350k range. Here’s the structure: builders complete homes, investors purchase in bulk, and qualified tenants sign three-year leases with 20–40% of each payment credited toward a future down payment at a pre-agreed purchase price. Pros include forced savings, price certainty, and the chance to learn a house before buying. Risks include screening failures that erase credits, bureaucratic delays, and the need to push builds beyond big-city cores into rural areas where land and infrastructure make the math work. We also talk guardrails—limiting institutional buyers that outbid families—and why “local level scaling” with vetted small and mid-sized builders can raise quality while adding supply.

Whether you’re a buyer stuck on the sidelines, a builder navigating costs, or a homeowner watching rates, this conversation maps a practical path forward. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s house hunting, and drop your biggest roadblock to ownership—we’ll tackle the best questions on a future show.

Transcript

Snow Week And Household Chatter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard. Well, I don't know about you, Donnie, but I'm glad the snow is gone. I had our run of a couple weeks and I'm all ready for spring. I'm sure you are too, because that's got to hurt business when you have half a foot of snow on the ground or more.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Yeah, well, it's a catch-22. It does hurt business. We can't get out and do but so much, but uh most of the guys, including myself, all have families. So when you hunker down with your family and you've got to be inside for multiple days at a time, number one, you save a lot of money, but uh number two, you know, you kind of see what everybody's made of, and you know, having to cook for a bunch of people for uh day after day, and and um and it kind of felt good to be prepared, man. I'll be honest. We were fine the same way.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

We got a half a foot right on the nose, which was pretty big for uh our neck of the woods, but um they were home for most of the week for school working remotely. The dishwasher never gets a break during that time. Now that they're going back to school, the dishes don't pile up quite as quickly. Yeah, yeah. Pros and cons. Yep. Use a lot of hot water with that. Hey, it's uh Eric Smith here with the Carolina contractor show across from me, your uh lovely host and uh general contractor Donnie Blanchard. And someone, speaking of hot water, I had to correct on you still slip up once in a while, but it's a water heater, not a hot water heater. And I know people sometimes give you grief about that, but we try to be correct on the show.

Water Heater Terminology And Settings

SPEAKER_00 1:30

We've been on this for years, and it's funny because people who listen to the show weekly always throw that at me, and they're like, hey, dude, since you said that, I can't get it out of my head, and I'm glad we were able to make a lasting impression on so many folks. But me being on the job site, man, you wouldn't believe how many times I hear that, and I hear it from people who should know better. And it's kind of a slippery slope because you don't want to throw it out there, especially if you're talking to an inspector, you don't want to throw it out there that, hey, dude, it's just a water heater, and how can you heat hot water? But technically, it happened today, and I won't tell you the backstory, but it got my wheel spinning, and I will say that uh what factory setting for a water heater is 125-ish, and I've got mine jacked up to about 140 because I got teenage girls in the house, and you know, um uh we run out of uh hot water more frequently than not. But I had a scenario in my mind where if the water in the heater is down to about 115, 120, that's still pretty hot, and you have the setting up to about 140, then technically you're heating hot water. You're heating water that's already hot to a higher temperature.

Show Resources And Listener Questions

Lumber Prices Surge And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Is that fair? Sorry, people may have not been able who are watching the show on the YouTube, may have not seen the eye roll. That looked like my teenage daughter. That was good. But if that's the hill you want to die on and say you're technically right that it's uh at that point a hot water heater, that's fine. But it's a water heater. But let's not get into that because we could do a whole show on that argument back and forth. Again, this is the Carolina Contractor Show website, place to start, the Carolina Contractor.com. We got uh the YouTube link there. So if you want to watch this show and watch me roll my eyes, you can do that. If you like to listen to podcasts on your own time, you can download all our past shows. The average uh show has three podcasts. Like 98% of all shows go three shows and then they bail. We've got a few hundred shows up there. We've been doing this for years because we really enjoy doing it. And so if you want to find out of a specific topic or something we've talked about, that's how they're listed. And you can download them, listen to them in your own free time. Uh also, if you have a question about your house, like where is my water heater? That might be something we can help you with. A simple question, maybe you have a detailed question. Uh Donnie Genn is a general contractor, deals with houses from the time you're getting that foundation started to when you put uh the drip edge on the roof and finish putting up doorknob handles and give them the CO. So uh hit the button that says ask the contractor, and you can uh ask any question about your house. Ask about that water heater. As a matter of fact, specifically title any question you have, water heater question, and then we'll know you were uh referencing that. But I I don't mean to dig at Donnie that much because um he's the brains of this show on the beauty. And what we want to talk about today is um housing is just the topic of everything. People are having trouble finding affordable housing, getting into a house, uh supplies are going up. Uh, let me find that uh little factoid before we get in this, uh, Donnie. Lumber prices are trending up December 2025. Lumber price futures are based on uh thousand board feet. They were five hundred and thirty dollars per thousand board feet in December, and now we're here we are in February, and they're six hundred and ten dollars per thousand board feet. That's a 13% increase in just a couple months, and spring building season is coming, that means demand's gonna go up. Um you see it and I see it because of our jobs. We're directly tied to I sell lumber, you use lumber, so we see it. That means housing prices are gonna go up. It it's just a matter of fact. Uh, you can say tariffs have an effect on it too, but they're gonna go up. So it's probably not the information you want to hear if you're trying to buy a house or or uh build a house like you do custom builds and stuff, Donnie. I mean, you probably see it all the time.

Domestic Mills, Tariffs, And Supply Worries

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, well, things have been stable for so long. I don't want to say spoiled is the right word for us, but I haven't watched it like I used to. And uh no secret that lumber prices went through the roof to the tune of 50% uh four years ago post-pandemic, and we had houses in motion that felt the pain of the lumber price increases. So definitely don't want that to happen again. Uh, we've been fortunate because most of what we do is cost plus, so we're we're kind of uh insulated from from that external factor. However, you know, I work for these people and and my heart is right, so I I want them to pay a fair price for a house, and that way everybody's happy in the end. And um I think what happened four years ago is the price of everything went up. And so uh what we're seeing now, if lumber is the only thing that's fluctuating uh in a crazy way, then then hopefully that'll be contained. And I've been doing a little digging. I don't I hadn't done uh the normal amount of research that I do because I haven't had time with the workload, but uh it does trouble me when I see domestic lumber yards shutting down. So anything stateside going out of business really bothers me. And uh, and it's not just one or two. I I'm I'm I keep tabs on a handful of these uh lumber yards and and some big players have gone out of business or are slated to go out of business. So I don't see the end game from that being a good thing. However, I do I do know that uh and I trust uh the administration to continue to trend things in the right direction, and that means that they need to maybe ease the tariffs on imported lumber, and and that's an easy enough thing to do, and surely they can see the writing on the wall. If this is coming down the pipe, they should make a move sooner than later.

Affordability Crisis By The Numbers

SPEAKER_01 7:10

I agree with that a hundred percent. You you just can't continue to uh harm uh things that can generate uh positive effects in the economy. I'm not saying I'm against tariffs. I think there needs to be an equal uh effect on both sides of the pond or across the border when it comes to tariffs. You can always negotiate that. And I think he went really strong, uh, speaking of President Trump on his tariffs, just to set up a a bargaining chip. So, okay, we can talk these back down. But domestically, I think it's a huge thing to get those lumber yards back going. That could happen, but it's not gonna be quick. They're still in the process, as you pointed out, more of them are shutting down than opening up. Um once that supply gets to a point where it's worthwhile for them to open up, it's relatively quick to get one restarted. Probably not going to be happening this year. But as we mentioned, Trump just in the news the past week was these things called Trump homes. Um, I'm sure you saw this, Donnie. Here's what he's proposing large-scale rent-to-own program with affordable entry-level single-family homes, not like uh multifamilies or things like that. Uh, think of it this way: you can go to a store and rent to own a TV or a sofa or a computer or a bedroom suite. So now they're talking about maybe you can rent to own a whole house. This isn't necessarily a new idea. There's a place in Texas for one called um Pathway Homes. They've done rent-to-owned homes um for about five or six years, and their basic thing is they build a home, they run a contract with a buyer. Buyer can get like a two or three bedroom house for 1900 bucks a month, and over time they'll go they're gonna get credits towards buying that house. So, like a rent to own. First thoughts, just with that information, Donnie. What does that make you think?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

I think that if it's that versus renting to rent only, then great. And I think that there are a lot of people I uh just riding down the road thinking about the show today, I I'm just reflecting on personal experience and and you know, got two kids in their early 20s here, and they have suffered from this uh this gap in in basically the the world where they weren't able to carry on like we were, and you know, we kind of eased into the family life, eased into home ownership, and the job got better, we got paid more as we went, and things just went like they were supposed to, where these young 20s, mid-20s folks have been shocked, and I don't want to call it a whole decade's worth, but at least a half decade where things have just been out of control and everything from uh uh inventory to house prices to uh the the price of lumber being insane, and and who in their early 20s can afford uh the average cost of a house at$450,000, a half million dollars. Um, so so I just think that that combination has really set them back. And I think that we have to overcompensate in the other direction to get some of these people in houses. And if rent-to-own is the best way to do that, I'm all for it.

Deregulation And Permitting Roadblocks

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, and the the big issue with first-time home buyers, especially like the example you're getting in your 20s or getting your career started is the down payment. Not that you don't need you have to have one. Uh, as we've said before, always get a realtor because they have lots of ways to help get you in a house. But on the average, they just can't come up with the money. The um uh the stat is the average uh renter has less than$10,000 that they've got ready for a down payment on a house. So this program is they even came up with a little slogan, a path to ownership without needing$50,000 cash up front. The technical term to address what you're talking about in a personal life situation is the median median home price versus the median household income is the worst that it's been in 40 years. Historically, a house that was would be five times the amount of the buyer's household income. All right. So if you made$50,000 a year, the house you would want would usually only be five times that. Now that rate is up to 7.1 times your annual household income. And if you don't have that down payment, you don't even make a shot at trying to buy a house, there's a shortage of houses. Um this is one of the things Trump talked about, Donnie. Deregulation, getting more houses built. Uh I'm just gonna say I'm positive from your side of things, getting rid of some of the red tape of building a house would be a huge step in this process of building a lot of affordable housing.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah. Whether you're a contractor or a homeowner who's ever tried to build your own house, deregulation would be a gift from God uh because it the red tape will will absolutely kill you. And it's not just inspections that you have to go through. You have to go through all the regulatory agencies in your municipality before you ever break ground. So sometimes that means planning zoning. Uh if you're in the county, it's environmental health for well and septic. And then after they are all satisfied and they give you what's called a construction authorization, um, that will give you the green light to actually apply for a permit. Then you got to go through all that, and um, that's that's your structural stuff and and everything that you pay the big bucks for. So yeah, deregulation would be very helpful, and um uh, you know, we would all celebrate. Uh hopefully, if there's some kind of deregulation put in place that makes things easier, that it would carry over to the follow-in few administrations. But I got a strong feeling that the the first place they'll start is in the commercial world, and hopefully we get some trickle down in the residential.

What “Trump Homes” Propose

SPEAKER_01 12:40

I'm gonna jump real quick into how this proposal works, and maybe you can put some real world uh experience to this, Donnie. What the Trump House or Trump home proposal does is it's gonna target entry-level homes. They're price pointing these at 250 to 350. Geography matters. Obviously, that's not gonna be in downtown LA or New York or a big city. Learn to live rural. I commuted 50 minutes to work each way, and I have a house that would cost two and a half times the mortgage if I were in town. You have a relatively speaking, a good commute. You're in the sticks, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Oh, yeah, for sure. We're about uh 25 minutes from the interstate. Uh, so you learn to live with it, and it's not a bad thing, and I guess you just if you really want to put it on paper from a budget a budget standpoint, I think the savings are still there. It's not like an extra tank of gas a week is gonna um, you know, make up for a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars saved on where you live.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, so if you're willing to live a little bit farther away, you can but three hundred and fifty thousand dollars can go a long way today.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

I agree. And um I think that part is is is important to note. And I don't know that this thing is gonna hit our area. I really feel like they'll start in the bigger cities, you know, uh to call out Charlotte or Raleigh around here is probably where we'll find that. That said, uh, you know, find enough land. I think they called for about a million homes in this plan that that if they pass the bill for this, it's gonna be at about a million. And um, I would say that they'd probably break that down to a hundred, two hundred, three hundred per subdivision, and still finding that enough land to put everybody on city, water, and sewer, or you know, to what that looks like if everybody's on a community well and septic, that deregulation will have a heavy hand in making that either work or not.

How Rent-To-Own Would Work

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Okay. So here's how it's gonna work, Donnie. A home builder like yourself, or it could be a group, uh, builds, constructs entry-level homes, again, in that price point of$250 to$350. A private investor or investor pool buys the home or homes from the builder at completion. Now that investor rents the home to a qualified tenant buyer. That's what we're gonna call the person. It's a three-year lease term. Um, and what they do is a portion of the monthly rent, they're talking somewhere between 20 and 40%, is credited toward future down payment. So if you're spending a thousand, we'll keep the math easy,$1,000 a month on the mortgage,$200 or$400 some dollars every month is gonna go towards a future down payment on the house. After three years, the tenant has the option to purchase at a pre-agreed to price. So when they first went in this agreement, day one, they said the cost of this house is gonna be$300,000. Three years later, when you you say, I want to buy this house now, it's$300,000. I like that. You don't have to worry about the house going up in value so much that it will be impossible for you to earn the credits to get it. Uh, that means no large down payment required. You get equity because ironically, by paying those monthly payments and then you start buying it, when you own the house, you've got all that equity built in. The investor short term gets rental income, potential appreciation, and the builder is going to get a guaranteed bulk purchase of homes, meaning they don't have to build one or two homes and it's they're gonna make it worth their while. Yeah.

Screening Buyers And Credit Risks

SPEAKER_00 16:02

But could you do it on a smaller scale? Uh, no doubt. Uh, it just what would have to come into play for for that to actually work is uh I know that Trump has put something in place, and I do I do believe this either has passed or will pass soon. He's blocking institutional investors from buying new construction. So getting a lot of these big players off the table is gonna make a big difference for the average family trying to buy a house. And that even in my world, when uh you hear somebody say, hey man, I've got a beat on a really good lot or two or three lots, you jump all over it because you know, those off-market deals are really the only chance you can you have to capitalize before the big money players get involved. And you know, they'll they're they're a hundred times uh more wealthy than the average person. So, you know, throwing a half million dollars, a million dollars around is no big deal for them. But what that does is just screws up everything for the little man. And um, but I do think that that's definitely doable. And you know, you get 250 out of that 1,000 towards your down payment in that third year. It's not a lot of difference than reverse amateur amortization when you take out a regular loan because you're not getting very much towards the principal in a 30-year mortgage, you know, from years one to three, four, five, or even really till you get to year 15 where you kind of flip the other way and you're paying more principal than interest. So not a lot difference. And and if that's the only avenue for them to get that down payment break, I'm all for that too.

Rural Living Tradeoffs And Site Selection

SPEAKER_01 17:20

You know, I just thought of something, Donnie. Um there's a couple at our church and they were moving, so they were put their house up for sale and and moved to Wilson, and their old house wasn't selling, so they rented it, and someone had rented it for two or three years and came to them and said, Hey, I'm interested in buying your house. Will you use some of what I've already paid over the past three years to take off that from the total cost of the house? And they thought, okay, that's fine, and made the sale and got rid of the house. So it's already done on a small scale. I'm sure they're not the first person to ever do that. Sell a house and then tell the the renter says, Can I buy it? Will you give me some credit? Uh so the pros of doing this would be for the buyer, they're forced into savings. They're gonna have a portion of their money that's going to the uh mortgage put to the side as a credit, but they also see the end game. I can own this home. They got a locked-in price. I also think they're gonna really learn about the house and things that they need to do or ways they can expand it in the future because they'll be there for three years before they even start buying it. For a builder, uh if they're getting all these lots to build on, large, predictable sales volume. What sales? Volume. Um, the investor, they're gonna make money on it, uh, like a traditional rental. Um society in general, I think increases home ownership rates. It has uh it helps uh neighborhoods develop, reduces pressure on the rental markets. Um, and part of what Trump's doing it for is, you know, he said the American dream, build better, make America great again. Those things technically that could be uh another reason he's doing it, but it's good economics. Um anything you can think would be another positive to it?

Builders, Investors, And Scaling Locally

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Or yeah, well, and I'm glad you said that because I've been waiting for him to do something, man. We we talked about the big beautiful bill a few months back when that surfaced, and they really didn't have anything in there for first-time home buyers. It was mainly incentivized uh towards commercial construction multifamily builders, and that doesn't affect me, doesn't help me. Uh, and that's selfishly speaking, but and that at that point it just looked like they were trying to put roofs overheads where there were rent just to, you know, rent or uh or uh anything they could do just to get people in houses, and that doesn't tackle the home ownership problem and the long game is what I'm trying to say there. So yeah, and I and I think that um the solution is is a threefold approach. So uh deregulation being uh really important part of it, and all these things need to happen simultaneously for this to really work, but deregulation being a big part of that, no, you know, cutting the red tape out, uh, the cost of the construction uh can't go up. It can't get crazy. And I say cost of construction, not price of houses. So I'll explain what I mean there. But uh and the mortgage rates have to continue to come down. I know there's a new chairman for the Federal Reserve, um, the last guy, he he's he's out, and um, I'm drawing a blank on his name. You probably remember Powell. Powell, Jerome Powell. So Powell, he was he basically had the keys to the kingdom right there, and and they teased interest rate drops all last year. I think we were what, August or September, and they said there were going to be three more drops before the end of the year, and that didn't necessarily happen. It may have happened in terms of a few half or a quarter of a percentage point here and there, but it didn't apply to all banks and and definitely didn't run across the board. So uh those three things deregulation, the price of new construction, and the interest rates coming down, all need to happen for anybody to be able to pull this off and you know to not just talk about it, but to be about it. Um the reason I said I'll elaborate on the cost of construction versus the value of existing homes is because I heard Trump in his own words say that he does not want high house prices to go down. So that's the cra that's that's the craziest thing when you think about the cost of construction has to stay stable, but he doesn't want the price of houses to go down. And I kind of understand because you and I are in that boat. We just said it that your your house is worth two and a half times what it was when you paid for it or uh what a mortgage would be now on that same house. And I'm in the same boat. I built my house, what, 13, 14 years ago, and the value of my house has doubled. It cost half to build my house what it would cost these days. So, you know, basically my house is the biggest asset that I have in terms of um uh just a a fallback plan. I don't I don't plan on selling my house to retire off that money, but at the same time, these people who have been consistent and faithful to their mortgage payment for 15 out of the 30 year mortgage and all of a Sudden, you know, house prices go up. Well, that's great for me. It's bad for all the young people, but I don't want to be punished because I paid my dues all the all at the same time.

Protecting Small Builders Vs Tract Giants

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah, the boomer hate's ridiculous. It just makes the younger generation seem uh whiny. Not to go too far into that. Um, the generation X and Y that are going boomers suck and blah, blah, blah. It's like there's a thing called, and anybody can look this up, the great wealth transfer. Yeah. Uh, that generation is going to become the wealthiest by far through inheritance when as the boomer population decreases, and they will have done nothing to earn it but be born. So they're actually, when they say boomers had it easy, they're actually not realizing they're going to have it even easier than that because they will literally inherit trillions of dollars and have three homes. Um, you mentioned some of the cons of it. I want to point out a few more of the Trump houses because the idea is good, but the execution could be crazy complex because you've got to get builders, investors. I don't think you'll have a problem with potential renters, lenders, because somebody's got to have the money. We talked about location. If you're willing to live a little farther out, you can get a good deal. If you're thinking you're going to get a Trump house in downtown Charlotte or downtown Raleigh, that ain't going to happen. Um a risk for the tenant is if they can't buy after three years or decide not to, they're going to lose those credits. You can't transfer them to another house. So if you've lived there for two years and 10 months and you've got theoretically$23,000 worth of credits to buy the house, and you decide I can't afford it, when you move, that$23,000 credit goes out the window. You're back down at zero. I'm worried about taxpayers, how they could end up footing some of the bill for this. I'm not against incentives, but you know they're going to try to build some big program with a billion-dollar bureaucracy and and everything. Um you kind of hit and hit on this, regulatory hurdles, uh, zoning, local bar building permits and all that. Um it sounds great, but it it ain't gonna happen quick, and the and the biggest interference is gonna be the same group that's trying to build it. That's gonna be the government. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Well, to touch on what you said about the down payment being lost if you don't make it in that third year and you don't qualify to actually buy the house, I think that they need to make the the screenings really strict on who they give these houses to and you know do a deeper dive uh than just the credit score and all the things, which is that's on the table as well, that they're not just taking your credit score into account. But if you look at it this way, if they were renting an apartment, which I guess you know how much apartments are going for, and the main areas, I mean, they're two grand a month for a couple of bedrooms, and it's just insane to me that people are doing that. It's probably not gonna be a lot different than that. So if you're not able to continue the rent-to-own program after the third year, it's still gonna be about the same thing as you renting an apartment.

Interest Rates, Construction Costs, And Values

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And you just don't want to lose those credits because that's the whole point of doing it. Um this is something they're talking about, could it happen this year? Uh the wheels could get rolling. I it's still a proposal. I don't think it's gonna happen this year. They've still it's been pitched by builders more than anybody else. I think Lenar Holmes was one of the big ones that said, hey, we're in on this. They do need to open it up to smaller builders who, if they say, Hey, I can get you 12 houses done in a year, we'll find a tract of land in their area that's especially rural, that can hold a dozen homes and say, have at it, do it. This helps solve the problem. Hopefully they spread that that wealth around. Um, but there's no formal legislation, there's no executive order. Um I keep going back to deregulation has to happen before the first shovel hits the ground.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah, 100%. If they if they went out and just said, hey, we're gonna go 60 miles outside of Raleigh and we're gonna search for all the you know 20, 30 acre tracts of land that are available to fast track this thing, deregulation would have to be in place. So they would have to, you know, get in touch with they would have to put something pretty darn powerful in place to say that it affects all the municipalities because even today, if you build in a little um rural town where you know the the inspections department has a lady that answers the phone, and then the the main building inspector, he's the plan review guy, he's the inspector, he does everything, you know, makes the coffee, he does everything, and versus one of these bigger municipalities that have uh you know 18 inspectors, they have four people answering the phone up front and just you know, all the admin to take care of that. You would have to put something in place that applied to all small, large, and then when you bought these things, hey guys, like we're gonna get on board, we're gonna we're gonna have a government-funded soil scientist out there just to see if that land perks. And because obviously 60 miles outside of Riley, you're not getting city water sewer. So uh that would be the first step. And then, you know, maybe go ahead and vet your builders. If you really want to make this thing go, vet your builders. Have 20 builders, you know, about the size of me, or we're not the smallest guy, we're not the biggest guy, but you know, we can probably handle if we had to build 12 to 20 houses in a year that were all in the same area, that's totally doable. So have your builders on board, you know, work the money out and and just put the right pieces in place so that if this thing can actually go, it'll happen.

Execution Challenges And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Well, Donnie, if you got a bid where they said you'd have to build 26 houses, that just means, okay, we're getting the money for it, we're gonna be able to build it. I will hire more people. So that's a win-win on top of it. You would have to expand your business. More people employed, good for the economy. Yeah. I think it's a bold idea. I have no idea if the execution is going to be um possible. Uh, they'd have to modify it, they'd learn as they go, but I don't think it's a bad idea. Um I mean, what keeps a private home seller from doing a rent to own? I'm sure banks can work the paperwork where they say, hey, you pay me a thousand a month and I'll give you 150 towards buying it. And if you're here three years later, you can buy the house from me, I'll give you some credit. This is just kind of scaling it up, but I do think you you kind of hit on a point there about you could do 12, 20 houses. To be really effective, local level scaling. That's the three-word phrase from this. Gotta have the ability for builders to say, hey, I can't build 50 homes in a weekend like these track guys, but I can build really good quality houses in the sticks between 250 and 350,000 and be game for this idea. I I just I think it's a wonderful idea, at least in our minds, execution's a whole different thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I'm gonna be devil's advocate to that point, and and I don't mean to be pessimistic, but when you think about my world versus a track builder's world, that's pretty much what they're doing anyway. They're gobbling up the big pieces of land. They have land acquisition teams and you know, all these in-house folks, they're just vertically integrated where they're they're ready to go find this land, and that's what they do now. And they they sell to home to people cheaper by the square foot than I can sell because you know they're cramming these houses into a you know a third of an acre. And um, but they find this land and and and basically they do everything except the rent-to-own part. So I think that's what the new intro uh incentive is, is like rent-to-own is gonna change the game a little bit. But like you said, Lenar, I I saw where uh Bill Poulty, he's you know involved involved with the uh very higher ups in the government, you know, so he's got a hand in on that, and I don't think he's just an advisor. So I don't know. Those guys, I I I just can't stand a track builder. The quality of what we crank out versus them is is not even close. But I also get it, and if and if that's what it takes just to get a roof over all these young people's head in terms of a homeowner and not just have them as a renter, then I can't help but get behind that as well.

Closing Thoughts And Listener Invite

SPEAKER_01 29:47

You know, you made a good point there. Um the big guys are gonna come in and they're gonna try to take advantage of it and use their weight, throw it around to get these bigger offers, but maybe they can uh modify it as time goes through. The beginning, yeah. The big boys will be in there, just put down 50 houses, add water, and poof, you got a two-story, three-bedroom house, but then slowly scale it to these better builders. And I'm not saying they're bad builders, but people like you are gonna not be doing it for speed and volume. You're gonna be doing it to make quality housing, scale it down so that they can have those 12, 20, 30 house builds and really make some impressive houses that are v really affordable too. So maybe that's five, ten years down the road.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yeah, I'll take it. Either way, it just needs to happen, man. Get these kids out of the house. I think this might be the best time to be a stay-at-home, the best time in history to be a stay-at-home grown child. And uh, you know, that can't last forever, dude. Uh mama's boy is not cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

That's failure to launch. That's a whole different thing. Yeah. I I get you on that. All right. Well, it'll be interesting to see how this goes uh as the weeks and months go on, and with the new um Fed, will he cut interest rates? Will they want to put him in because he says he'll cut them? That would have a big effect. But uh we'll see what Trump homes come about as we uh get into spring and summer, and hopefully the lumber prices and stuff won't go too high, and we'll try to keep things affordable. Yeah. Full agreement, man. For those of you listening, Donnie put up his prayer hands. Hit the website, the CarolinaContractor.com. You want to learn more about the show or uh get the links to the YouTube site and uh got any questions or comments about the show? We love to hear and love to have your involvement, and we thank you for uh tuning in and hope to see you next week. Thanks, everybody. Love you guys. Aww.