for decades owning a home has been one
of the core parts of the american dream
just below dating pete davidson but
right now
actually buying a home is harder than
matt gates watching the new saved by the
bell with the housing market red hot
prospective buyers are trying not to get
burned as demand soars but supply is
limited home prices rising at their
highest rate in 15 years and demand so
intense that redfin reports nearly half
of homes are selling within a week of
hitting the market prospective home
buyers in astronomical bidding wars
homes vanishing from listings hours
after being posted you go to an open
house there could be 50 cars in a line
outside waiting to see that property
people are are so desperate that they'll
court favors get you know potential
sellers uh tickets to rare events even
houses with notorious histories are
selling this is the 100 year old
mediterranean mediterranean-style home
in la where the charles manson family
murdered leno and rosemary la bianca in
1969 but in today's market it was
snapped up from 1.8 million dollars okay
okay okay i know what you're thinking
right now why on earth would you buy
that house someone was murdered there
yeah exactly
someone has already been murdered there
what are the odds it'll happen again
i mean i'd sleep like a baby in that
place but seriously people the housing
market has gotten crazy in america i
mean some people are buying a house just
hours after it's posted online a house
hours
meanwhile i read reviews for six months
before i finally decide which water
bottle to buy
now that i think about i should have
gotten the blue one but the question is
why has it become so hard to buy a home
in america
well let's find out why in another
installment of if you don't know now you
know
[Music]
when it comes to why the housing market
has gotten so insane lately it's kind of
a perfect storm of many different
factors
right you've got not enough homes being
built to keep up with the population
growth you've got historically low
mortgage rates so more people can buy
houses and then on top of that
more people are able to work from home
so they're leaving the city for the
suburbs where maybe yes there's not as
much excitement but you and your spouse
have way more space to murder your
neighbors
but it turns out there's something else
driving up demand for homes and that's
who is competing for them more than ever
before starting with the guys who tend
to ruin everything
wall street
with home prices soaring to record highs
there are mounting questions about the
billions of dollars big financial firms
are pouring into the market and pricing
out some would-be buyers blackstone has
been on a single-family home buying
rampage it began late last year going
head-to-head with other major wall
street players large financial firms
often backed by private equity buy up
and rent out single-family homes the
companies typically use computer
algorithms to identify desirable
property so they can bid quickly they're
very aggressive their offers come in all
cash
they come in sight unseen so as soon as
the house hits the market you got an
offer from them
okay
and they're ready to close within a few
days there's about 25 to 35 percent of
the houses in this neighborhood are
owned by wall street landlords one of
them is invitation homes which owns more
than 12 000 single-family houses in the
atlanta area and nationwide more than 81
000. three other large firms own more
than 100 000 homes combined one of them
just announced a 5 billion dollar fund
to buy more
okay okay i know what you're thinking
right now
why on earth would we allow wall street
to mess with the housing market they
caused the housing crisis yeah exactly
they already caused a housing crisis
what are the odds that happens again
not sleep like a baby in that place but
yes
wall street is now buying up tons of
homes all across america because what
better way to fix your image problem
than to become the nation's biggest
landlord i guess and regular people
regular people trying to buy homes well
they don't have much of a chance going
up against wall street
i mean wall street usually has more
money that's kind of their whole thing
your only hope is to like try and
distract them by asking how their crypto
is doing yeah and then by the time
they're done answering you'll be an
escrow
but it turns out there's another group
there's another group that's driving up
prices and they're not bankers yeah it's
not evil greedy bankers in fact
it's your mom there is a generational
fight that's playing out and partially
to blame for more expensive home prices
you've got
90 million millennials the largest
generation in u.s history storming the
marketplace and really looking for that
you know dream of home ownership to
start building wealth through owning
their own property so we have
millennials aging into their home buying
years baby boomers meanwhile are
healthier they're living longer and they
want to age in place they're all
competing for the same smaller houses
baby boomers are looking to downsize
while millennials and gen xers are
looking to buy smaller entry-level homes
so many baby boomers are active in the
housing market that it's become much
more difficult for millennials to buy a
house in general boomers have a lot more
money to outbid them that's right
boomers are dominating the housing
market and
there's an eight-hour beatles movie on
tv
they're living their best lives what's
left of them
because you know this sucks for us
millennials this wasn't the plan okay
you boomers were supposed to get old
then we would sell all your and
move you into a nursing home where you
get all the jello and geriatric hand
jobs that you want and then we take your
house that was the deal
you guys get to destroy the planet we
get the wreck rooms damn it
so with private equity squeezing them on
the one side and their parents on the
other young people in particular are in
a difficult spot when it comes to buying
a home and they rarely only have two
choices
go live in the woods
you know make a home out of sticks and
mud and join book clubs with squirrels
or
get really creative
a new trend hitting the housing market
millennials are teaming up with their
friends to buy their dream home together
for a lot of these new homeowners doing
this is the only way they're able to
afford a home a growing number of young
americans are abandoning cities and
flocking to the suburbs finding their
cheap dream homes in far flung places
more millennials are buying fixer-uppers
a big draw for young buyers fixer-uppers
are often cheaper sometimes they go for
as little as 20 thousand dollars where
are they finding these gyms well leave
it to millennials to do their house
shopping on instagram on a page called
cheap old houses why do you think
millennials are so attracted to cheap
bold houses
it's cheap and it's all right
you know sometimes reporters ask the
dumbest questions why do millennials
love crappy old houses that nobody else
wants cause it's their only option
it's like asking me in grade school
trevor why do you love sitting by
yourself at lunch time what draws you to
a life of spending recess with your
imaginary friends i mean do you know how
hard it is to buy houses off instagram
you got to slip into the house's dms yo
does the carpet match the drapes
no for real i need to know if the copper
matches the drapes i can't afford to buy
a new drape so i just need to know man
i've got a budget so that's where we are
right now thanks to boomers and wall
street owning a home may soon no longer
be the american dream the good news is
if you wait around long enough you might
still get a chance to date pete davidson
for a personal perspective on the
nation's housing crisis and what can be
done about it we turn now to desi lydic
desi i understand that you've been
looking for a house recently is that
correct yes i have i had a two-bedroom
apartment but it's just too small with
three kids running around
oh
i don't know you have three kids oh i
don't i don't know whose kids they are
they just showed up one day and they
wouldn't leave so i had to i'm sorry to
hear that desi um so how has your house
searched gone
ugh it was rough at first i mean demand
is high people are desperate the open
houses get mad if you take all the
cookies but
thanks to a little outside the box
thinking i finally found the place of my
dreams yeah wow dizzy it actually looks
amazing yeah yeah it is it's got a
chef's kitchen walk-in closets five
washer dryers for all the cult members
and a rain shower i'm sorry wait what
was that lost pod the rain shower no no
do you say a cult
did you join a cult okay yeah look i
know what you're thinking but let me
tell you what if you want a house in
this economy your best option is the
blessed door of our god king craig i
mean why pay half your salary for a
three bedroom house when for free you
can live in a 75 bedroom compound and it
comes with a home gym and a breakfast
nook for a daily diet of hot dogs and
s'mores
they only feed you hot dogs and s'mores
yes but the hot dogs are inside the
s'mores it prepares your body to merge
with your future robot host or something
i don't know i don't actually believe in
any of this what i do believe in is
bathrooms and this place has 50. desi i
don't think a large house is worth
submitting yourself to a cult i mean
does this craig guy even know that
you're just doing this for the housing
i don't know why don't you ask him
yourself craig come meet trevor no no no
no no please no day of judgment is upon
us trevor noah
join my flock on the full moon of our
final suicide orgy i'll have it next to
the heated swimming pool
i'm sorry what
you've got a heated swimming pool yo
that is dope what
i know right
come down to the suicide orgy and check
it out come on
we can leave before the suicide
um all right yeah i'll see you guys
there uh thank you so much desi and
craig
bye-bye
god king craig
yes yes desi and god king craig thanks
guys
[Music]
you