The average age of a first-time homebuyer in America just hit 40. For the first time in history.

Congress actually did something about it this week. The largest housing affordability bill in 30 years passed the Senate 89-10. And it may never become law.

The bill has three problems pulling it apart simultaneously.

Problem 1: The House and Senate passed different bills. The House passed its own housing bill in February. The Senate passed a different, expanded version this week. Before anything gets to the president's desk, both chambers have to agree on one version. Right now they are not close.

Problem 2: Trump's own provision is killing it in the House. Trump pushed hard to include a ban on large institutional investors buying single-family homes. House conservatives are calling it government overreach. The same president who demanded the provision reportedly told House Republicans this week that "nobody cares about housing" and pointed them toward a different legislative priority. Without a clear signal from the White House, House leadership has little reason to move.

Problem 3: A well-intentioned rule would break something it cannot fix. This is the one that does not get enough attention. The Senate bill requires investors who build communities of rental homes to sell those properties within 7 years. Sounds reasonable on the surface. The problem is how those rental communities are built and financed.

Build-to-Rent housing is structured and financed as multifamily - think an entire neighborhood of rental homes under one loan. You cannot sell individual houses out of that structure the way you sell a condo. The entire loan would have to be paid off at once for that to happen. It is not a policy disagreement. It is a math problem.

Twelve organizations - MBA, NAHB, National Apartment Association, National Multifamily Housing Council and others - signed a joint letter making exactly this point. Their ask is straightforward: exempt Build-to-Rent communities from the single-family selloff requirement. A small technical fix that preserves the rest of the bill.

That fix has not been made. The Senate passed it anyway.

This is not a Trump problem. This is not a Biden problem. This is not even a Republican or Democrat problem. This is a decades-long, bipartisan tradition of legislating housing policy in near-complete isolation from the people who actually understand how housing gets built, financed, and delivered to the families who need it.

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"Nobody cares about housing."

That was reportedly Trump's message to House Republicans this week about the largest housing affordability bill in 30 years.

Six weeks earlier, in front of his own Cabinet, the same president said this: "I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes."

So to summarize the current White House housing strategy: prices should go up, and also nobody cares. Noted. Also noted that home prices rose nationally by 41% from 2021-2023. And that the annual historical norm is 2-3%.

This is starting to feel like deja vu. In 2018, Trump's party lost 40 House seats in the midterms. The number one voter issue was healthcare. Republicans had spent the better part of two years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with no clear replacement, and voters who needed healthcare to be solved - not debated - showed up and made their feelings known. History does not often repeat itself. But it does occasionally clear its throat loudly.

Here is what the data says right now heading into November. A March 2026 University of North Florida poll found that 50% of likely Florida midterm voters cited affordability and the cost of living as the most important problem facing the state today, with political division a distant second at 12% and immigration at 8%. Critically, that number was nearly identical across party lines - Republicans at 49%, Democrats at 48%, and independents at 52%.

Those are the moderate voters Republicans will need to hold the House. And shelter costs make up roughly 35% of headline CPI and 44% of core CPI - meaning housing is not just a talking point, it is the single largest driver of the inflation number voters have been furious about for three years.

In the 2024 presidential election, 81% of Trump's voters were homeowners - which may explain the political logic of wanting prices to stay high. But as one analyst put it, if voters feel Trump is taking care of boomers at the expense of younger generations, that is going to hurt Republicans.

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A week ago, these were students in the OMBA Future Leaders Program learning how advocacy works.

Wednesday they were in the Ohio Statehouse doing it.

They talked about OHFA funding. Rezoning reform. A level playing field for all lenders. Affordable housing. Property tax relief.

Not hypothetically. To the people who can actually do something about it.

That is the whole point of building the next generation of leaders in this industry.

Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association

Everybody wants the Super Bowl ring. Nobody wants 95 degree training camp in July.

I'm consistently amazed at the number of sales professionals who complain about their results while putting less than 20% of their time into creating content & cold outbound.

I've spent my entire career in and around sales and I'm still surprised by this. I shouldn't be anymore. I still am.

They're waiting for the phone to ring. They're coasting on relationships they built five years ago. Expecting referrals. Running the same playbook that worked in a different market and wondering why the numbers are soft.

Here is what is happening to you right now if that description sounds familiar ...

You are being bled out.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. Slowly and consistently by people who are hungrier than you and showing up every single day in places you are not. Every day there is someone younger and more motivated than you waking up and going after your relationships. Showing up in your referral partner's feed. Being useful to your clients before you have said a word to them. Building trust with people who already know you, as you slowly become invisible to them.

Most people its happening to don't even know it is happening yet. They're blaming the soft market. Or Trump. Or Biden.

I made money with Bush as President. Obama. Trump. Biden. Trump again. Good markets and bad.

People that blame Presidents or market conditions for their results are losers to me. Sorry. It's how I feel. Stop crying and adjust.

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Most mortgage industry speakers are speakers. I am a practitioner who happens to get on stage.

Everything I talk about I am doing right now. Today. Not theory from a book I read. Not a recycled deck from last year. I am in the trenches on LinkedIn, AI, content, and business development every single day and the presentation I give this month is different from the one I gave last month because the algorithms, the AI tools, and consumer behavior are evolving that fast. I talk about what is working right now with zero filter.

And every single thing I talk about on stage can be implemented by anyone in the audience that night without spending one penny. Not next quarter. Not after a budget approval. That night.

Here is what I tell every room I walk into. The mortgage industry is sitting on the biggest opportunity in a generation. The tools to get better at AI, digital, and LinkedIn than 95% of your competition are free. Right now. The playing field has never been more level for someone willing to put in the work. Ever!

If you are not adopting this stuff, someone like me is slowly or quickly bleeding away your referral partners, your prospects, and your relevance. Not because I am smarter. Because I showed up and you did not. That is the brutal truth and I do not sugarcoat it from the stage.

What I have found is that combination opens peoples eyes. It terrifies some into action. It inspires others who have been on the cusp. And it leads to immediate changes in behavior that lead to changes in results. Not in six months. That week.

Because if your team leaves an event and nothing changes on Monday morning, you did not have a speaker. You had entertainment.

If you are planning a sales kickoff, a conference, a leadership retreat, or any event where your audience needs someone who has actually done the thing and will tell them the truth about where this business is headed, I would love to talk. I have availability in Q2 and Q3.

JP Morgan Chase - home value will stay exactly flat nationally in 2026

Claude hit #1 on the App Store after the #QuitGPT movement

60% of consumers use AI weekly. Only 13% fully trust it.

Sports card hobby on pace to obliterate records in 2026

March Madness is here and the 2026 NBA draft race is watching closely

Smashed burger tacos are becoming a thing

Pig with 1.1M Instagram followers wins Guiness world record

Mar 15 - Selection Sunday (March Madness brackets announced)

Mar 16-18 - ICE Experience (Las Vegas, NV)

Mar 17-18 - FOMC Meeting (rate decision Mar 18)

Mar 19-22 - NCAA Tournament First/Second Rounds

Mar 26 - Traditional Opening Day (earliest in MLB history)

Apr 4 & 6 - Final Four & Championship (Indianapolis)

Apr 9-12 - The Masters (Augusta National, Rory McIlroy defending)

April 13-14 - MBA State & Local Conference

April 14-15 - MBA National Advocacy Conference

Apr 23-25 - NFL Draft (Pittsburgh, first time since 1948)

Apr 26-28 - Texas MBA Annual Conference

Apr 27-30 - HousingWire’s “The Gathering” Conference

"You can't have a million-dollar dream with a minimum-wage work ethic." – Stephen C. Hogan

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]