The White House quietly floated a big potential unlock for housing inventory this week and no one seemed to notice.

On Fox Business this week, Kevin Hassett (Trump's Director, National Economic Council) said to expect a lot more policy between now and the midterms, and Larry Kudlow said he'd talked to the President about two capital gains ideas and that Trump is very interested. Legit news here.

Idea one, index capital gains to inflation. Right now you get taxed on the difference between what you paid and what you sold for. Indexing adjusts your purchase price upward for inflation so you only pay on the real gain. Buy at $300K in 2005, sell at $800K today, and your taxable gain drops from $500K to somewhere around $320K.

Idea two, a much bigger exemption on home sales. Today you exclude the first $250K of gain if you're single and $500K if you're married, and that number hasn't moved since 1997. Kudlow floated exempting homes worth $2 million or less entirely.

Millions of people are sitting in houses they'd love to leave and won't list because the tax bill is real money. Realtor.com says 34% of owners already blow past the single filer limit and it's headed to 56% by 2030. That's not a rich guy problem anymore. That's your neighbor who bought in 1998 and has three empty bedrooms.

Reality time though ... tax law goes through Congress, and nothing is passing before November. There's a long shot where Treasury does the indexing piece by regulation, which they looked at in the first term and shelved when their own lawyers weren't sure it was legal. So this is a campaign promise, not a policy. This is likely a Trump "vote Republican in Novemeber and we will deliver this" play. It also makes sense and could happen.

The other part ... floating a tax break without passing it makes sellers WAIT, which freezes inventory in the short run. Which we don't need right now.

Here's my version, which I've been begging for on LinkedIn since roughly 2017.

Read the rest of this post here …

There are two kinds of speakers at mortgage events. The ones who are actually doing the thing, and the ones who talk about doing the thing. It's usually obvious pretty quick, at least to me.

I never planned on speaking, it happened against my will almost. I'm a practitioner. The people who taught me this business don't have speaker reels. They have P&Ls. I've learned WAY more in hotel bars and conference hallways than I ever have in ballrooms.

Here's what I actually talk about...

Being great at sales in 2026 means being good digitally. That's not two skills anymore, it's one. People live on their phones. If you're growing anything professionally and you're not showing up consistently and creatively, somebody like me who is will take it from you. Bottom line. You. Will. Be. Bled. Away.

And it is not hard. A little strategy and a lot of consistency. Everything I teach is free and immediately implementable. There's no course at the end, no funnel, nothing to buy. Just start.

My whole goal when somebody puts me in front of a room is to talk them into starting. That's the entire design of every presentation I give. One long case for beginning immediately instead of someday.

I'll plead if that's what it takes. Operation Change Behaviors The Next Day.

If you're planning a sales meeting or a conference and want a speaker not guaranteed to suck, shoot me an email.

Whalen's insight on what actually drove the "hedge loss." His argument for why UWM's reported gain margin isn't what it looks like. And how Ishbia could lose control of the company if they're ever forced to mark down their MSRs.

Devin Booker - CLEVELAND is calling!! Make it happen Dan Gilbert!

Click here or below to read Whalen’s latest.

I run a state mortgage bankers association, so I know exactly how hard the thing Louisiana has pulled off actually is.

The Louisiana Mortgage Bankers Association (LMBA) was not on anybody's map a few years ago. Today it is one of the best run state associations in the country because a small group of people kept showing up. They built a Future Leaders program that is actually producing CMBs instead of handing out name tags, they take advocacy seriously, and they put on a conference that competes with events in states five times their size.

Big big ups to Ashley Logan, AMP, Katelyn Hodges, CMB®, AMP and the rest of the crew at LMBA!!

I get to sit down with FICO's Eric Lapin on the main stage for a fireside chat. No slides, no script, and we are giving a third of the time back to the room.

Here is what I plan to ask him. What the newly released GSE loan level data actually shows, and what a lender should do with it Tuesday morning. What predictiveness means in plain English for somebody running a $300 million shop, not in a white paper. How trended data and longer credit histories change what a model can actually see. And the one nobody wants to ask out loud, where the dollar goes when you pay for a score, and what the Direct License Program changes about that.

Eric and I have known each other a long time and we both prefer straight talk, so I am not planning to lob him softballs and he would not want them anyway.

If you are in Louisiana next week, come with a question.

Trump admin floats capital gains on home sales

Better.com’s new CEO vacations in France while ousted Vishal Garg tries to take company back over

Items you can’t bring through TSA at an airport people forget about

How Earth’s night lights have become our most honest economist

Owner of valuable Cooper Flagg 1/1 card comes forward

Anthropic revenue jumps to $11.5B in second quarter

LAST day to get early bird pricing for Home For The Holidays

AUGUST

Aug 26 - NATIONAL DOG DAY
Aug 27-29 - Fed Jackson Hole Retreat (Warsh's first as Chair, and the one to watch after three dissents in July)
Aug 28 - FINAL NFL ROSTER CUTS FOR REGULAR SEASON!
Aug 29 - COLLEGE FOOTBALL RETURNS!
Aug 30 - US Open Tennis Tournament begins

SEPTEMBER

Sept 1 - JOLTS for July
Sept 4 - August Jobs Report
Sept 7 - Labor Day
Sept 9 - NFL SEASON KICKOFF, Seahawks host Patriots in the Super Bowl LX rematch (a Wednesday, not the usual Thursday)
Sept 10 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Sept 11 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Sept 13 - US OPEN TENNIS FINAL
Sept 14 - 78TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS on NBC, going up against Chiefs vs Broncos on Monday Night Football
Sept 15 - OMBA NIGHT AT THE BALLPARK! Columbus Clippers party deck outing! Tickets here!
Sept 15-16 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 16th
Sept 19 - INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY
Sept 19 - Oktoberfest begins in Munich
Sept 20-22 - Uniquely TMC, Austin TX
Sept 21 - OMBA GOLF OUTING, The Golf Club of Dublin, 9:00 AM shotgun start
Sept 24-27 - PRESIDENTS CUP at Medinah Country Club, Snedeker vs Ogilvy
Sept 27 - MLB REGULAR SEASON ENDS
Sept 27-29 - MBA Compliance and Risk Management Conference, Washington DC
Sept 29 - MLB POSTSEASON BEGINS
Sept 29 - NHL SEASON OPENS, first year of the 84-game schedule
Sept 29 - JOLTS for August
Sept 29 - NATIONAL COFFEE DAY

OCTOBER

Oct 2 - September Jobs Report
Oct 7 - September FOMC minutes released
Oct 10 - mPowering You: MBA's Summit for Women in Real Estate Finance, Chicago
Oct 11-14 - MBA ANNUAL CONVENTION AND EXPO, Hyatt Regency Chicago
Oct 12 - Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day
Oct 14 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Oct 14 - Fed Beige Book
Oct 14 - MBA Tech Exchange, Chicago
Oct 15 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Oct 16 - Import and Export Price Indexes
Oct 16 - NATIONAL BOSS'S DAY (your move, direct reports)
Oct 17 - SWEETEST DAY (invented in Cleveland in 1922, so Ohio gets the credit and the blame)
Oct 20 - NBA SEASON OPENS, Knicks raise the first banner in more than 50 years
Oct 23 - WORLD SERIES GAME 1
Oct 27-28 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 28th
Oct 30 - Employment Cost Index, Q3
Oct 31 - HALLOWEEN, on a Saturday, and the night a World Series Game 7 would be played

"The four most dangerous words in investing are: this time it's different." John Templeton

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]