Real Talk with Leigh Brown

What does it really take to make housing more attainable?

This week on From the Rooftops, I'm looking at several very different proposals aimed at housing affordability and homeownership, starting with a proposed rent stabilization ordinance in Santa Barbara, California.

The Santa Barbara City Council approved a draft Residential Rent Stabilization and Rental Registry Ordinance with amendments and sent it forward for formal introduction. The proposal includes annual rent adjustments equal to 60% of the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower, along with a seven-member, tenant-majority Rent Stabilization Board.

I'm also digging into a request from Rep. Lauren Boebert for federal regulators to explore mortgage underwriting and credit-score reforms. Her letter calls for consideration of more flexible down-payment requirements, rental-payment history and nontraditional income patterns when evaluating borrowers. For REALTORS® and other commission-based or self-employed workers, that last piece should sound familiar.

Then there's the newly introduced Homeownership Promise Act from Sen. Jeff Merkley, cosponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden. The proposal would create Homeownership Promise Accounts offering eligible first-time homebuyers a $5 federal match for every $1 saved toward a down payment. It's a proposed bill, not a $50,000 homebuyer giveaway that's available today.

I also return to Western North Carolina two years after Hurricane Helene with a story from my latest Bricks and Grit about a family whose nine-month-old home was destroyed in a landslide while the mortgage remained. Through Patriot Relief, I've seen firsthand how complicated housing becomes when the house itself is gone but the financial obligations remain.

Housing affordability touches rental policy, mortgage qualification, down payments and what happens to property owners after disaster. REALTORS® need to understand what is actually being proposed before our clients encounter the headline.

This week's From the Rooftops was prerecorded while I'm in Louisiana with Louisiana REALTORS®.

Premieres Thursday at 9:00 AM ET.

Chapters

0:00 Why housing attainability matters more than affordability

2:10 Santa Barbara proposes disastrous rent control plan

4:39 Tenant-controlled boards will worsen housing shortages

6:46 Mortgage qualification changes aim to help first timers

10:46 Down payment myths keep buyers out of the market

12:33 Government down payment plans will fuel inflation

17:42 Mortgage rates rise because of global economic shifts

23:29 Banks fail families after natural disasters strike

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Leigh Brown is a REALTOR®, broker-owner, auctioneer, national keynote speaker, and author whose work helps professionals lead with confidence, communicate with purpose, and build businesses rooted in trust and relationships.

🎤 Book Leigh for Your Conference or Event

https://www.leighbrown.com/speaker

🎙️ Watch Real Talk with Leigh Brown and From the Rooftops

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-9nEf0QTnKTBSf9lF5n5dbbHSK-65KWd

🌐 Learn more at

https://LeighBrown.com

Miami isn't just Miami Beach.

It's a city being reshaped by people, money, development and demand.

So what's really happening in the South Florida real estate market? Where is the inventory? What happens when a city grows faster than its housing can keep up? And how did a Zillow lead turn into a conversation about a $100 million purchase?

In this episode, I sit down with South Florida real estate professional Chris Wands to talk about how Miami has changed, where the market is headed, and what people should understand about the city beyond the headlines.

We talk about:

• How real estate teams actually work
• Miami's transformation into an architecturally significant city
• Inventory, affordability and workforce housing
• The surprising story behind a $100 million Zillow lead
• The Miami neighborhoods worth exploring beyond South Beach

Join the Conversation Live

Thanks for spending part of your day with me.

Every Thursday at 9:00 AM ET, I go live on YouTube to talk through the week's biggest housing and real estate headlines. The best part is hearing your questions and perspectives while we're live.

I'd love for you to join the conversation.

Subscribe and turn on notifications here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@LeighBrownSpeaker

I'll see you From the Rooftops.

About Chris Wands

Originally from Port Washington, NY, Christopher comes from a long line of real estate professionals. The Wands family name has been synonymous with the industry for generations, beginning with his great-grandparents and grandparents, and later his mother, a top-producing broker. Today, Christopher proudly carries on that legacy alongside his brother, Robert.

Connect with Chris

• Website: Christopher Wands | Real Estate Agent | Douglas Elliman
• Instagram: @chris_wands | @thewandsteam

About Leigh Brown

Leigh Brown is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who helps organizations navigate growth, conflict, and change with clarity and courage.

Her message resonates with leaders facing real-world pressure—whether that's housing challenges, organizational friction, or cultural shifts.

Her latest book, Next Is Now, equips leaders to stop reacting and start leading with intention.

👉 https://amzn.to/48FKenF

👉 Bring Leigh to your stage: https://leighbrown.com

DM Leigh on Instagram: @LeighThomasBrown

Two years after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, the rebuilding isn't finished.

I've seen that recovery firsthand as the founder of Patriot Relief, working alongside volunteers and nonprofit organizations helping families across Western North Carolina. There are still people waiting for permanent housing, still communities dealing with damaged infrastructure and still volunteers showing up with building materials because somebody needs them.

This week on From the Rooftops, Stephanie Johnson of Rebuilding Hollers Foundation is joining me to talk about what she is seeing in Yancey and Mitchell counties. Rebuilding Hollers provides building materials and supplies to families whose homes were damaged or destroyed during Helene, and Stephanie has stayed in this work long after the storm disappeared from most national headlines.

I'll also dig into a recent NPR report from North Carolina's Outer Banks, where coastal erosion is putting homeowners in an extraordinary position. Some homeowners can't afford to relocate or demolish threatened houses, while flood insurance may provide coverage if the home eventually collapses.

These stories are happening at opposite ends of North Carolina, but they raise some of the same questions about property ownership, disaster recovery, insurance and what happens when a family's home is caught between a natural disaster and the systems designed to help them recover.

I've also written more about the two-year anniversary of Helene and what I've witnessed through Patriot Relief in my latest Bricks and Grit Substack, "Two Years After the Mountains Gave Way."

Join me Thursday at 9:00 AM ET for From the Rooftops.

Learn more and help:

PatriotRelief.org

RebuildingHollers.com

Chapters

0:00 Welcome and the impact of Hurricane Helene

1:02 FEMA flood insurance and financial challenges

3:12 New flood zones and rebuilding restrictions

4:35 Surveyor shortages complicate property lines

7:45 FEMA policies and constitutional property rights

10:54 Introducing Stephanie Johnson from Rebuilding Hollers

13:03 Yancey and Mitchell counties after the storm

15:31 Water issues and well contamination problems

19:22 Rebuilding Hollers success stories and projects

24:41 High school construction program creates tradesmen

Leigh Brown is a REALTOR®, national speaker, author, real estate industry leader and founder of Patriot Relief, a nonprofit created in response to Hurricane Helene to help communities in Western North Carolina.

Book me to speak: https://LeighBrown.com/speaker

More from me: https://LeighBrown.com

Two years after Hurricane Helene, the headlines have moved on.

Western North Carolina is still dealing with what Helene left behind.

And some of the consequences are things most of us would never consider until they happen to our own property.

What happens when the river moves?

What happens when the tree, rock, stream or other landmark people have relied on to understand a property boundary is gone? What happens when land itself has been washed away—and a family that has lived there for generations is trying to figure out what they own, what they can rebuild and how they stay?

In this special episode of Real Talk with Leigh Brown, I sit down with my friend and One Community Real Estate partner Starr Franklin to talk about what we saw after Hurricane Helene and what Western North Carolina is still dealing with two years later.

We talk about

• The chaos of those first days
• Churches and volunteers becoming relief hubsBuilding temporary shelter so people could stay on their land
• Rivers changing course and property markers disappearing
• The surveying and real estate questions that followed
• Families who are still working to get home

Resources mentioned

• https://www.patriotrelief.org/
• https://www.onecommunity.realestate/
• A Million Miracles: Life After Hurricane Helene by Stephanie Johnson | Paperback

Join the Conversation Live

Thanks for spending part of your day with me.

Every Thursday at 9:00 AM ET, I go live on YouTube to talk through the week's biggest housing and real estate headlines. The best part is hearing your questions and perspectives while we're live.

I'd love for you to join the conversation.

Subscribe and turn on notifications here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@LeighBrownSpeaker

I'll see you From the Rooftops.

About Starr Franklin

Starr is a North Carolina native with more than 25 years of real estate experience. Based in Western North Carolina, she specializes in residential, new construction, commercial, multifamily, land sales, and relocation, with a special focus on serving military families.

For more than 13 years, Starr has worked alongside a team of top professionals, helping clients make informed decisions through honest, knowledgeable, and relationship-driven service.

Connect with Starr

• Website: Starr Franklin | OneCommunity.realestate
• Facebook: Starr M Franklin, Real Estate Broker | Hickory NC

About Leigh Brown

Leigh Brown is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who helps organizations navigate growth, conflict, and change with clarity and courage.

Her message resonates with leaders facing real-world pressure—whether that's housing challenges, organizational friction, or cultural shifts.

Her latest book, Next Is Now, equips leaders to stop reacting and start leading with intention.

👉 https://amzn.to/48FKenF

👉 Bring Leigh to your stage: https://leighbrown.com

DM Leigh on Instagram: @LeighThomasBrown

Buying a home involves more than the price of the house. Buyers and sellers are navigating transaction fees, increasingly sophisticated real estate scams, changing technology and a housing market where the cost of building enough homes remains a major challenge.

This week on From the Rooftops, I'm looking at several real estate headlines that raise an important question: Who is watching the consumer's money?

NPR is reporting on so-called real estate "junk fees," including administrative and document-storage fees charged during a transaction. CNN is reporting on two homebuyers who lost $66,000 in a suspected voice-cloning scam, highlighting the growing threat of wire fraud and AI-assisted fraud in real estate transactions.

Then there's Airbnb. The short-term rental company has announced a $250 million Housing Accelerator designed to provide last-dollar financing for housing developments that are ready to build but still need capital. Airbnb says the initiative could help unlock more than $5 billion in housing investment over the next decade, alongside efforts involving zoning reform, permitting, building codes and construction technology.

For REALTORS®, these conversations matter because consumers rely on us to help them understand the people, processes and costs surrounding one of the largest financial transactions of their lives.

How do we help consumers recognize questionable fees? What happens when AI makes real estate fraud harder to detect? And what should we make of Airbnb investing directly in housing construction?

Join me Thursday, September 17 at 9:00 AM ET for From the Rooftops. Bring your questions and tell me what you're seeing in your market.

Leigh Brown is a REALTOR®, national speaker, author and real estate industry leader who helps real estate professionals understand the issues shaping their business, their communities and the consumers they serve.

🎤 Book Leigh to speak: https://www.leighbrown.com/speaker?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=remainder-lf&utm_content=4yS6g4qIG08

🏠 More from Leigh: https://LeighBrown.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=remainder-lf&utm_content=4yS6g4qIG08

The real estate business is changing in ways that affect how consumers find homes, how borrowers qualify for mortgages, and how property owners understand their rights.

This week on From the Rooftops, I'm digging into several housing and real estate headlines that REALTORS® should be watching closely.

One conversation centers on the MLS and the growing use of private or delayed listings. As brokerages experiment with different ways of marketing homes, buyers may need to understand which properties they can actually see and whether the agent or brokerage they choose affects their access to available inventory. For REALTORS®, that brings us right back to transparency, cooperation and our responsibility to the consumer.

There's also a significant development in mortgage lending. FHFA has approved VantageScore 4.0 for lenders originating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages, giving us another reason to pay attention to how changes in credit scoring could affect future homebuyers.

Then there's property ownership itself. More than 2,600 landlords are reportedly slated for compensation related to losses stemming from a COVID-era eviction freeze. The legal fight raises a larger question about property rights and what happens when public policy restricts an owner's ability to use private property.

And Washington is talking about housing, technology and affordability. One idea being discussed is whether greater digitization could help address some of the friction and expense involved in buying a home.

These stories touch different corners of real estate, but every one of them matters to professionals who advise consumers about buying, selling and owning property.

What changes when the systems underneath a real estate transaction begin changing too?

Join me Thursday, September 10 at 9:00 AM ET for From the Rooftops. Bring your questions and tell me what you're seeing in your market.

Leigh Brown is a REALTOR®, broker-owner, auctioneer, national keynote speaker, and author whose work helps professionals lead with confidence, communicate with purpose, and build businesses rooted in trust and relationships.

🎤 Book Leigh for Your Conference or Event

https://www.leighbrown.com/speaker

🎙️ Watch Real Talk with Leigh Brown and From the Rooftops

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-9nEf0QTnKTBSf9lF5n5dbbHSK-65KWd

🌐 Learn more

https://LeighBrown.com

Athena Brownson is a REALTOR®, home staging expert, former X Games athlete, and apparently someone who has enough stories to keep us talking all day.

We talk about what staging really means, why sellers don't always see their homes the way buyers do, and how AI is giving agents some surprisingly useful tools for preparing a property without spending a fortune. You're going to want to hear this.

Key takeaways to listen for

• Why good staging isn't about making a house look expensive
• How AI can help agents show sellers what's possible with the home they already have
• What Athena learned from her years as a professional athlete
• Why emotional attachment can make preparing a home for sale difficult
• How agents can find good staging and design professionals in their own markets

Join the Conversation Live

Thanks for spending part of your day with me.

Every Thursday at 9:00 AM ET, I go live on YouTube to talk through the week's biggest housing and real estate headlines. The best part is hearing your questions and perspectives while we're live.

I'd love for you to join the conversation.

Subscribe and turn on notifications here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@LeighBrownSpeaker

I'll see you From the Rooftops.

About Athena Brownson

Athena brings a wealth of firsthand insight to the dynamic world of real estate. With nine years of unwavering commitment to her craft, Athena has meticulously refined her negotiation prowess, ensuring that she tirelessly advocates on behalf of her clients to secure the most profitable deals possible.

Connect with Athena

• Website: athenabrownsonrealtor.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Contact Number: +1 (303) 919-9344

About Leigh Brown

Leigh Brown is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who helps organizations navigate growth, conflict, and change with clarity and courage.

Her message resonates with leaders facing real-world pressure—whether that's housing challenges, organizational friction, or cultural shifts.

Her latest book, Next Is Now, equips leaders to stop reacting and start leading with intention.

👉 https://amzn.to/48FKenF

👉 Bring Leigh to your stage: https://leighbrown.com

DM Leigh on Instagram: @LeighThomasBrown

Buying or selling a house doesn't end at the closing table. There are still codes to exchange, utilities to transfer, questions to answer, and a whole lot of little details that can turn into a headache.

Cody Bartkoski saw the same problems happening over and over and decided there had to be a better way. We talk about what happens after closing, how technology can make that handoff easier, and why a smoother process is better for everyone.

Key takeaways to listen for

• What happens after the closing that nobody thinks about
• How Home Handoff makes the buyer/seller transition easier
• Why agents don't need to be involved in every post-closing detail
• What Cody learned from his own home-buying experiences
• Why a better handoff creates a better client experience

Join the Conversation Live

Thanks for spending part of your day with me.

Every Thursday at 9:00 AM ET, I go live on YouTube to talk through the week's biggest housing and real estate headlines. The best part is hearing your questions and perspectives while we're live.

I'd love for you to join the conversation.

Subscribe and turn on notifications here:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@LeighBrownSpeaker

I'll see you From the Rooftops.

About Cody Bartkoski

Cody Bartkoski is the founder and CEO of HomeHandoff, a platform designed to make the transition between buying and selling a home easier. Before building the company, Cody worked as a mining engineer and CEO in the coal industry.

Connect with Cody

• Website: https://home-handoff.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Contact Number: 610-349-1810

About Leigh Brown

Leigh Brown is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who helps organizations navigate growth, conflict, and change with clarity and courage.

Her message resonates with leaders facing real-world pressure—whether that's housing challenges, organizational friction, or cultural shifts.

Her latest book, Next Is Now, equips leaders to stop reacting and start leading with intention.

👉 https://amzn.to/48FKenF

👉 Bring Leigh to your stage: https://leighbrown.com

DM Leigh on Instagram: @LeighThomasBrown

Why is housing so expensive in America, and are some of the policies intended to help actually adding to the cost?

This Thursday on *From the Rooftops*, Leigh Brown digs into a remarkable week of housing headlines: America's housing shortage, capital gains taxes, the slowdown in home improvement spending, challenges facing builders during hurricane season, and the latest court decision involving the National Association of REALTORS® antitrust settlements.

We'll look at the bigger question behind all of them:

What is actually driving the cost of housing?

We'll also talk about what these developments mean for homeowners, home buyers, builders and real estate professionals.

Bring your questions and your opinions. I read the comments, and you know I'm willing to talk about the parts of real estate everybody else would rather avoid.

#HousingAffordability #HousingMarket #RealEstate #HousingShortage #PropertyTaxes #HomeBuyers #REALTORS #FromTheRooftops #LeighBrown

Thinking about a move in North Carolina? Start your search here: https://onecommunity.realestate?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=remainder-lf&utm_content=GFWyEWrQGYs

Chapters:

0:00 Why is housing so unaffordable right now?

1:12 What did Nixon's gold standard decision change?

5:36 Why does building more houses not fix affordability?

8:18 How did hedge funds start buying single-family homes?

9:39 What is house hacking and why does it matter?

13:23 Could hedge funds flood the market with homes?

15:26 Why did the Realtor® commission lawsuit backfire?

20:31 Why hasn't the capital gains exemption changed?

26:57 Why are home improvement dollars drying up?

29:38 Should FEMA control where people rebuild?

Can seniors afford to age in place? Millions of older Americans want to remain in their homes as they age, but rising housing costs, property taxes, home repairs and a shortage of accessible housing are making that increasingly difficult.

This week on From the Rooftops, I'm digging into the senior housing issues REALTORS® and homeowners need to understand, including aging in place, affordability, accessibility, downsizing, ADUs and some creative ways we may need to rethink the housing we already have.

One number stopped me cold: roughly 12.4 million older households are housing cost-burdened, according to research cited by Governing.

And here's the question I want my real estate people thinking about: when an older homeowner says, "I want to stay in my home," do we actually know how to help them do it?

We're talking about that Thursday at 9 AM ET.

Bring your coffee. Bring your questions. And tell me what you're seeing in your market.

#FromTheRooftops #LeighBrown #AgingInPlace #SeniorHousing #RealEstate #REALTORS #HousingAffordability #OlderHomeowners #ADU

?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=remainder-lf&utm_content=hmx0TEylrMo

Chapters:

0:00 Why are seniors struggling to age in place?

4:25 How does capital gains tax affect senior homeowners?

5:25 What housing features limit aging in place?

8:07 Why is rent control a bad solution for seniors?

10:48 What are the risks of outsourcing elder care?

13:09 How do universal design requirements increase costs?

16:31 What role do faith-based properties play in housing?

19:33 Why are senior renters more at risk of homelessness?

23:16 How do property taxes burden fixed-income seniors?

30:20 What are the risks of home equity extraction?

Ready to grow your real estate business? Start with Leigh Brown University: https://www.leighbrownuniversity.com?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=remainder-lf&utm_content=hmx0TEylrMo