00:00Congratulations on another exclusive when it comes to the White House and housing affordability just this week.
00:06What can you tell us? What are these possible antitrust concerns?
00:10Well, the thing that, you know, one thing that's caught the eye of administration officials is a trade group
00:16and their concern that, you know, our home builders coordinating through the trade group.
00:22And that's a thing that's been raised, at least internally.
00:24I think that's a common concern about trade groups across industries.
00:29And coordinating how?
00:31Well, you know, you're not supposed to talk about, like, we're going to set our prices in this way.
00:37And you're not supposed to tell your competitors how you're setting prices.
00:41And, you know, I think it's a concern that can come up, which is, like, you have this trade group where everyone is getting together
00:49and talking to each other or they're talking to some centralized person in the trade group and information gets disseminated.
00:56And, you know, this would not be – I'm not an antitrust expert, but my understanding is this would not be the first time that, you know,
01:05there was a probe of, you know, a trade group or some centralized body.
01:12The lending builders – leading builders of America is the trade group.
01:17What have they said?
01:18What have the home builders come out and said after this?
01:20They haven't responded.
01:22They're keeping their heads down right now, or so it seems.
01:25I think, you know, I mean, all this goes back to October when the president put out on a social media post that home builders are –
01:35I mean, he likened them to OPEC and complained that builders are sitting on more lots than ever.
01:42And, you know, I mean, I think this is – if you go back to the story earlier this week about the builders' pitch for a Trump homes project,
01:51in a way that's like trying to get on the administration's good side in hopes that, you know, they're not on the bad side.
01:56And this is kind of what the bad side might look like.
01:59Just last question.
02:01Kudos to you.
02:02Two exclusives in terms of what the White House is working on housing affordability.
02:06Having said that, you know, they are said to be trying to do anything.
02:09Is there any progress, any really move forward in terms of being able to make homes more affordable?
02:15Some would say there are different issues at play in order of making this work.
02:19But in terms of what the White House might be able to do.
02:22Listen, I mean, I think this is where we are on home prices is it took 15 years to get to this point.
02:28It took a pandemic, you know, to get there in the end of an interest rate environment that had been in place for a decade or so.
02:35So, you know, I don't think the standard should be getting to, you know, a solution overnight.
02:42But yeah, it's in those something is going to, you know, people are talking about things.
02:46What happens?
02:47I don't know.
02:47Is it really a priority for the White House?
02:49Just quickly.
02:49Seems like it.
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