Get Rich Education
Show Host Keith Weinhold’s real estate investing show provides actionable content for busy people to create financial freedom through strategic passive investing. Keith Weinhold, a Forbes Real Estate Council member, shares insights on cash flow and Return On Time, helping listeners expand their means since 2002. New episodes every Monday.
Show Host Keith Weinhold’s real estate investing show provides actionable content for busy people to create financial freedom through strategic passive investing. Keith Weinhold, a Forbes Real Estate Council member, shares insights on cash flow and Return On Time, helping listeners expand their means since 2002. New episodes every Monday.
Recent Episodes
Keith breaks down the “baseline trap” in investor psychology, showing how rising income and lifestyle creep can quietly undermine the feeling of financial freedom.
He then shares a grounded outlook for U.S. home prices, outlining how inflation, AI-driven job growth, limited inventory, and strong homeowner equity are shaping the market.
He closes with a data-driven look at where population growth is heading through 2040, especially in Texas and Florida, and what that could mean for long-term real estate demand and investing strategy.
Episode Page:
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Invest with Freedom Family Investments.
For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866
Join Mid South Home Buyers’ one-time, free live webinar featuring Keith Weinhold on September 30 at GetRichEducation.com/MidSouth to learn how Memphis’ economic expansion could create new real estate investment opportunities, and have your questions answered in real time.
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Complete episode transcript:
Keith Weinhold 0:01
Welcome to GRE. I’m your host Keith Weinhold. Investor psychology often falls into the baseline trap. Learn what’s going to happen to home prices over the next year. Then more than half of America’s population growth until 2040 will occur in just these two states. All today on Get Rich Education. What if I told you that one of America’s strongest cash flow real estate markets is also becoming the new brains and brawn behind AI? That city is Memphis, believe it or not. In September 30th, we’re going to show you why the smart money is paying attention now, along with an investing opportunity you won’t want to miss. Join me, Terry Kerr and Matthew Van Horn of Mid South Homebuyers, the largest turnkey company in Memphis with more than 6000 homes under management, for a free live webinar the likes of which I’ve never done before. We’re going to look at what billions in new investment could mean for jobs, housing demand, neighborhood appreciation, and your portfolio. Everyone who attends live will also get exclusive access to the best deal terms Mid South has ever offered. Reserve your free seat at getricheducation.com/midsouth again. that september 30. Don’t say we didn’t tell you. Save your spot at getricheducation.com/midsouth
Speaker 1 1:34
You’re listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.
Keith Weinhold 1:50
Welcome to GRE from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Jackson, Mississippi, and across 188 nations worldwide. I’m Keith Weinhold. This is Get Rich Education, and Happy Labor Day. Let’s talk about your investor psychology, because as you grow your wealth and your portfolio size, there is a trap that you will almost certainly fall into, and I’m not infallible. I’ve fallen into this trap to some extent too. That is the baseline trap. It’s the tendency for every improvement in your income, your wealth, or your lifestyle to become your new normal. Once this happens, the improvement stops feeling like progress, and you need even more just to feel equally successful, if you get used to flying first class and then you have to drop back to coach again, it feels less like flying and more like being deported. Psychologically, we fall into the baseline trap because the human mind evaluates Life relatively, not absolutely. We don’t simply ask ourselves how good is my life, how good is my situation. Instead, we ask how does this compare with what I’ve recently experienced, what I expected, and what others have, and there are a number of forces that drive the baseline trap. One is hedonic adaptation. Hedonic means pleasure seeking. People rapidly adjust to improvements. The first month of receiving a new $5,000 in passive income that feels transformative. After two years, it feels completely ordinary. The income didn’t become less valuable. Your nervous system simply stopped registering it as new. Yesterday’s luxury became today’s wallpaper. A force driving the baseline trap is a shifting reference point. Gains and losses are measured against a mental baseline. Once your portfolio reaches, say, a $2 million net worth, well, your mind soon begins treating the $2 million as mine. You’re like, hey, this is mine now, even if much of it came from recent appreciation. A decline to 1.8 million, therefore, feels like losing 200k rather than still having substantially more wealth than you did just a few years ago. Well, instead, you’re only focused on the 200k paper loss. Then there’s loss aversion psychologically. Losses generally hurt more than equivalent gains feel good. After a higher standard becomes normal, surrendering and. Any part of it feels like some blood-curdling loss. That’s why reducing spending from 20k to 15k per month that can feel painful, even if 15k once felt luxurious to you.
Keith Weinhold 5:16
There’s also the lifestyle creep component. People convert variable gains into fixed commitments. What do I mean? I mean like a strong income year. Oh, pretty soon that becomes a larger mortgage. Rental cash flow that becomes a vehicle payment. A bonus that becomes private school tuition, portfolio appreciation. Well, that supports new borrowing. See, pleasures that were once optional have now become obligations. And you got to ask, wait, how did that happen to you? You’re supposed to have a life of options and not obligations. That’s what financial freedom is supposed to be. The baseline then is no longer merely psychological; it becomes embedded in real monthly expenses. Then there’s also the dangerous driver of the baseline trap that’s called, oh no, social comparison. We commonly measure success against our peers, but instead, what you should do is measure it against your former self. Because as you become wealthier, see your comparison group changes too. If you’ve got five rentals, you soon stop comparing yourself with someone that owns none, you might even begin comparing yourself with people who own 50 of them, and why not? It’s natural, after all. That is where you want to go, despite enormous progress. See, that’s how you can feel left further behind. Then there’s the recency bias. Your mind gives enormously disproportionate weight to recent experience. A few years of 15% returns, like what happened in 2021 and 2022 in real estate. Oh, you could begin expecting 15% after rapidly appreciating real estate, continued appreciation feels normal. A favorable cycle gets mistaken for the natural baseline, and then when conditions normalize, ordinary performance feels rather defective. Then there’s identity inflation. That’s a trap. This is when accomplishments become woven into your very identity, like I’m a multi-million-dollar entrepreneur, or I own 20 properties, or my income always grows. Okay, once success becomes identity, maintaining the baseline feels necessary just to preserve your self worth. Now, with this condition, see a temporary setback. It doesn’t merely affect the numbers.
Keith Weinhold 8:08
It feels like evidence that you’re becoming a lesser person, and the brain rewards progress more than possession. Humans are energized by movement toward a goal, reaching the goal often produces less lasting satisfaction than you expect. Buying the 10th rental creates a dopamine hit, and owning it three years later does not. The investor therefore creates another target, not always because another property is even needed, but because continued pursuit restores the feeling of progress, success erases the memory of constraint. As your wealth grows, it becomes difficult to remember emotionally what financial insecurity even felt like I mean you might intellectually remember earning 60k, but you no longer experience today’s 300k income in comparison with it. Your comparison point quietly changes from your former life to your best recent year. The paradox is that your circumstances improve faster than your experience of them? The goal is not to stop growing; it is to prevent every improvement from becoming a new psychological necessity. Keep growing your means, but don’t let success redefine enough every time you achieve it, don’t let it redefine enough. Let’s say you acquire rentals and you do generate another 5k per month. The trap is that your spending and expectations gradually rise by 5k. You’re wealthier, but you don’t. Don’t feel freer. Instead of investments buying freedom, they merely finance a more expensive baseline, and it can distort how you view your portfolio. 10 properties once felt like an extraordinary accomplishment, and soon 10 feels ordinary, and 20 becomes necessary. You keep moving the finish line, and this is closely related to hedonic adaptation and lifestyle creep. But it extends beyond spending because your definition of enough keeps on rising. So the antidote certainly is not living small forever-it’s deliberately separating the growth rates of your assets and your lifestyle. What you want to do is grow your means faster than you grow your baseline. Really, that’s the key. You’re gonna be more satisfied. Instead of simply living below your means, you sure do want to grow your means, but don’t let every gain become a permanent new obligation. Let some additional cash flow purchase you things like time, resilience, and optionality-not merely nicer recurring expenses. If your lifestyle rises as fast as your passive income, you’re wealthier, but no freer.
Keith Weinhold 11:28
So here’s what you do: when your income rises, let your lifestyle rise about half that much. Otherwise, if you upgrade your lifestyle too much, say that you receive an extra $3,000 in monthly rental income, then you add in a luxury car payment, better vacations, and more expensive restaurants. Pretty soon, that extra 3k that feels necessary instead of liberating, and then there’s also the record income comparison part of the trap. Say your business earns $1 million during an exceptional year. The next year, it earns a still impressive 850k, but you experience it as failure because the unusually strong year became your new baseline. Don’t let that happen. You can compare yourself to others that can be motivating, but the more important comparison is to the former you. Now, another way that investors fall into the baseline trap in real estate is how an exceptional market becomes the standard. Say that you bought rental properties in 2012. Well, 2012 was perhaps the best time to buy real estate in generations. This was shortly after the global financial crisis, so there was this confluence of low prices, low interest rates, strong cash flow, and you had little competition as well. I mean, you had it all in 2012, and those deals performed spectacularly in today’s market. Available properties produce lower initial cash flow, but they could still deliver respectable total returns through appreciation, rent income, principal paydown, tax benefits, and inflation profiting. But a losing investor rejects all of those things because they aren’t as attractive as the once-in-a-generation deals of 2012, or even the rock-bottom low-rate days of 2020, they fell into the baseline trap. The trap here is that an unusually favorable period for real estate became the new benchmark. It’s sort of like how last week I told you about how the deal structure always changes over time from the Reagan administration until today. Today the deal is with Burr properties, and it’s also with buying new builds with rate buydowns. But see, in 2012 there were almost zero available new build properties that were created for investors to rent to others.
Keith Weinhold 14:25
Over time, with these new builds that you’re adding now, you’re going to have fewer maintenance and repair expenses. Tenants tend to stay in new builds longer, and new builds appreciate better over the long run. See, I wasn’t getting any of those benefits in 2012, and I bought rental real estate in 2012, and I bought real estate recently as well. Not falling into the baseline trap, because today it’s still difficult to find any investment bet. Than residential real estate with a loan, it is a scarce asset that people are going to continue to need. So here we are today, about 15 years on from 2012. Water market conditions like now. Let’s talk about that and what can we expect for the next year? National home prices keep rising, but they’re only about one half of 1% higher than they were a year ago. I mean, that’s an appreciation level with the enthusiasm of someone attending a seven a.m. meeting. I do expect national home prices to keep rising modestly over the next year. Let me tell you about why, and then what the drivers are. And to be clear, we’re talking about single-family homes up to fourplexes here. I’ll discuss apartments later today. Well, the drivers for continued price growth are many of the same reasons that home prices are up just a little since last year. There are four of them. These four are inflation, the AI boom, short inventory, and a lack of distressed sellers. So let’s unpack all of these four factors that I’ve identified for putting a floor underneath home prices, inflationary pressure is poised to raise replacement cost, energy, wages, and tariffs make those inputs more expensive, and the more war we have, the more inflation we have. A home is a bundle of land, labor, lumber, concrete, copper, and all sorts of energy inputs, plus 14 trips to Home Depot because someone forgot the correct nails and screws. That’s what a home is. Recent home price growth it has lagged today’s 3.4% CPI inflation rate. So again, we’re not even talking about inflation-adjusted gains here. AI that creates local housing heat. It’s not so much a nationwide driver of home prices. And in a moment, I’ll tell you the top five housing markets for AI-led home price growth, but how does AI investment push up home prices anyway? How does that happen? People are getting high salaries, signing bonuses, and stock options that produces well-funded buyers. They make big down payments, or they even pay all cash for homes, and when a buyer pays all cash for a home, they can pay absolutely any price because they don’t have to get an appraisal that comes along with a loan for a financed property.
Keith Weinhold 17:53
That’s how all cash buyers can really push up prices. The growth in AI companies that has really helped push the S and P 500 higher that fuels a wealth effect nationwide that makes everybody feel wealthier regardless of where you live as long as you’re invested in the stock market but the localized effects with those higher AI wages and signing bonuses in order they are most potent in San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, New York City, and Boston, and none of those are good cash flow investor markets. Still, short housing inventory is contributing to higher prices, and hey, it’s time that we check on this again. Ever since the inventory crunch started to plummet in 2021 and reached its lowest point in 2022, I’ve been updating you on the housing supply, and I always keep it same same. I cite the same data source, the Federal Reserve Economic Data’s active listing count, Fred’s active listing count, which counts single-family and townhomes and condos, all wrapped up in this number. And the figure it still hasn’t recovered at 1.1 million homes. Now it is 2% higher than last year, 2% more supply than last year, but overall housing supply is still 9% below pre-pandemic levels. And there’s one important thing to keep in mind that most don’t think about when you hear that figure that housing supply is 9% below pre-pandemic times in 2019, that does not mean we’re 9% short. That is because even in 2019 there was a housing shortage, and we are 9% below that yet, keeping. Upward pressure on prices and the most supply-constrained markets today. It includes both good and poor cash-flowing investor markets.
Keith Weinhold 20:10
They are New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Hartford, Providence, Milwaukee, Boston, Cleveland, Virginia Beach, and Kansas City. All of those places remain especially tight with housing inventory, and then finally, this fourth of four reasons I’ve cited for continued upward pressure on home prices are the fact that distressed sellers-they are few and far between-and you need a lot of those in order to have a serious down cycle, after the 2008 housing crash, millions of owners were underwater. They owed more on their homes than they were worth. Lending standards were irresponsibly loose. Adjustable rate mortgages were resetting higher. I mean, a lot of people had little choice but to sell or to hand the keys back to the bank. Distress, distress, distress. Today is almost the mirror image. Here’s what’s really happening with homeowners having this record equity position today-an average of over $300,000. Many also locked in at fixed mortgage rates below 5% it means that they’re enjoying perhaps the cheapest long-term debt that they are ever going to have. Lending standards have been strong, foreclosure rates remain low, and virtually nobody is being forced to sell. That matters more than most people think because housing crashes need a lot of forced sellers, owners who must accept almost any price in order to escape the property. But today, most homeowners they can simply either stay put, or if they’re going to move out of the home, keep it and rent out the home, or they can wait for a better offer. No distress. In other words, buyers might be frustrated, but sellers-they’re just not desperate. And without desperation, it is difficult for home prices to fall sharply. So the bottom line here with today’s home prices and looking into next year, home price growth is apparent, but it’s weak. The ingredients for a national price collapse are nowhere to be found, so this does not spell boom or crash. Home prices appear poised to keep slowly grinding higher, but with this low affordability, that keeps them from soaring, say 10 or 12% higher. I don’t see that happening. And of course, each December, I make my home price forecast to the exact percentage point for the year ahead, so you can look forward to that soon. The Get Rich Education home price appreciation forecast that I made late last year for this year. It looks like it’s going to be almost spot on. Of course, unlike a lot of analysts, transparently, I also give you the result of how closely the forecast hit the target every year, so you can look forward to that too. Hey, if you like this show, there’s more content where this comes from. Sign up for our complimentary newsletter. That way, you can see the graphs and charts and maps that I break down. If you like what you hear on Get Rich Education, every week I show you what’s really happening with real estate rents, inflation, interest rates, and the economy, and more importantly, what you can do about it. You’ll get sharp insights, useful opportunities, and a few laughs along the way. Yeah, a couple knee slappers sprinkled in there with actionable strategies, like the savviest way to get rent increases. Get smarter in just a three to four minute read every week. Join 1000s of smart investors right now at greletter.com because your inbox could use fewer coupons and more financial freedom. That is greletter.com. More straight ahead.
Keith Weinhold 24:20
I’m Keith Weinhold. You’re listening to Get Rich Education. What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056. They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They’ll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge. While it’s on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That’s ridgelendinggroup.com. Let me ask you something. If you’ve worked hard to build wealth, is your. Money positioned to actually support your goals. A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It’s a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I’m an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed. But with a track record of consistent, on-time investor payouts. They built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call, or text family to 66866. That’s family to 66866.
Dana Dunford 25:59
This is Hemline’s co-founder Dana Dunford. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and don’t quit your daydream.
Keith Weinhold 26:15
Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I’m your host Keith Weinhold. There will only ever be one episode 622, and you’re listening to it. I hope you’re enjoying the late summer. I’m wringing every bit of time and enjoyment out of it that I can. I don’t know if this part was enjoyable, but I ran an all-out mile on a track. I wanted to see how fast I could run a mile. I had a friend pace me, and I got a 631. I was happy with that since I hadn’t done any specific training. Yes, a mile is more than four laps on a track as well. Did you know that? Yes, this detail-oriented shaved mammal here diligently measured off that extra nine point something meters. Ah, I’ll tell you that fourth lap hurt so badly that if my buddy weren’t there, I might have just quit and not finished the mile. But summer’s days are numbered, and that’s too bad because it is my favorite season of the year. The NFL season kicks off in just two days on the ninth, with Seattle hosting the New England Patriots in a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl. So then, I guess it looks like your productivity for the week will end with a respectable two-day run as you tune in to that game. Where is the future demand for real estate going to come from? It comes from a growing population. The U.S. is expected to add 21 and a half million people from 2025 to 2040. 21 and a half million more people. The overall population it’s expected to grow from about 341 million up to 363 million. That is where we’re going. That’s per the Census Bureau and the University of Virginia, projecting 341 up to 363 by the year 2040, which is just a little over 13 years away. Okay, so that part is not so surprising, but here is what is absolutely staggering: more than half of this entire increase is projected to occur in just two states, just two of the 50 states, more than half of the increase. Do you know what they are? In fact, I showed you a map of this in a recent newsletter, but I can talk about it and expand on it more here. \
Keith Weinhold 28:52
The two states that are expected to account for more than half of the nation’s overall population growth through 2040 are Texas and Florida. They’re already the second and third most populous states, respectively. It’s kind of like America looked at the map, checked their weather app, and started packing sunscreen. Texas is expected to add 6.6 million residents. Florida welcoming another 4.6 million during this span. So that is over 11 million new people between them. This is like taking the entire population of Georgia and dropping it into those two already booming states, that much growth in this fairly short period of time, for real estate investors, more people that generally means more demand for our housing product, and I’ll get back to the staggering Texas and Florida imbalance in just a moment. Because there are big gains in other investor-friendly southeastern states like Georgia and Tennessee, the Mountain West should swell alone. The South, okay, the region that the Census Bureau delineates as the South, which sort of runs from Maryland all the way down south and then west out toward Texas, the South just until 2040 is expected to account for 78 percent of the growth. That is just staggering. Cash flow hotbed Indiana that should grow by nearly a quarter million residents as well. The Carolinas are ballooning. Already the most densely populated state in the nation, New Jersey, that will get more dense with some pretty healthy population growth. Its residents have not discovered elbow room, but not every state is adding population. 14 states are expected to shrink, led by Illinois losing 650,000 people and New York down 457k. Again, this is all through 2040. In fact, a small loss cluster actually runs through the South, though West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana-they’re projected to lose 440,000 people combined. You know that whole theory that sometimes you hear people talk about, like with Earth warming and drying, you’re going to have people stampeding toward the freshwater Great Lakes states. That is probably farcical. That just has not shown up in the data. That people are moving in droves to say cooler Michigan and Wisconsin for those reasons.
Keith Weinhold 31:46
It’s just not happening now. Of course, population projections are not delivered from Mount Sinai on stone tablets. Besides births and deaths, the level of future immigration, of course, that’s the real wild card here. After the Trump presidency ends by 2029, the next administration that could tighten or loosen the immigration spigot, that could materially reshape the map. But they’re probably not going to tighten immigration. I mean, they couldn’t because the flow really couldn’t be crimped much more than it already is. People love to poke fun at California, but even in 2040, it is expected to barely retain its crown and edge out Texas to still be the most populous state: 39 million versus 38 million, respectively, for California and Texas by 2040. But yeah, Texas and Florida-they are the real stories here, and why droves of people are attracted there for cheaper housing, jobs, warm weather, a business-friendly environment, and Texas and Florida are also places where builders can still build without completing some side quest worthy of a video game with all their permits and regulations and roadblocks. You’re largely free of those things in Texas and Florida. Now there are two more important factors to keep in mind here. Some bigger picture context. I’ve talked before about how the overall American mobility rate is down, and this is a long, long trend. Decade after decade, fewer people move and more people stay put, which is contrary to popular belief. This lower mobility rate, and another factor that gives you perspective is that as real estate investors, we know all this stuff I’ve been talking about here. These population changes-they only look at the demand side. The supply side matters just as much, despite their slower population growth. Northeast and Midwest states build less new inventory, and that is why Northeastern and Midwestern housing prices and rents are still growing faster today than they are in the Sun Belt, despite all of those Sun Belt construction cranes. You know, too many construction cranes. It looks bullish, and it actually is, but it spikes supply and it suppresses prices. And really, the bottom line here with American population growth from now until 2040 is follow the people, but count the rooftops. Population growth creates housing demand, while limited construction creates scarcity.
Keith Weinhold 34:46
The best opportunities often emerge where those two forces collide. That’s what you really want to look for: demand and scarcity. Now, the apartment space. We all know that’s been beleaguered for about three or four years, ever since higher mortgage rates set in and high construction levels conspired to keep apartment rents suppressed. In fact, multifamily construction had a peak in this cycle during 2024. That’s when 600,000 units were built back in 2024. That was the most new apartment supply since 1986. That is when Cheers, MacGyver, and Miami Vice were on television. Run DMC was on urban radio. MTV was a dominant cultural force, the most new apartment supply since 1986. That’s when kids were playing with GI Joe’s, He-Man, and My Little Pony. For adults, fashion-wise, they were wearing enough shoulder padding to survive a minor collision. So, lots of new apartment supply to get absorbed. It is getting more and more absorbed. There are more signs there now because the national median apartment rent has now increased for seven months in a row. That’s according to Apartment List. Also, the apartment vacancy rate has dropped for six straight months, and do you have any idea what the national apartment vacancy rate is? It has dropped down to now 7.1% Inevitably, overbuilt apartments will be absorbed with a growing population. Lots of great episodes coming up here on the show, where you might be in for a surprise next week. A renowned macro economist will be here on the show with us. I think we all know that in 1971, the U.S. had a lot of economic changes. That’s when Nixon completely eliminated us from the gold standard, and the economic system shifted from capitalism to creditism back then. Well, now we appear to be leaving creditism and entering a new economic phase. This could be seismic. Next week here on the show, he’ll reveal what the new era is called and how you need to prepare for it, that’s next week here on episode 623. If you haven’t yet, be sure to hit the follow button or subscribe button on your podcatcher so that you don’t miss it.
Keith Weinhold 37:31
Again, if you like what you hear here each week, the GRE “Don’t Quit Your Daydream” letter gives you the sharpest ideas of the week in about three or four quick hitting minutes, you’ll get surprising housing data, wealth building strategies, timely opportunities, news that a lot of times you can’t get anywhere else, and maps and charts that make you say, “Wait, what? It’s smart, useful, entertaining, and completely free. Thousands of investors read it every week, and believe it or not, I’m actually more of a writer than a talker. Don’t just listen to Get Rich Education, get the letter at greletter.com. That’s greletter.com. Until next week, I’m your host Keith Weinhold. Don’t quit your daydream.
Speaker 2 38:23
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.
Keith Weinhold 38:51
The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com
Keith breaks down the “baseline trap” in investor psychology, showing how rising income and lifestyle creep can quietly undermine the feeling of financial freedom.
He then shares a grounded outlook for U.S. home prices, outlining how inflation, AI-driven job growth, limited inventory, and strong homeowner equity are shaping the market.
He closes with a data-driven look at where population growth is heading through 2040, especially in Texas and Florida, and what that could mean for long-term real estate demand and investing strategy.
Episode Page:
For access to properties or free help with a
GRE Investment Coach, start here:
GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com
Get mortgage loans for investment property:
RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE
or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com
Invest with Freedom Family Investments.
For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866
Join Mid South Home Buyers’ one-time, free live webinar featuring Keith Weinhold on September 30 at GetRichEducation.com/MidSouth to learn how Memphis’ economic expansion could create new real estate investment opportunities, and have your questions answered in real time.
Will you please leave a review for the show? I’d be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”
For advertising inquiries, visit:
Best Financial Education:
Get our wealth-building newsletter free—
Our YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation
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Complete episode transcript:
Keith Weinhold 0:01
Welcome to GRE. I’m your host Keith Weinhold. Investor psychology often falls into the baseline trap. Learn what’s going to happen to home prices over the next year. Then more than half of America’s population growth until 2040 will occur in just these two states. All today on Get Rich Education. What if I told you that one of America’s strongest cash flow real estate markets is also becoming the new brains and brawn behind AI? That city is Memphis, believe it or not. In September 30th, we’re going to show you why the smart money is paying attention now, along with an investing opportunity you won’t want to miss. Join me, Terry Kerr and Matthew Van Horn of Mid South Homebuyers, the largest turnkey company in Memphis with more than 6000 homes under management, for a free live webinar the likes of which I’ve never done before. We’re going to look at what billions in new investment could mean for jobs, housing demand, neighborhood appreciation, and your portfolio. Everyone who attends live will also get exclusive access to the best deal terms Mid South has ever offered. Reserve your free seat at getricheducation.com/midsouth again. that september 30. Don’t say we didn’t tell you. Save your spot at getricheducation.com/midsouth
Speaker 1 1:34
You’re listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.
Keith Weinhold 1:50
Welcome to GRE from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Jackson, Mississippi, and across 188 nations worldwide. I’m Keith Weinhold. This is Get Rich Education, and Happy Labor Day. Let’s talk about your investor psychology, because as you grow your wealth and your portfolio size, there is a trap that you will almost certainly fall into, and I’m not infallible. I’ve fallen into this trap to some extent too. That is the baseline trap. It’s the tendency for every improvement in your income, your wealth, or your lifestyle to become your new normal. Once this happens, the improvement stops feeling like progress, and you need even more just to feel equally successful, if you get used to flying first class and then you have to drop back to coach again, it feels less like flying and more like being deported. Psychologically, we fall into the baseline trap because the human mind evaluates Life relatively, not absolutely. We don’t simply ask ourselves how good is my life, how good is my situation. Instead, we ask how does this compare with what I’ve recently experienced, what I expected, and what others have, and there are a number of forces that drive the baseline trap. One is hedonic adaptation. Hedonic means pleasure seeking. People rapidly adjust to improvements. The first month of receiving a new $5,000 in passive income that feels transformative. After two years, it feels completely ordinary. The income didn’t become less valuable. Your nervous system simply stopped registering it as new. Yesterday’s luxury became today’s wallpaper. A force driving the baseline trap is a shifting reference point. Gains and losses are measured against a mental baseline. Once your portfolio reaches, say, a $2 million net worth, well, your mind soon begins treating the $2 million as mine. You’re like, hey, this is mine now, even if much of it came from recent appreciation. A decline to 1.8 million, therefore, feels like losing 200k rather than still having substantially more wealth than you did just a few years ago. Well, instead, you’re only focused on the 200k paper loss. Then there’s loss aversion psychologically. Losses generally hurt more than equivalent gains feel good. After a higher standard becomes normal, surrendering and. Any part of it feels like some blood-curdling loss. That’s why reducing spending from 20k to 15k per month that can feel painful, even if 15k once felt luxurious to you.
Keith Weinhold 5:16
There’s also the lifestyle creep component. People convert variable gains into fixed commitments. What do I mean? I mean like a strong income year. Oh, pretty soon that becomes a larger mortgage. Rental cash flow that becomes a vehicle payment. A bonus that becomes private school tuition, portfolio appreciation. Well, that supports new borrowing. See, pleasures that were once optional have now become obligations. And you got to ask, wait, how did that happen to you? You’re supposed to have a life of options and not obligations. That’s what financial freedom is supposed to be. The baseline then is no longer merely psychological; it becomes embedded in real monthly expenses. Then there’s also the dangerous driver of the baseline trap that’s called, oh no, social comparison. We commonly measure success against our peers, but instead, what you should do is measure it against your former self. Because as you become wealthier, see your comparison group changes too. If you’ve got five rentals, you soon stop comparing yourself with someone that owns none, you might even begin comparing yourself with people who own 50 of them, and why not? It’s natural, after all. That is where you want to go, despite enormous progress. See, that’s how you can feel left further behind. Then there’s the recency bias. Your mind gives enormously disproportionate weight to recent experience. A few years of 15% returns, like what happened in 2021 and 2022 in real estate. Oh, you could begin expecting 15% after rapidly appreciating real estate, continued appreciation feels normal. A favorable cycle gets mistaken for the natural baseline, and then when conditions normalize, ordinary performance feels rather defective. Then there’s identity inflation. That’s a trap. This is when accomplishments become woven into your very identity, like I’m a multi-million-dollar entrepreneur, or I own 20 properties, or my income always grows. Okay, once success becomes identity, maintaining the baseline feels necessary just to preserve your self worth. Now, with this condition, see a temporary setback. It doesn’t merely affect the numbers.
Keith Weinhold 8:08
It feels like evidence that you’re becoming a lesser person, and the brain rewards progress more than possession. Humans are energized by movement toward a goal, reaching the goal often produces less lasting satisfaction than you expect. Buying the 10th rental creates a dopamine hit, and owning it three years later does not. The investor therefore creates another target, not always because another property is even needed, but because continued pursuit restores the feeling of progress, success erases the memory of constraint. As your wealth grows, it becomes difficult to remember emotionally what financial insecurity even felt like I mean you might intellectually remember earning 60k, but you no longer experience today’s 300k income in comparison with it. Your comparison point quietly changes from your former life to your best recent year. The paradox is that your circumstances improve faster than your experience of them? The goal is not to stop growing; it is to prevent every improvement from becoming a new psychological necessity. Keep growing your means, but don’t let success redefine enough every time you achieve it, don’t let it redefine enough. Let’s say you acquire rentals and you do generate another 5k per month. The trap is that your spending and expectations gradually rise by 5k. You’re wealthier, but you don’t. Don’t feel freer. Instead of investments buying freedom, they merely finance a more expensive baseline, and it can distort how you view your portfolio. 10 properties once felt like an extraordinary accomplishment, and soon 10 feels ordinary, and 20 becomes necessary. You keep moving the finish line, and this is closely related to hedonic adaptation and lifestyle creep. But it extends beyond spending because your definition of enough keeps on rising. So the antidote certainly is not living small forever-it’s deliberately separating the growth rates of your assets and your lifestyle. What you want to do is grow your means faster than you grow your baseline. Really, that’s the key. You’re gonna be more satisfied. Instead of simply living below your means, you sure do want to grow your means, but don’t let every gain become a permanent new obligation. Let some additional cash flow purchase you things like time, resilience, and optionality-not merely nicer recurring expenses. If your lifestyle rises as fast as your passive income, you’re wealthier, but no freer.
Keith Weinhold 11:28
So here’s what you do: when your income rises, let your lifestyle rise about half that much. Otherwise, if you upgrade your lifestyle too much, say that you receive an extra $3,000 in monthly rental income, then you add in a luxury car payment, better vacations, and more expensive restaurants. Pretty soon, that extra 3k that feels necessary instead of liberating, and then there’s also the record income comparison part of the trap. Say your business earns $1 million during an exceptional year. The next year, it earns a still impressive 850k, but you experience it as failure because the unusually strong year became your new baseline. Don’t let that happen. You can compare yourself to others that can be motivating, but the more important comparison is to the former you. Now, another way that investors fall into the baseline trap in real estate is how an exceptional market becomes the standard. Say that you bought rental properties in 2012. Well, 2012 was perhaps the best time to buy real estate in generations. This was shortly after the global financial crisis, so there was this confluence of low prices, low interest rates, strong cash flow, and you had little competition as well. I mean, you had it all in 2012, and those deals performed spectacularly in today’s market. Available properties produce lower initial cash flow, but they could still deliver respectable total returns through appreciation, rent income, principal paydown, tax benefits, and inflation profiting. But a losing investor rejects all of those things because they aren’t as attractive as the once-in-a-generation deals of 2012, or even the rock-bottom low-rate days of 2020, they fell into the baseline trap. The trap here is that an unusually favorable period for real estate became the new benchmark. It’s sort of like how last week I told you about how the deal structure always changes over time from the Reagan administration until today. Today the deal is with Burr properties, and it’s also with buying new builds with rate buydowns. But see, in 2012 there were almost zero available new build properties that were created for investors to rent to others.
Keith Weinhold 14:25
Over time, with these new builds that you’re adding now, you’re going to have fewer maintenance and repair expenses. Tenants tend to stay in new builds longer, and new builds appreciate better over the long run. See, I wasn’t getting any of those benefits in 2012, and I bought rental real estate in 2012, and I bought real estate recently as well. Not falling into the baseline trap, because today it’s still difficult to find any investment bet. Than residential real estate with a loan, it is a scarce asset that people are going to continue to need. So here we are today, about 15 years on from 2012. Water market conditions like now. Let’s talk about that and what can we expect for the next year? National home prices keep rising, but they’re only about one half of 1% higher than they were a year ago. I mean, that’s an appreciation level with the enthusiasm of someone attending a seven a.m. meeting. I do expect national home prices to keep rising modestly over the next year. Let me tell you about why, and then what the drivers are. And to be clear, we’re talking about single-family homes up to fourplexes here. I’ll discuss apartments later today. Well, the drivers for continued price growth are many of the same reasons that home prices are up just a little since last year. There are four of them. These four are inflation, the AI boom, short inventory, and a lack of distressed sellers. So let’s unpack all of these four factors that I’ve identified for putting a floor underneath home prices, inflationary pressure is poised to raise replacement cost, energy, wages, and tariffs make those inputs more expensive, and the more war we have, the more inflation we have. A home is a bundle of land, labor, lumber, concrete, copper, and all sorts of energy inputs, plus 14 trips to Home Depot because someone forgot the correct nails and screws. That’s what a home is. Recent home price growth it has lagged today’s 3.4% CPI inflation rate. So again, we’re not even talking about inflation-adjusted gains here. AI that creates local housing heat. It’s not so much a nationwide driver of home prices. And in a moment, I’ll tell you the top five housing markets for AI-led home price growth, but how does AI investment push up home prices anyway? How does that happen? People are getting high salaries, signing bonuses, and stock options that produces well-funded buyers. They make big down payments, or they even pay all cash for homes, and when a buyer pays all cash for a home, they can pay absolutely any price because they don’t have to get an appraisal that comes along with a loan for a financed property.
Keith Weinhold 17:53
That’s how all cash buyers can really push up prices. The growth in AI companies that has really helped push the S and P 500 higher that fuels a wealth effect nationwide that makes everybody feel wealthier regardless of where you live as long as you’re invested in the stock market but the localized effects with those higher AI wages and signing bonuses in order they are most potent in San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, New York City, and Boston, and none of those are good cash flow investor markets. Still, short housing inventory is contributing to higher prices, and hey, it’s time that we check on this again. Ever since the inventory crunch started to plummet in 2021 and reached its lowest point in 2022, I’ve been updating you on the housing supply, and I always keep it same same. I cite the same data source, the Federal Reserve Economic Data’s active listing count, Fred’s active listing count, which counts single-family and townhomes and condos, all wrapped up in this number. And the figure it still hasn’t recovered at 1.1 million homes. Now it is 2% higher than last year, 2% more supply than last year, but overall housing supply is still 9% below pre-pandemic levels. And there’s one important thing to keep in mind that most don’t think about when you hear that figure that housing supply is 9% below pre-pandemic times in 2019, that does not mean we’re 9% short. That is because even in 2019 there was a housing shortage, and we are 9% below that yet, keeping. Upward pressure on prices and the most supply-constrained markets today. It includes both good and poor cash-flowing investor markets.
Keith Weinhold 20:10
They are New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Hartford, Providence, Milwaukee, Boston, Cleveland, Virginia Beach, and Kansas City. All of those places remain especially tight with housing inventory, and then finally, this fourth of four reasons I’ve cited for continued upward pressure on home prices are the fact that distressed sellers-they are few and far between-and you need a lot of those in order to have a serious down cycle, after the 2008 housing crash, millions of owners were underwater. They owed more on their homes than they were worth. Lending standards were irresponsibly loose. Adjustable rate mortgages were resetting higher. I mean, a lot of people had little choice but to sell or to hand the keys back to the bank. Distress, distress, distress. Today is almost the mirror image. Here’s what’s really happening with homeowners having this record equity position today-an average of over $300,000. Many also locked in at fixed mortgage rates below 5% it means that they’re enjoying perhaps the cheapest long-term debt that they are ever going to have. Lending standards have been strong, foreclosure rates remain low, and virtually nobody is being forced to sell. That matters more than most people think because housing crashes need a lot of forced sellers, owners who must accept almost any price in order to escape the property. But today, most homeowners they can simply either stay put, or if they’re going to move out of the home, keep it and rent out the home, or they can wait for a better offer. No distress. In other words, buyers might be frustrated, but sellers-they’re just not desperate. And without desperation, it is difficult for home prices to fall sharply. So the bottom line here with today’s home prices and looking into next year, home price growth is apparent, but it’s weak. The ingredients for a national price collapse are nowhere to be found, so this does not spell boom or crash. Home prices appear poised to keep slowly grinding higher, but with this low affordability, that keeps them from soaring, say 10 or 12% higher. I don’t see that happening. And of course, each December, I make my home price forecast to the exact percentage point for the year ahead, so you can look forward to that soon. The Get Rich Education home price appreciation forecast that I made late last year for this year. It looks like it’s going to be almost spot on. Of course, unlike a lot of analysts, transparently, I also give you the result of how closely the forecast hit the target every year, so you can look forward to that too. Hey, if you like this show, there’s more content where this comes from. Sign up for our complimentary newsletter. That way, you can see the graphs and charts and maps that I break down. If you like what you hear on Get Rich Education, every week I show you what’s really happening with real estate rents, inflation, interest rates, and the economy, and more importantly, what you can do about it. You’ll get sharp insights, useful opportunities, and a few laughs along the way. Yeah, a couple knee slappers sprinkled in there with actionable strategies, like the savviest way to get rent increases. Get smarter in just a three to four minute read every week. Join 1000s of smart investors right now at greletter.com because your inbox could use fewer coupons and more financial freedom. That is greletter.com. More straight ahead.
Keith Weinhold 24:20
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Dana Dunford 25:59
This is Hemline’s co-founder Dana Dunford. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and don’t quit your daydream.
Keith Weinhold 26:15
Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I’m your host Keith Weinhold. There will only ever be one episode 622, and you’re listening to it. I hope you’re enjoying the late summer. I’m wringing every bit of time and enjoyment out of it that I can. I don’t know if this part was enjoyable, but I ran an all-out mile on a track. I wanted to see how fast I could run a mile. I had a friend pace me, and I got a 631. I was happy with that since I hadn’t done any specific training. Yes, a mile is more than four laps on a track as well. Did you know that? Yes, this detail-oriented shaved mammal here diligently measured off that extra nine point something meters. Ah, I’ll tell you that fourth lap hurt so badly that if my buddy weren’t there, I might have just quit and not finished the mile. But summer’s days are numbered, and that’s too bad because it is my favorite season of the year. The NFL season kicks off in just two days on the ninth, with Seattle hosting the New England Patriots in a rematch of last year’s Super Bowl. So then, I guess it looks like your productivity for the week will end with a respectable two-day run as you tune in to that game. Where is the future demand for real estate going to come from? It comes from a growing population. The U.S. is expected to add 21 and a half million people from 2025 to 2040. 21 and a half million more people. The overall population it’s expected to grow from about 341 million up to 363 million. That is where we’re going. That’s per the Census Bureau and the University of Virginia, projecting 341 up to 363 by the year 2040, which is just a little over 13 years away. Okay, so that part is not so surprising, but here is what is absolutely staggering: more than half of this entire increase is projected to occur in just two states, just two of the 50 states, more than half of the increase. Do you know what they are? In fact, I showed you a map of this in a recent newsletter, but I can talk about it and expand on it more here. \
Keith Weinhold 28:52
The two states that are expected to account for more than half of the nation’s overall population growth through 2040 are Texas and Florida. They’re already the second and third most populous states, respectively. It’s kind of like America looked at the map, checked their weather app, and started packing sunscreen. Texas is expected to add 6.6 million residents. Florida welcoming another 4.6 million during this span. So that is over 11 million new people between them. This is like taking the entire population of Georgia and dropping it into those two already booming states, that much growth in this fairly short period of time, for real estate investors, more people that generally means more demand for our housing product, and I’ll get back to the staggering Texas and Florida imbalance in just a moment. Because there are big gains in other investor-friendly southeastern states like Georgia and Tennessee, the Mountain West should swell alone. The South, okay, the region that the Census Bureau delineates as the South, which sort of runs from Maryland all the way down south and then west out toward Texas, the South just until 2040 is expected to account for 78 percent of the growth. That is just staggering. Cash flow hotbed Indiana that should grow by nearly a quarter million residents as well. The Carolinas are ballooning. Already the most densely populated state in the nation, New Jersey, that will get more dense with some pretty healthy population growth. Its residents have not discovered elbow room, but not every state is adding population. 14 states are expected to shrink, led by Illinois losing 650,000 people and New York down 457k. Again, this is all through 2040. In fact, a small loss cluster actually runs through the South, though West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana-they’re projected to lose 440,000 people combined. You know that whole theory that sometimes you hear people talk about, like with Earth warming and drying, you’re going to have people stampeding toward the freshwater Great Lakes states. That is probably farcical. That just has not shown up in the data. That people are moving in droves to say cooler Michigan and Wisconsin for those reasons.
Keith Weinhold 31:46
It’s just not happening now. Of course, population projections are not delivered from Mount Sinai on stone tablets. Besides births and deaths, the level of future immigration, of course, that’s the real wild card here. After the Trump presidency ends by 2029, the next administration that could tighten or loosen the immigration spigot, that could materially reshape the map. But they’re probably not going to tighten immigration. I mean, they couldn’t because the flow really couldn’t be crimped much more than it already is. People love to poke fun at California, but even in 2040, it is expected to barely retain its crown and edge out Texas to still be the most populous state: 39 million versus 38 million, respectively, for California and Texas by 2040. But yeah, Texas and Florida-they are the real stories here, and why droves of people are attracted there for cheaper housing, jobs, warm weather, a business-friendly environment, and Texas and Florida are also places where builders can still build without completing some side quest worthy of a video game with all their permits and regulations and roadblocks. You’re largely free of those things in Texas and Florida. Now there are two more important factors to keep in mind here. Some bigger picture context. I’ve talked before about how the overall American mobility rate is down, and this is a long, long trend. Decade after decade, fewer people move and more people stay put, which is contrary to popular belief. This lower mobility rate, and another factor that gives you perspective is that as real estate investors, we know all this stuff I’ve been talking about here. These population changes-they only look at the demand side. The supply side matters just as much, despite their slower population growth. Northeast and Midwest states build less new inventory, and that is why Northeastern and Midwestern housing prices and rents are still growing faster today than they are in the Sun Belt, despite all of those Sun Belt construction cranes. You know, too many construction cranes. It looks bullish, and it actually is, but it spikes supply and it suppresses prices. And really, the bottom line here with American population growth from now until 2040 is follow the people, but count the rooftops. Population growth creates housing demand, while limited construction creates scarcity.
Keith Weinhold 34:46
The best opportunities often emerge where those two forces collide. That’s what you really want to look for: demand and scarcity. Now, the apartment space. We all know that’s been beleaguered for about three or four years, ever since higher mortgage rates set in and high construction levels conspired to keep apartment rents suppressed. In fact, multifamily construction had a peak in this cycle during 2024. That’s when 600,000 units were built back in 2024. That was the most new apartment supply since 1986. That is when Cheers, MacGyver, and Miami Vice were on television. Run DMC was on urban radio. MTV was a dominant cultural force, the most new apartment supply since 1986. That’s when kids were playing with GI Joe’s, He-Man, and My Little Pony. For adults, fashion-wise, they were wearing enough shoulder padding to survive a minor collision. So, lots of new apartment supply to get absorbed. It is getting more and more absorbed. There are more signs there now because the national median apartment rent has now increased for seven months in a row. That’s according to Apartment List. Also, the apartment vacancy rate has dropped for six straight months, and do you have any idea what the national apartment vacancy rate is? It has dropped down to now 7.1% Inevitably, overbuilt apartments will be absorbed with a growing population. Lots of great episodes coming up here on the show, where you might be in for a surprise next week. A renowned macro economist will be here on the show with us. I think we all know that in 1971, the U.S. had a lot of economic changes. That’s when Nixon completely eliminated us from the gold standard, and the economic system shifted from capitalism to creditism back then. Well, now we appear to be leaving creditism and entering a new economic phase. This could be seismic. Next week here on the show, he’ll reveal what the new era is called and how you need to prepare for it, that’s next week here on episode 623. If you haven’t yet, be sure to hit the follow button or subscribe button on your podcatcher so that you don’t miss it.
Keith Weinhold 37:31
Again, if you like what you hear here each week, the GRE “Don’t Quit Your Daydream” letter gives you the sharpest ideas of the week in about three or four quick hitting minutes, you’ll get surprising housing data, wealth building strategies, timely opportunities, news that a lot of times you can’t get anywhere else, and maps and charts that make you say, “Wait, what? It’s smart, useful, entertaining, and completely free. Thousands of investors read it every week, and believe it or not, I’m actually more of a writer than a talker. Don’t just listen to Get Rich Education, get the letter at greletter.com. That’s greletter.com. Until next week, I’m your host Keith Weinhold. Don’t quit your daydream.
Speaker 2 38:23
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.
Keith Weinhold 38:51
The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, getricheducation.com
