Maryland REALTORS®’ CEO, Chuck Kasky, has an in-depth conversation with Assistant Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Community and Housing Development (DCHD), Matthew Heckles, about the Maryland Mortgage Program (MMP). Chuck and Matthew break down the processes of the MMP, the benefits it offers for first-time homebuyers, student loan forgiveness,
For more information on the Maryland Mortgage Program visit: https://mmp.maryland.gov/
Maryland REALTORS®’ CEO, Chuck Kasky, has an in-depth conversation with Assistant Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Community and Housing Development (DCHD), Matthew Heckles, about the Maryland Mortgage Program (MMP). Chuck and Matthew break down the processes of the MMP, the benefits it offers for first-time homebuyers, student loan forgiveness,
For more information on the Maryland Mortgage Program visit: https://mmp.maryland.gov/
During the recovery following the 2008 financial crisis. First time home buyers, as well as repeat buyers for that matter have been affected by soaring prices of a rebounding us housing market. Here are some compelling facts compared to 2009. The median home price has increased by as much as 100% or more in some markets. The share of first time buyers has been on a downward trend. Entry-level buyers represented 50% of total sales numbers in 2010. Whereas by 2018, the share dropped to 33%. The median age of a first-time buyer increased from 30 years old in 2009 to 32 years old in 2018. That might not sound like a lot, but it has a significant impact on the market. First time buyers everywhere have a tough time entering the housing market ever increasing home prices, insufficient supply and tight credit rules are the main culprits. In addition, crushing student loan debt and high rents only add insult to injury, making it almost impossible for the majority of first time home buyers to start saving for a down payment. Hello, I'm Chuck Caskey, Maryland realtor CEO, and you're listening to get real estate. The Maryland realtors podcast joining us today is Matt heckles, assistant secretary of the Maryland department of housing and community development to talk about the Maryland mortgage program or MMP, which provides home loans to eligible home buyers, purchasing and Maryland. Thanks for being here, Matt. Thanks
Speaker 2:Chuck. It's wonderful to talk mortgages with
Speaker 1:You. They're the lifeblood of our industry. And first thing I want to do is thank you for your partnership over the years. You and I and Maryland realtors have been working together for a long time and we've made great progress. And we're excited to hear from you about MNP, what programs are available and then maybe what kinds of things, what challenges there are still in the program and what we can do to help, and maybe provide some information about potential enhancements to the program. So you could start us off, tell us basically what the programs are available, what each can do, which type of homeowner would be eligible or which would be appropriate for certain individuals and depending on their situation.
Speaker 2:Sure, absolutely. And thanks. Same to you on the partnership side of things, Maryland realtors has been a great partner to the program. Um, I've been with the department now about going on five years and it's really been a focus over that time of ours to make sure that we're engaging with realtors. We, we have a network of lenders that offer the Maryland mortgage program, but we know that that realtors are the first point of contact and really where the whole home buying process the realtor is with that buyer from beginning to middle to end. And I know that from personal experience, and I know that from hearing from people that use our program and for us focusing on that trusted advisor to the home buyer through the home buying process was a logical step for us. We want to make sure that people have information about MNP at all points in the home buying process, because it can change the home buying process for our clients, for people that are using the program. So MMP relied primarily on thing. First-time home buyers though, not exclusively. Most of the advantages that the MMP program gives to a buyer apply most to first-time home buyers, repeat buyers tend to not need those advantages. And, and specifically what that, what I'm talking about here is down payment assistance. We have a suite of down payment assistance programs that are matched up with the Maryland mortgage first. So the best way to think about it is, is that the Maryland mortgage program is a normal mortgage. It's a 30 year fixed rate, usually very attractive rate first mortgage on the property. And we will layer on top of that, a second mortgage or some other down payment assistance for the home buyer to help them with closing costs or even to some degree. Then the down payment of the home closing costs in Maryland are quite expensive. Somewhere in the 13, 14,$15,000 range, I believe is the experience that we've seen. And it does vary by location, but that's, that's a hefty amount of money to bring to the table. And so our programs help to help the home buyer to afford that part. That upfront cost tends to be the highest barrier for people, especially first time home buyers these days since the great recession. I mean, your data was fantastic. Home prices have gone up, but mortgage rates are so low right now that oftentimes, and really since the recession rent rates have gone up. So oftentimes you can have, if you can get into home ownership, it might even be a more affordable option than renting at this point in time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. And just to expand on the partnership a little bit, Maryland realtors does sponsor a program, housing opportunity certification, which you can achieve and obtain from us and a big part of the hoc as we call it is a full understanding of MMP. And then our members who obtain the hoc, a housing opportunity certification, their names are on our website and on our website, Maryland home ownership.com a little plug for our, especially for first-time buyers or our members helping, wanting to help. First time buyers go to Maryland, home ownership.com and that's our consumer site. And it includes names of our members who have obtained the certification because we're aware that we know that they're fully familiar with the MMP.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're, we're, we're thrilled to partner with you on that. It's been great all around, I believe. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So talk a little bit about the specifics of some of the programs and which buyers would be appropriate for which program.
Speaker 2:Sure. Um, so again, most of the buyers that come to us are first time home buyers, and we offer a mixture of products, uh, the lowest rate that we offer. And today that rate, it's hard to even say this out loud. Our lowest rate is two and a quarter percent on again, a 30 year fixed rate. Uh, at this point, no discount points. It is just an incredible product for, for people who qualify. Our lowest rate is reserved for people who use our first time advantage program. I don't want to get too geeky into the financing, but we take advantage as a housing finance agency of tax exempt bond financing. And that allows us to go even deeper on our rates for qualified first time home buyers. The MIP program overall does have income limits and some other factors that, um, uh, not everyone is eligible, but we do cover a pretty wide swath of, of families looking to buy a home on top of that, a very, very low rate. Um, we also have, uh, the down payment assistance programs that take the form of either a, a loan or a grant. So you can get a re percent loan. When I say 3%, it's 3% of the first mortgage amount. So if you're buying a$200,000 home, that loan would come out to$6,000. We also have grant products, a 3% grant and a 4% grant. So at 4% on the same house, as$8,000 in down payment assistance. And that the main difference from the loans and the grants are that the loan is recorded as a second mortgage. It is due upon disruption of the first mortgage, usually the sale of the house, but you don't pay on it. So it doesn't affect your monthly obligation. It's a 0% deferred. Second mortgage. The grants are forgiven immediately, but they do come with a higher interest rate. We have a few specialty programs. We have a program partnership with Montgomery County where we have some higher down payment assistance available in Montgomery County and smart buy is really a great initiative. That's relatively new to MNP and initiative of governor Hogan to help first time home buyers who have student debt. And basically this program allows for the home buyer to get an MMP first mortgage and a second mortgage that they use to pay off their student debt under certain circumstances.
Speaker 1:And so I have two daughters, 32 and 26, and both homeowners both took advantage of MMP. So I have a little bit of knowledge, probably not as much as I'd like, but the older one took advantage of the 4% grant program. And yeah, the rate was a little bit higher. And if you want to think about closing costs and in terms of percent would say 6%, is that what we usually say closing costs are roughly 6% of the cost of the house, something like that. Yeah. So in addition to, I think, I think a big point, an important point is that relationship between renting and owning. So you're right, that rising rent are significant barrier to saving the money along with student loan debt. So where do people fall in terms of the popularity of these programs? What kind of, how does, how does that shake out in terms of the numbers of loans? Let's start there. Actually, I don't know if you have those numbers, but for 2020, what kind of population are we serving and how many people are in each of these products, if you have that information
Speaker 2:Roughly. Yeah, absolutely. So we of course look at fiscal years, but it's a good 12 month representation. Our last fiscal year was the largest ever in the history of the Maryland mortgage program due almost exclusively to our partnership with Maryland realtors now, maybe not entirely, but it did help. It did help. Um, we have nearly 5,000 loans last year and the mortgage amount was total to over a billion dollars,$1.1 billion. So that was a high water Mark for the program. I really do attribute that to, you know, increasing partnerships with originating lenders, realtors, and other groups around the state, really focusing in on making sure that our mortgage products are as streamlined and efficient and easy to access and understand for home buyers. And then thirdly, sort of our operations, you know, making sure that our operations are really, really smooth so that there really isn't a good reason not to use the Maryland mortgage program. So I think that there's still room for growth. You know, there are a lot of first time home buyers out there that don't know about MNP right. That's one of our greatest frustrations is that in some ways we are a very well kept secret, and there's no reason for that. We have plenty of capacity. We have plenty of ability to do this work and we'd love to do more of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That was going to be my next question about unused capacity. Can you quantify that a little bit? How many more loans do you think you could make based on
Speaker 2:That capacity? Yeah, so, you know, the way that we used to run the program, we would run out of money because we were exposed to find, and this is a misconception in the industry about MNP that because we used to rely exclusively on tax exempt bond financing to finance the program. And that's a limited volume cap that we are allocated as a state, really in every state, but really that market fell apart in 2009. And so we've had to recreate the Maryland mortgage program. And so at this point, yes, the bond program does offer certain advantages in rate that we can't offer on the other side. But our capacity to make mortgages is virtually unlimited.
Speaker 1:That's important as we continue the partnership to get that word out. But also there's a bit of a choke point. I would say with the originators, as you mentioned, they have to be at least as essential as our members, as realtors to help first-time buyers connect with originators. And I want to share with you a story that you and I have talked about this, but with, for our listeners, I, my older daughter, she was working with a who put her in touch with a lender. And he was, this individual was sharing different programs with my daughter and who knew, cause I said, no, ask about the MMP. Cause there are great programs out there. And he was, he was hesitant to do that and she had to press him. And he basically then said that he couldn't help her if she was interested in an MMP program. And she ended up with a different lender. So talk a little bit about your relationship with the originators. What is the resistance to MMP with some I'm not saying all certainly because we have many, many originators, but just let people in on a little bit at the conversations you and I have had over time about that. And is that a problem? Is there a solution to that or is that, was that a kind of a one-off thing? Talk a little bit about that. If you, if you would,
Speaker 2:This analogy, I think that I've ever heard about, about this problem, essentially we use a network of lenders, mortgage lenders as our sales team, as our loan originators. And that network has grown over the last five years from, you know, 60 or so to 130. So we have done a really good job of making sure that MMP is in more mortgage loan, originator offices around the state than ever before. Again, a big part of the reason that I think we are seeing such success with the program, but the analogy I heard was, you know, we're sort of asking the guy who drives the Coca-Cola truck to sell Pepsi. Um, you know, if, if this is a big mortgage company, they have options of many different mortgage programs to sell their mortgages to that they originate. And for different reasons, they may or may not participate with MMP. The reasons not to probably include a little bit of ease of access. You know, we do have some compliance review because we do have in common. So you've got to check a few different boxes. We have done our best to streamline that as best we can. So there's less of a reason than there used to be, but it still exists. We also, because of the way that we are structured and the way that we finance, we are not able to provide as much compensation to the lender and give this down payment assistance and the low rates that we do to the home buyer. So there's a balance there's only so much sort of revenue created by any given mortgage product. And so, you know, we try to balance a little bit more the advantage to the home buyer because we're serving such a special first time home buyer group that really does need us to try to push as much of the benefit of the mortgage to them as, as we can. So our compensation to lenders is I think good, but it isn't as much as they might get from a different product. And there's there's times sometimes as well, again, with our processes, they have to go through some new certifications or some recertifications that that might take some time. There are a number of sort of different reasons why a lender may or may not want to put someone, a Maryland mortgage product. And I think that's why it's really important for us to do direct marketing. We do a lot of marketing on social media. That's why I think it's really important for us to educate the members of your organization, because if they see a client that should probably explore MNP and a P is a great program, I am its biggest supporter, but it isn't right for everyone. Of course, there are a lot of different reasons why a home buyer might not want to go through the process as well, but it is a great product for a lot of first-time home buyers. And we want people to at least explore it. We want them to know that it's an option and we want them to weigh it against the other options that are being given to them.
Speaker 1:Where can our members, if a realtor is helping the first-time buyer to connect to a originator for MMP, where could they find that information, as opposed to just asking around which they do, they have lenders they work with, but in case they don't, where would they want to go? Where can they go to get information on lenders participating in the process?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we have a, I think a pretty good website and it's M and p.maryland.gov. And if you just Google, Maryland mortgage program, that's the first thing that comes up as well. And this, this website of course, gives to know the different rates, the list of lenders and different ways to access the program and a lot of information about different types of down payment assistance, the eligibility criteria, things like that.
Speaker 1:All right. So again, MMP got maryland.gov. And if you click on talk to a lender and get started, eventually you will find list or resources that the homebuyer would get to connect to a lender.
Speaker 2:And again, we're always looking for more lenders to participate in the program. And so, you know, if your members are working with a lender who isn't registered with the program, that's, that's a process. We do have to make sure that the lender, you know, meets certain criteria, but you know, we'd love to get even more lenders signed up if we can, especially in rural areas, you know, this is a program that does very well in the Baltimore DC Metro area and less so in, in the more rural areas of the state. And that's a nut that we haven't quite cracked yet.
Speaker 1:Good point. Okay, well, we can talk about that offline, but yeah, maybe we can help with that as well. I mentioned my older daughter, she got the form, she was participated in the 4% grant program and my younger daughter was smart by program. So she had some student loans and I wanted to run this by you. I think it's an interesting thought. And depending on when people are hearing this, there may be additional developments in this proposal, but we're recording this in mid January. And as the new administration is taking over and there's been a lot of discussion and there was throughout the campaign about student loan, forgiveness, and there's arguments on all sides of this and philosophical, I think good arguments about whether it's a good idea and if so, how much debt should be forgiven, et cetera. There is a proposal as we speak, that's being floated for forgiveness of up to$50,000. And again, when you're hearing this and this may be outdated, but let's just go with that. So if you like, my daughter did participated in the smart buy program. I don't know exactly how much loans she had, but let's just settle on$30,000, nice round number. So she had the$30,000 in loan student debt participated in the program, purchased her home. And I can tell you anecdotally, she was paying rent and paying off her student loans. And now she's a homeowner with no student loan debt and she brought in a roommate. And so now she's, you know, 400$5,500 a month to the good and she's a homeowner. And so this notion of, you know, paying rent, paying your student loans, taking advantage of other programs and Baltimore city both have in Baltimore city, there was down payment assistance and some Baltimore city programs. And, you know, she got into her home with very little money down and no student loans are gone and she's like I said, 450$500 a month to the good. And she's a homeowner. I mean, I, how we, it's a no brainer for us and you know what I mean? So we were ecstatic to have that workout for her. So could you just talk a little bit about the mechanics of the smart buy program? We can get a little geeky it's okay. But more importantly, I would like to explore what consequences there may be for somebody who just went through this and I'm talking six or seven months ago. And so, you know, her student loans are, she's not paying her quote unquote forgiven, but talk a little bit about that mechanics. And then how is she going to feel if the federal government for gave$50,000 of every, everybody who still has student loans up to$50,000 of their loans are going to be forgiven? Is she going to be somehow ironically, you know, penalized for that participation or how's that going to work mechanically? And it may not be as bad as I originally thought. So just in case anybody else's in that same position, could you kind of explain the, how that might work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. Well, let me talk about the program broadly. So, you know, let's, let's think about, I was like to run some hypothetical numbers and there, but let's assume that, that, uh, um, and can you remind me your daughter's name? I'll use her Hunter Hunter let's assume Hunter was paying. It's going to get a little more than hypothetical perhaps, but let's assume she was paying$1,500 in rent and she had the student debt that was costing her$400 a month. So her total sort of debt for, for those two items would be about$1,900 per month. What's what smart buy does is as the person buys a home, we issue the, the MMP first and then we issue and that kind of takes care of the purchase of the house. So let's say she buys a$200,000 house, you know, give or take here. We're, we're talking about a$200,000 mortgage and, you know, a loan originator is going to look at that$400 in student debt that she's paying every month and factor that in to her debt to income ratio. So it will, it will prohibit her from, from qualifying, perhaps, uh, for a mortgage, maybe at all, but certainly for a mortgage that might support the house that she wants to buy. Right. And so what smart buy does is puts a second mortgage in place for up to$30,000 in student debt. But we also require that the entire student debt be eliminated. And the reason for that is because we want to get rid of that$400 monthly obligation completely. If we paid off a portion of the student debt, the balance would go down, which would be great, but also the person still has that$400. So you don't get the added benefit of being able to afford a higher affordability or a higher value of the home. So it's really important that we eliminate that student that obligation completely from the monthly cash flow. So what that would look like, let's assume that the mortgage is for the same amount as the rent, which we've talked about is entirely achievable these days. Now she is paying$1,500 for the mortgage on her house with none of the$400 that she has to pay for student debt. Now that second mortgage for smart buy is a 0% deferred, which means that you don't pay it and you don't pay any interest on it. And then in addition to that, it is forgiven over five years. So 20% per year for five years. So in five years, you end up with only the MNP mortgage left on the house. So obviously we conceived this program before any talk of student debt forgiveness was there. I will say, I don't know, you know, our cap of$30,000 right now, isn't enough for some people, you know, we have people who come to us and say, listen, I'd love to do the smart buy program, but I owe$80,000. Well, you know, that person now becomes qualified if 50,000 is forgiven and 30,000 is taken care of through the smart buy program, that person now becomes eligible.
Speaker 1:So I think that we may still have a number
Speaker 2:Of people who are eligible and would benefit from smart buy right now. We kind of call them the, the rich uncles, you know, if you've had$2,000 in debt and you've got the opportunity to eliminate 30,000 of that with smart buy, you have to come to the table basically with$20,000 to eliminate the debt. And so that's our proverbial,
Speaker 1:Right? I get it. Okay. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Worship. I think what's important here is that this program, because of the value of it, more than our down payment assistance programs helps people to afford the house period or to afford more house. And I think that is something that for your membership is really, really important. It would, if you have someone who's looking for their first home and they've got student debt and they feel constrained by that, they may be looking, you know, at a price point that's really hard to accomplish, but if you can work with them and them to figure out what their lender, hopefully, you know, figure out what benefit can be realized with a smart buy program that may open doors to a whole different set of homes that they may be, should be looking at to buy. And that for your membership, I think would be a very powerful tool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I can. It is. And so you just have to sit down and run the numbers, but it, it works. And both, all of those programs were in I'm living proof in both of my daughters are so thanks for that information. Switch gears just a little bit to finish up the Maryland general assembly is in session. As we speak with brand new leadership, the house and Senate ha new house speaker, Adrian Jones and Senate president, bill Ferguson, over the summer Senate, president Ferguson appointed an advisory work group on equity and inclusion. And if anybody is interested in this, they can go to the Maryland general assembly website and search for advisory group on equity and inclusion. And you'll get this report. It's not really long, I would say, well, it's not 20 some pages in the work group report. There were about a page and a half discussion about the Maryland mortgage program. They're going to be recommendations. There are recommendations within the report about enhancements to the program. Of course, when we talk about enhancements to the program, we usually talk about funding, but putting that aside for a minute, let me just run down a couple of the recommendations and then ask you to expand on that and give us a little bit of your perspective on it. One is refinance currently, MMP does not include refinancing options. What are your thinking? As far as whether that's something MNP can tackle,
Speaker 2:We've actually looked at that a lot and we do have a refi program for MMP borrowers. The question I think is really that one of value, the value that MNP provides is primarily on the down payment assistance side. And usually if someone is in a position to refinance, they have equity in the home and they can roll the cost of origination of that new refinance loan into the principal of the loan. I don't think that there is much in the structure of MNP that provides an advantage to someone who's in a refi. It's usually also an option. I mean, yes, we could maybe be lowering someone's monthly bills, which is a great thing, but if they aren't in default, they aren't struggling to make those payments. Then, you know, I'd rather kind of reserve the power of MMP for getting people into their first home. So again, I, I think from a policy perspective, I'm not sure what we would be accomplishing with a refi program and from a toolbox perspective, I'm not sure that we're providing a benefit to the homeowner at that point that the market isn't, you know, MMP is whenever I talk about MIP, I talk about the, the, the sort of the gray area of homeownership, just like, you know, we said early on, it's not the program for everyone. It's not the program for every lender and so on, you know, but there is a group of people that need the extra boost that MNP gives you, man, I suppose, just desires. But a lot of people need that down payment assistance. And again, with the refi program, I'm just not sure what benefit over the market. We don't want to compete with the market, right? The market is filling the need. We are happy to let the market do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a, that's an important point. People talk about government intrusion in the private sector where we're not that at that, that make that pretty clear.
Speaker 2:And then if this was a, and that's a broad refi program, if there was a specific need that was identified, you know, and I think sometimes during the last economic crisis, there was certainly a huge housing component to that with a lot of foreclosure and defaults. And, you know, there were some rescue programs that were put in place that allowed people to refi in those situations. You're looking for a principal reduction. You're looking for, you know, some other factor. And again, I just don't feel like that's needed in the market right now
Speaker 1:Is the amount speaking of the closing costs and the three or 4% program, depending is that enough? Is it, do we need to raise the minimum to 10,000? Was that that's another recommendation to increase the minimum down payment assistance to 10,000? Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2:So we do have a floor of 5,000 because if you do the math, we didn't want people at 3% to get less than$5,000, right? So I think the report recommends a$10,000 floor that would sort of most of the clients who come to us, the home buyers who come to us, you know, get less than 10,000. So that would essentially establish a new amount of down payment assistance. Most of our dumpsters is funded by the state. At this point, this would require more funding. This administration has been very good to the MMP program funding, the smart buy program, increasing the amount of money for down payment assistance. And it's, and it's absolutely true. I mean, home ownership is a great benefit to the state, to communities, to economic stability and everything else. So this administration has really recognized that and invested in this program and in home buyers in general across the state, but this would be a significant fiscal amount. I will say that I think that most times people can use MNP in coordination with other incentives. You know, I did some math once and it was sort of maybe you'd have to be the perfect buyer. And I think this was somebody in the city of Baltimore, the down payment assistance that you could get was in the 20 to$25,000 range. Absolutely. So, you know, if you're layering MNP and we partner with those programs and so a good loan originator with a good realtor who knows how to work this. And it's just a shame to a certain extent that this is how you have to engage in the dance. But I think that there is opportunity for people in, and again, in certain circumstances to far exceed the amount of assistance that we offer. Now we could, um, you know, through our financing mechanisms create higher down payment. But as you see with our rates today, if you look at our website and our rate sheet, the more assistance we give in down payment, the higher the interest rate becomes. Sure. So we do try to balance that, you know, provide higher down payment assistance, but those rates would be even higher. And so at some point we think that that that benefit becomes lost. So that's a good point. There is a little bit of room for us to probably push that envelope a little bit. I know some housing finance agencies around the country have a 5% assistance program. More down payment assistance would obviously help more people. And I think the perspective of this report, you know, enabling and empowering, you know, first time home buyers, perhaps first in their family home buyers, I think that's going deeper maybe at a lower income limit. You know, that would be good policy. I think that we could certainly look at and look forward to working with folks at general assembly and others to implement
Speaker 1:Those are all important points. And then the last point there are others, but we wanted to, they've mentioned the report mentions expanding the, your outreach to real estate agents and about the incentives and also something we haven't talked about. But I think it might be a good way to end is it's really big part of our push this year is supporting minority home ownership. And we didn't, I didn't specifically talk about the beginning, the decreasing percentage of minority homeowners. And that certainly is one of our focuses this year. We are certain that home ownership is a significant way to build wealth generationally as well. And so increasing minority home ownership is one of our primary initiatives for that one, this not just this year, but for the foreseeable future. So I just wanted to confirm with you that not only are we working together for all homeowners, but really hopefully specifically targeting homeowners of color black and Brown communities and making sure that that we're reaching them with this information to incentivize and get those homeownership rates up, where, where they belong,
Speaker 2:Certainly a focus of ours. Um, and, and I think really always has been, we haven't necessarily always defined it that way, but I think that, you know, when you look back at what MNP strives to accomplish and does accomplish, it has always served again, first time, home buyers, low to moderate income families. Um, and, and so, you know, we have always served a higher percentage of minority households and that's really important to us. And it's something that we, you know, MNP is a huge part of the market, but we outperform the market when it comes to mortgages for minority homeowners, as it is currently structured, we do focus on outreach very much to minority communities. You know, I think what's, what's really important. And I think it's, it's, it's addressed in this report as well is home-ownership counseling and financial education and financial coaching even. Yes. And so that's a really important partnership for us as well as to work with housing counseling agencies. I recommend it to anybody that I speak to about buying a home, especially first time home buyers, especially people who are first in a generation or first ever in a family to own a home right now. I think when you grow up in a, in a home where your parents owned the house, there's, there's a certain amount of absorption of information that you may not get. And just knowing that you've got to tackle, you know, maintenance and crises, you know, that's, that's really important and homeowners, homeowner education helps people understand that. But before that, I think it's really important to do the financial literacy piece and make sure that people are understand the value of home ownership. I know that your membership does a great job of being advocates for the value of home ownership and explaining that to people and not just the home buyers, but to people in the community and legislators and others. And that's really important that we recognize what home ownership really means for a family when it comes to generating wealth. Our system is certainly designed to do that. You know, when we look at tax policy, when we look at just the way that property values have changed over time, um, ownership and property is a way to gain wealth. And, you know, if we look back at our history, we've got some making up to do when it comes to making sure that there is equal access to that opportunity. And again, I think, you know, your organization, your membership MNP, these are all ways, uh, pathways to get there. And we need to do a better job. I think, you know, of explaining the advantages and explaining those pathways, but I think that will always be a challenge.
Speaker 1:Well, Matt, thank you very much for joining us today and to our listeners. Thank you for the privilege of your time. You've been listening to get real estate to Maryland realtors podcast. I'm Chuck Caskey, Marilyn realtors, CEO, thanks to our esteemed producer, Josh Woodson, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts like us. Share us, give us five stars. If we've earned them and give us feedback, including guests you'd like us to invite or topics to explore until next time be well and stay safe.