Speaker 1: This is America's Trunck and Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Welveab Bar. Thanks for tuning in on this Christmas eve.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that we are already on the doorstep
Speaker 2: of Christmas. Unbelievable. As you know, last week we were
Speaker 2: at the Rush Enterprises twentieth year anniversary of their Tech
Speaker 2: Skills Rodeo in Nashville. On that Tuesday evening, right before
Speaker 2: the awards ceremony, we were able to sit down with
Speaker 2: Rusty Rush, the chief executive officer of Rush Enterprises, and
Speaker 2: he gave an assessment and talked about a wide variety
Speaker 2: of things in terms of the company looking ahead. And
Speaker 2: it's always interesting to talk to industry experts in terms
Speaker 2: of people that are on the ground, you know, boots
Speaker 2: on the ground, rubber meets the road, to find out
Speaker 2: what they are seeing, what they are seeing as far
Speaker 2: as the economy is concerned. And then of course I've
Speaker 2: got some anecdotal evidence based on what I'm seeing and
Speaker 2: of course what the actual numbers are as opposed to
Speaker 2: what the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media are
Speaker 2: plucking out of the information to do their lead. And
Speaker 2: we'll get into that a little bit later on, but
Speaker 2: we had the opportunity to sit down with Rusty Rush
Speaker 2: last week and of course the founder and CEO Rusty Rush,
Speaker 2: and of course the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder, and
Speaker 2: had a wide range of questions were able to be asked.
Speaker 2: He remains hopeful. He spoke significantly about being hopeful about
Speaker 2: the trucking industry, adding their signs of life in the
Speaker 2: spock market. But then again they said that there's not
Speaker 2: necessarily something in terms of a positive turnaround yet. He
Speaker 2: mentioned that looking ahead and looking at what's going on,
Speaker 2: mentioned again what a lot of people are mentioning and
Speaker 2: they're kind of surprised by this the third year in
Speaker 2: a row, or actually a third year or more of
Speaker 2: a freight recession from the truckload perspective, which most of
Speaker 2: these recessions as far as the trucking industry are generally
Speaker 2: about twelve to fourteen months. So the fact that we
Speaker 2: were into basically almost a three year period of time
Speaker 2: is extremely unusual. And he mentioned that a lot of
Speaker 2: it that unlike pass cycles that corrected more quickly. He
Speaker 2: mentioned that excess capacity has lingered. He pointed to lenient
Speaker 2: lenders on foreclosures and repossessions. Too many trucks pushed into
Speaker 2: the market during the boom, and then demand that never
Speaker 2: fully caught up. So again, there was a lot of times,
Speaker 2: you know, with the especially with the plandemic, when the people,
Speaker 2: you know, when everybody was depending upon trucks to keep
Speaker 2: the wheels of the economy going, and freight rates were
Speaker 2: way up, and there was a lot of freight being moved,
Speaker 2: although you know, stuff was being delivered to homes, to
Speaker 2: the big box stores and that type of thing. Not
Speaker 2: necessarily the restaurants because most manufacturing and other places were closed,
Speaker 2: but there was still an awful lot of activity, and
Speaker 2: especially in the spot market. So anybody that had a
Speaker 2: CDO license that said, you know what I'm seeing my neighbors,
Speaker 2: I'm hearing about that people are making a lot of money,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to jump on board and jump into
Speaker 2: the market. And so they were able to do that.
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of people bought new trucks,
Speaker 2: some people bought used trucks or late model trucks and
Speaker 2: jumped in and we're making a lot of money. But
Speaker 2: then when the bottom fell out to a certain extent
Speaker 2: after the pandemic, and things started going back to normal.
Speaker 2: Even though, and I remember specifically talking to a lot
Speaker 2: of people, they said that, well, freight rates are much
Speaker 2: lower than what they were back in twenty twenty during
Speaker 2: the pay pandemic as they referred to it, but of
Speaker 2: course I refer to it as a plandemic. But even
Speaker 2: though those prices are a lot lower, they're still above
Speaker 2: what they were pre pandemic. So people that were wise,
Speaker 2: people that knew what they were doing, people that had
Speaker 2: been in the business for a long period of time,
Speaker 2: seeing the ups and downs over the period of time,
Speaker 2: know how to weather the storm. Always put a little
Speaker 2: bit of money aside so that when you do have
Speaker 2: those lean times, you got certain things to carry you over.
Speaker 2: You know, all these things that you hear from these
Speaker 2: financial markets and these financial advisors talking about that you
Speaker 2: want to have a certain amount of reserve of cash
Speaker 2: on hand that in case. You know, sometimes I think
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say this, but I think sometimes they're a
Speaker 2: little bit more how should I say, pessimistic. They will
Speaker 2: say something in terms of having a six month worth
Speaker 2: of reserves. I tend to think more in the turn
Speaker 2: in line of three to four months, because you've got
Speaker 2: to expect that, you know, in any period of time,
Speaker 2: it is very rare that you're going to go six
Speaker 2: months period of time without having any business walk through
Speaker 2: the door, with the exception of the pandemic, But as
Speaker 2: far as the trucking industry is concerned, you had a
Speaker 2: lot of people still on the road, and with the
Speaker 2: spot market, a lot of people jumping in. Now. As
Speaker 2: far as restaurants and that, yes, they had some very
Speaker 2: significant and you know, you can drive, well, it's no
Speaker 2: news to you driving around or anybody that's out going
Speaker 2: to different strip centers, various locations, maybe a favorite restaurant
Speaker 2: of yours or a favorite place that you used to shop,
Speaker 2: or these specialty stores. How many of those are closed?
Speaker 2: You go into these different strip centers, and generally when
Speaker 2: you would see full capacity at some of these strip centers,
Speaker 2: you see basically at this point in time, still about
Speaker 2: seventy five percent occupancy just about everywhere. I look that
Speaker 2: you drive through and you say, cheet, what was the
Speaker 2: store that was in that? Look? Yeah, that store had
Speaker 2: been in there for a number of years. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: they closed. And how many times have you thought, you
Speaker 2: know something that you normally don't buy something that you
Speaker 2: buy only maybe three four times a year, and then
Speaker 2: you say, well about time to buy that, you go
Speaker 2: and check that particular company and they're out of business.
Speaker 2: So a lot of businesses, smaller business went out of business.
Speaker 2: Now a lot of the major corporations and stuff like
Speaker 2: that were able to keep afloat. Then, of course, with
Speaker 2: the government payments coming in and with some of this
Speaker 2: reinvestment or funds available from the federal government to keep
Speaker 2: businesses afloat, which we've seen a lot of people that
Speaker 2: diged into that was fraudulent. But again, the recovery money
Speaker 2: that was available tied a lot of people over, and
Speaker 2: of course with any of the backup that they had
Speaker 2: as far as any savings or anything put aside. But again,
Speaker 2: what we're seeing in the trucking industry is people that
Speaker 2: were not used to weathering this storm, and because the
Speaker 2: stimulus checks didn't qualify or didn't come to them in time,
Speaker 2: a lot of people went by the wayside. And as
Speaker 2: Rusty was pointing out that as that is shaking out,
Speaker 2: we'll see a little bit better, and he said that
Speaker 2: again that the spot market, we're seeing a bit of
Speaker 2: an increase there not as much as they would like
Speaker 2: to see, mentioning talking about soft market, the company has
Speaker 2: leaned in its vocational segment, where you have a lot
Speaker 2: of trucks that are available that are for specific industries.
Speaker 2: Those are still going very well. He talked in terms
Speaker 2: of having a solid year as far as used truck
Speaker 2: parts and service and the body shop business. And again
Speaker 2: because Rush you know, not only sells new trucks, but
Speaker 2: they also service those trucks. They have used trucks, and
Speaker 2: then they also service the trucks in a large parts
Speaker 2: department and body shops. They cover the whole gamut. And
Speaker 2: what we see generally, and we've seen this, you know
Speaker 2: in the four wheeler industry, and that when people hold
Speaker 2: on to their cars a lot longer, then you also
Speaker 2: see an increase in terms of parts stores. People you know,
Speaker 2: buying parts for cars. The parts industry is up as
Speaker 2: opposed to new car sales. So it's kind of this
Speaker 2: push and pull. So the fact that Rush enterprises is
Speaker 2: well diversified. You know, when one segment is down, the
Speaker 2: other segment is up. He talked about medium duty didn't
Speaker 2: get a reprieve. There's a tremendous amount of truck inventories
Speaker 2: that were built up, OEMs caught up, built up. There
Speaker 2: were a lot of inventories sitting on dealers' lots. There's
Speaker 2: still more than your normal years this according to Jason Wilder,
Speaker 2: the COO of Rush Enterprises, there's still more. Let me
Speaker 2: see that meaningful improvement likely hinges on industry that medium
Speaker 2: duty vehicles serve, such as housing, landscaping, HVAC, and food delivery.
Speaker 2: So when there's demand for that movement of vehicles or
Speaker 2: stuff that is transported by the medium duty, then when
Speaker 2: people need those trucks, then they go out and buy
Speaker 2: those trucks. Rush said Steady. Non explosive adoption of electrification
Speaker 2: talked about in a medium duty area where you've got
Speaker 2: local deliveries, that seems to be a niche area where
Speaker 2: people are going where you're going to see a lot
Speaker 2: of improvement. If you notice around town the Amazon Prime people,
Speaker 2: a lot of their vehicles are electric and they're good
Speaker 2: for local delivery and that because they drive around during
Speaker 2: the day but then go back to the central location
Speaker 2: the headquarters at night, plug in and are available for
Speaker 2: the next day. As far as the trucking industry itself,
Speaker 2: for long haul overnight and from coast to coast. The
Speaker 2: infrastructure just isn't there. The weight of these vehicles, the
Speaker 2: amount of less payload that they can carry is not
Speaker 2: sufficient for that area to be covered. So we're seeing
Speaker 2: that more in the medium duty industry wide. Rush sees
Speaker 2: opportunity for alternative fuels. He's been big on ultra fuels
Speaker 2: and he said they've been looking at that. He's been
Speaker 2: very a pet project of his for over eighteen years.
Speaker 2: Got a little bit more to talk about this, we'll
Speaker 2: cover that coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in
Speaker 2: Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: What need This is the racing report on America's trucking
Speaker 1: Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: National Transportation Safety Board held a briefing over the weekend
Speaker 3: into the fatal plane crash in North Carolina that killed
Speaker 3: NASCAR driver Greg Biffel, his family, and three others. Wreckage
Speaker 3: from the scene has been removed from the airport. They
Speaker 3: don't know why the airplane was trying to return to
Speaker 3: the airport. The cockpit voice reporter is in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3: RFK Racing co owner and driver Brad Keselowski suffering a
Speaker 3: broken leg on a recent ski trip with his family.
Speaker 3: Keselowski is working very quick and hopefully a full recovery
Speaker 3: work to get ready for Daytona. The Chili Bowl Nationals
Speaker 3: about a month away, and the entry list continues to grow.
Speaker 3: Defending winner Kyle Larson three time winner Christopher Bell have
Speaker 3: filed their entries for the Tulsa, Oklahoma event January twelfth
Speaker 3: through the seventeenth. Matt Crafton will run five to ten
Speaker 3: racist part time next season for ThorSport in the Truck Series.
Speaker 1: This is the wreathing reboard on America's Truck and edwork
Speaker 1: on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas, everyone say Dennison a t N.
Speaker 2: It's former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munos,
Speaker 2: did you know that ninety five percent? I'm Kevin Boord
Speaker 2: in America's Truck and Network seven hundred WLW. Continuing our
Speaker 2: conversation or continuing what was discussed during the media event.
Speaker 2: We had an opportunity last week during the Rush Truck
Speaker 2: Scent Rush Enterprises twentieth anniversary of their Tech Skills rodeo
Speaker 2: in Nashville. We've got an opportunity to sit down with CEO,
Speaker 2: Chief Executive officer and founder, Rusty Rush. Actually he is
Speaker 2: the son of the founder, but we got to speak
Speaker 2: with him and then the chief operating officer, Jason Wilder,
Speaker 2: and one of the things, one of the more interesting
Speaker 2: things that he said, he said, we love talked about
Speaker 2: how natural gas and some of the projects that he's
Speaker 2: been involved in with that. He's very big on that.
Speaker 2: He said, we love working on natural gas. We've invested
Speaker 2: in the bays and the facilities to do it. Rush said,
Speaker 2: there have been a pet project of mind for the
Speaker 2: last eighteen years because I love trash. That's kind of
Speaker 2: interesting because a lot of the industry has moved towards
Speaker 2: natural gas in terms of trash removal. These vehicles that
Speaker 2: you see going into you know, collecting garbage, collecting the
Speaker 2: dumpsters and so on, and so that has been an
Speaker 2: area where you see a lot of natural gas being
Speaker 2: used and those trucks being propelled by that. And Rush
Speaker 2: has those vehicles. Those are the vehicles on a lot
Speaker 2: of the vehicles that they sell. He says, we're still
Speaker 2: believing in it because a large customer base is largely
Speaker 2: invested in it too, and so any of these industries
Speaker 2: that are looking to cut their costs. Of course, they're
Speaker 2: going to move to alternative fuels, and I think some
Speaker 2: of these alternative fuels really show a lot of promise
Speaker 2: in terms of what can be done as far as
Speaker 2: you know, lowering emissions, but also making sure and because
Speaker 2: natural gas is a resource, a natural resource, that we
Speaker 2: continue to drill for that and have that available as
Speaker 2: opposed to relying on something that is not sustainable and
Speaker 2: which is not very reliable, which we've seen so far
Speaker 2: with wind and solar. At some point in time maybe
Speaker 2: those will be up in those ranges. And of course
Speaker 2: with the EV batteries, the weight of those things is
Speaker 2: just way too much, the expense of the trucks, way
Speaker 2: too much, the infrastructure to support that. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: made this comment several times before that if everybody right
Speaker 2: now today, on this day, got rid of their internal
Speaker 2: combustion engine and bought a electric vehicle number one, the
Speaker 2: wear and tear on the roadways right now would be horrific.
Speaker 2: We would see a very serious problem as far as
Speaker 2: the infrastructure, the weight of those vehicles on the current streets.
Speaker 2: Take that into consideration in terms of parking garages, the
Speaker 2: parking garages currently the way they are built and the
Speaker 2: way they were built based on what they anticipated the
Speaker 2: weight of vehicles to be and continuing to be given
Speaker 2: the fact that the weight of vehicles have gone down
Speaker 2: significantly from back in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties,
Speaker 2: jumping that back up to those ranges back then and
Speaker 2: even more, I'm not sure that the parking garages and
Speaker 2: the infrastructure there could handle it. So again, from that aspect,
Speaker 2: that's one of the things, what things that people aren't
Speaker 2: even the unintended consequences that people aren't even thinking about.
Speaker 2: He expanded in the Federal Reserve, one of the things
Speaker 2: that was very curious to hear him talk about, and
Speaker 2: I mentioned this too on several occasions. Also expanded the
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve meeting in mid January and his expectations that
Speaker 2: the governors will probably hold interest rates. I think, based
Speaker 2: in my opinion, I think there will be some cuts
Speaker 2: because there seems to be some division within the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2: He recognized that and talked about that. I mentioned quote
Speaker 2: from him. I got to believe from what I've read,
Speaker 2: it's a rather divisive meeting this past meeting in December.
Speaker 2: But where there's smoke there's fire, I expect them to
Speaker 2: pause now. I think, though, that the pressure from the
Speaker 2: Trump administration. I wish that Trump would have appointed the
Speaker 2: who he plans on replacing Lion Jerome Powell, Lion Jerry Powell,
Speaker 2: with would have been announced as a Christmas gift to
Speaker 2: the American public before Christmas, but it appears that that's
Speaker 2: not going to be announced until after the first of
Speaker 2: the year. And then once that's done, maybe that will
Speaker 2: put some pressure on the Federal Reserve in January to
Speaker 2: continue to reduce interest rates, because we've got stories coming
Speaker 2: up that will verify that or will push in that direction.
Speaker 2: And most customers are more worried about unemployment and inflation,
Speaker 2: those concerns, and of course talking about some of the stuff,
Speaker 2: people are still waiting on the sidelines to see if
Speaker 2: and when or how tariffs are going to affect the
Speaker 2: economy as far as inflation. I was listening to a
Speaker 2: couple of reports over the weekend and they've people have
Speaker 2: just absolutely how should I say, surprise shock that the
Speaker 2: so called experts talking about how tariffs we're going to
Speaker 2: add to inflation just hasn't materialized, and they're pretty much
Speaker 2: shocked by that. But again, as we as I pointed
Speaker 2: out on this program, it's not necessarily the terriffs because
Speaker 2: in some instances prices go down, prices go up. The
Speaker 2: net effect across the board is generally small to minimum increases,
Speaker 2: if any at all, and in some cases may actually
Speaker 2: go down. But what really drives that is government spending.
Speaker 2: If you've got these back, you know the what was it,
Speaker 2: the uh, the Recovery Act the Biden pushed through in
Speaker 2: the final days or initial stages of the recovery from
Speaker 2: the pandemic. People were telling him at that point that
Speaker 2: if they did that Infrastructure and Recovery Act, that the
Speaker 2: spending that would be in that would lead to inflation,
Speaker 2: which in fact it did. So when you flood the government,
Speaker 2: when you flood government money into the marketplace, that leads
Speaker 2: to inflation, which then has to be controlled somehow. And unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when they start controlling interest rates, that burden falls on us,
Speaker 2: the public, to sustain or to take the results of
Speaker 2: and the pain of those higher interest costs in order
Speaker 2: to bring the economy back within reason. So again, the
Speaker 2: Recovery Act that was put through by the Biden administration
Speaker 2: did add a lot to the inflation and not what
Speaker 2: we're seeing as far as the tariffs are concerned, because,
Speaker 2: as I've said before, when you take into consideration the
Speaker 2: companies overseas that have these big margins between their labor
Speaker 2: because they have lower labor costs over there and what
Speaker 2: the final product is, they have a big cushion as
Speaker 2: far as margin is concerned. They can absorb some of
Speaker 2: those tariffs. The exporter can then absorb some of those
Speaker 2: tariffs before they send those out. Then the importer on
Speaker 2: the other end could possibly absorb some of these tariffs
Speaker 2: or increases. Then you get to the wholesale or distributors,
Speaker 2: they absorb stuff, get to the retail market, they absorb
Speaker 2: some of that stuff, and so it kind of is
Speaker 2: spread out over everybody. So all those people along the
Speaker 2: supply chain kind of share the burden of any increase
Speaker 2: in tariffs. Getting back to some of the stuff having
Speaker 2: to do with EVS, this survey, and I kind of
Speaker 2: hesitated clicking on this because when you get these pop
Speaker 2: ups on your screen when you're going from website to website.
Speaker 2: Although it came from a reputable source of where I
Speaker 2: go on a normal basis, and this survey popped up
Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, just for the hell of it,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and take this survey. The
Speaker 2: way it was portrayed, I thought, God, this has got
Speaker 2: to be some liberal organization that's putting this. You know,
Speaker 2: the time to ban gasoline internal combustion engines is now.
Speaker 2: And they said, you know, talking about how you know,
Speaker 2: there's been this push that there's lawmakers that are trying
Speaker 2: to eliminate the internal combustion engine, or as they call,
Speaker 2: the plan to ban gas cars. And I thought, man,
Speaker 2: this is some liberal group. I got to see in
Speaker 2: terms of the survey where everybody stands on that. So
Speaker 2: I went ahead and well, they asked for my name
Speaker 2: and email address and phone number, which I was kind
Speaker 2: of hesitant to do, but I was kind of curious.
Speaker 2: So I voted no on that. Well, I see the
Speaker 2: survey results. Do you agree? And that the phrase is
Speaker 2: do you agree with lawmakers plan to ban gas cars
Speaker 2: in the US? Yes, Climate action is urgent and we
Speaker 2: must act now. Fifteen thousand, three hundred and seven votes No.
Speaker 2: Lawmakers shouldn't dictate what Americans can drive nine hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty two thousand, three hundred and eighty five against if
Speaker 2: This was a I mean, like I said, this was
Speaker 2: kind of almost a push pull kind of of a survey,
Speaker 2: if you will. They said, you know, the time to
Speaker 2: ban gasoline, the powered you know, and all this is
Speaker 2: now a government is moving towards this. Where do you
Speaker 2: stand on this? And I'll bet that they're pretty much
Speaker 2: shocked where this came from. And certainly the numbers that
Speaker 2: that is dictating coming up, We've got some more mischief.
Speaker 2: Get into I'm Kevin Bordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4: Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
Speaker 4: rest of the country, and the tries sit Overnight mostly
Speaker 4: Claude was showers likely the low down to forty two,
Speaker 4: patchi drizzle and a chance of showers early Tuesday. Otherwise
Speaker 4: Claudie the high year sixty, partly sunny. Christmas Eve Wednesday
Speaker 4: a high fifty three, and for Year Christmas Day, chances
Speaker 4: of early rain. Otherwise Claudie highs in the lower sixties. Nationally,
Speaker 4: very heavy snow expected for the Sierra Nevana Mountains, while
Speaker 4: excessive brain is on tap for parts of southern California Wednesday. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: above average temperatures expected for most of the country leading
Speaker 4: up to Christmas.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck
Speaker 2: in network. By the way, during a break, I did
Speaker 2: a quick and dirty Wow, not quick, I just did
Speaker 2: the did the math on it. That survey that I
Speaker 2: mentioned before the break, do you agree with lawmakers plan
Speaker 2: to ban gas cars? The vote was one point six percent.
Speaker 2: Less than two percent of people said yeah, banned cars.
Speaker 2: So we're looking at what is that ninety eight point
Speaker 2: four percent of the American public say no. Lawmakers shouldn't
Speaker 2: dictate to Americans what they can drive. My goodness, Wow,
Speaker 2: America's truck and network supports the mission of Recee Across America.
Speaker 2: You can hear us every truck and Tuesday at five
Speaker 2: am and ten am Eastern on Recee Across America Radio,
Speaker 2: available on the iHeart Radio app. Search the word Rease.
Speaker 2: Now it's wr eats for Reese Across America Radio. And
Speaker 2: thank you for all our truckers for the supporting the
Speaker 2: mission of Reese Across America. Now, last week I didn't
Speaker 2: have a chance to get to this, but rececross America
Speaker 2: remember they had their and hopefully you participated in that.
Speaker 2: They had their reflaying ceremony on December the thirteenth. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to participate because my wife and I
Speaker 2: were on our way down to Nashville to participate and
Speaker 2: to attend the Rush Enterprise's twentieth anniversary of the tuch
Speaker 2: Tech Skills Rodeo. And if you missed any of that,
Speaker 2: make sure you hit up that iHeart Radio app brought
Speaker 2: to you by Rush Truck Centers. Now, some of the
Speaker 2: statistics from that December thirteenth wreath laying ceremony together they
Speaker 2: support We supported five thousand, five hundred and ninety eight
Speaker 2: participating locations, sponsored more than three point one million veterans wreaths,
Speaker 2: and mobilized millions of volunteers, a third of whom were children,
Speaker 2: across all fifty states, at sea and around the world.
Speaker 2: So there are locations different to veterans cemeteries overseas and
Speaker 2: in US territories that participate in this as well. Three
Speaker 2: point one million reefs were laid at these tombs and
Speaker 2: again going to these individual locations. As they say, a
Speaker 2: veteran dies twice, once when he takes his last breath
Speaker 2: and the next is when his name is no longer mentioned.
Speaker 2: So the push eventually is to make sure that all veterans'
Speaker 2: grave sites are have a reef placed at them. But
Speaker 2: right now the concentration is at the older sections of
Speaker 2: these graveyards where a lot of people back from the
Speaker 2: even as far back as well the Revolutionary War, Civil War,
Speaker 2: Spanish American War and thereabouts. A lot of those people,
Speaker 2: their relatives have moved out of the area. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, I was talking to a friend of
Speaker 2: mine and he was telling me that a friend of
Speaker 2: his that her father is in the area and he
Speaker 2: does a lot of genealogy, and she's from the area.
Speaker 2: She's living in Cleveland now, but he does a lot
Speaker 2: of genealogy, and he just looked up some of the
Speaker 2: family members and they actually found grave sites of family
Speaker 2: members she didn't even know she had in one of
Speaker 2: these cemeteries. And then the fact that they were they
Speaker 2: served what they served because through some of this genealogy
Speaker 2: and stuff, you can find out some of the mill
Speaker 2: ary records as well, and so she was astonished by
Speaker 2: that and the availability. So a lot of these veterans
Speaker 2: are buried in regular cemeteries, not just necessarily segments of
Speaker 2: one cemetery near where I live, there is a section
Speaker 2: that's set aside for veterans. But then in other cemeteries
Speaker 2: they are dispersed throughout the entire cemetery. They're not necessarily
Speaker 2: reserved for just veterans. So this reesecross America again servicing
Speaker 2: those and making sure that these res are are put
Speaker 2: at those areas. Now, some interesting things to keep in
Speaker 2: mind here is that now this is interesting through from
Speaker 2: now until December thirty first, the headquarters of Recross America
Speaker 2: through sponsored different sponsored groups that replacement at the RECE
Speaker 2: next year, which by the way, will be December the nineteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, that headquarters will match all veterans sponsored
Speaker 2: through a registered RECE Across America's sponsorship group. So if
Speaker 2: you go on their website now, and if you are
Speaker 2: associated with a particular group, and if you do sign
Speaker 2: up now and do the contribution or the donation or
Speaker 2: sponsorship of a wreath between now and December thirty first,
Speaker 2: that will be matched by Recross America headquarters. So that
Speaker 2: is also a good benefit there, so you can pretty
Speaker 2: much double your effect along those ways. And again save
Speaker 2: the date the next wreath laying ceremony will be Saturday,
Speaker 2: December the nineteenth, twenty twenty six, and so hopefully I
Speaker 2: won't be out of town and I'll be able to
Speaker 2: attend that. But I do going back to one of
Speaker 2: the original things that was talked about is that of
Speaker 2: the various volunteers, almost thirty I think, what was it millions,
Speaker 2: a third of whom were children, and which is great
Speaker 2: that children are involved and they get to know a
Speaker 2: little bit of history. I remember when a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago I was in town and was able to
Speaker 2: attend the wreath laying cemetery at the local chapter, or
Speaker 2: the one closest to me. There were a lot of
Speaker 2: children there, and I was grateful to see that, because
Speaker 2: again you have to have the next generation step up
Speaker 2: to be there for our veterans and especially the fallen
Speaker 2: veterans who are in these cemeteries that died in time
Speaker 2: of war. And so again I can't say enough about
Speaker 2: reefs across America and the stuff that they do. And
Speaker 2: of course if you go to their website across America
Speaker 2: dot org, you can learn all kinds of information. Maybe
Speaker 2: if you and a group want to sponsor a particular
Speaker 2: cemetery that's not currently being taken care of or that
Speaker 2: is not on their list. You and a group of
Speaker 2: people can sponsor that and actually have the sponsorship group
Speaker 2: for that area to take care of those reefs and
Speaker 2: to lay those reefs at that particular cemetery. Or you
Speaker 2: can go online and you can volunteer at one close
Speaker 2: to you if you want to participate with them, and
Speaker 2: they're pretty quick about getting back in touch with you
Speaker 2: so that you can know where to go and on
Speaker 2: that particular day again, December the nineteenth, so it's only
Speaker 2: going to be about what was it nineteenth, It says, well,
Speaker 2: actually six days before Christmas. That's a little bit late
Speaker 2: in the month, but generally it's a little bit closer
Speaker 2: to the beginning of the month. But hopefully a lot
Speaker 2: of people will be able to attend that and very
Speaker 2: worthwhile cause getting to last Friday, there were some numbers
Speaker 2: coming out from the National Association of Realtors and it
Speaker 2: was interesting to see how some of these things were
Speaker 2: covered in terms of who said what and what was
Speaker 2: covered and so on existing home sales. Now, this is
Speaker 2: doctor Lawrence Ewn. He is the chief Economists. Wage growth
Speaker 2: is outpacing home price gains, which improved housing affordability. Still,
Speaker 2: future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to
Speaker 2: keep pace with demand. Existing home sales were up month
Speaker 2: over month point five percent, one half of one percent
Speaker 2: four point one three million homes existing homes now year
Speaker 2: over year, that was one percent down. Now as far
Speaker 2: as homes for sale month over month was down five
Speaker 2: point nine percent from the previous month. However, on an
Speaker 2: annual basis so far year over year, the number of
Speaker 2: homes for sale is up seven point five. They talk
Speaker 2: about in terms of months of supply. As far as
Speaker 2: November home sales, four point two months supply is on hand.
Speaker 2: That is down from four point four in actually up
Speaker 2: a little bit from November at three point eight, but
Speaker 2: down from four point four in October. So some of
Speaker 2: the stuff going on in the housing market, there's some
Speaker 2: things in this article we need to talk about. We'll
Speaker 2: pick that up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, Americas Struck
Speaker 2: In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
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Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon getting to this National Associated of Realtors,
Speaker 2: National Association Realtors, and they're monthly sales monthly numbers. The
Speaker 2: headline National Associated Realtors Existing home sales reports showed zero
Speaker 2: point five percent increase in November. Now another headline, US
Speaker 2: existing home sales edge up in November as mortgage rates ease. Now,
Speaker 2: what have I been saying all along that interest rates
Speaker 2: are holding back this economy. Lower interest rates, more people
Speaker 2: will jump into the market and more people will buy homes,
Speaker 2: and that is good for the economy. It's very good
Speaker 2: support of the GDP numbers, which will be out some
Speaker 2: believe tomorrow later on today, I believe, if memory serves
Speaker 2: me correct. But anyway, when they get into the specifics
Speaker 2: here in terms of where some of the growth is
Speaker 2: a month over months, sales increased in the northeast and
Speaker 2: south showed let me see, sales increased in the northeast
Speaker 2: and south, showed no change in the west, and fell
Speaker 2: in the midwest. Year over year sales showed no change
Speaker 2: in the northeast and south and decreased in the Midwest
Speaker 2: and west. Now, according to again Lawrence Young, he is
Speaker 2: the National Association Realtor's chief economist, existing home sales increased
Speaker 2: for a third straight month due to two lower mortgage
Speaker 2: rates this autumn. That is huge. The fact that interest
Speaker 2: rates are coming down and more people are jumping in
Speaker 2: that is good for the economy. Again, when you have
Speaker 2: somebody who does not own a home that they're renting,
Speaker 2: and in some cases the rent is more than the
Speaker 2: mortgage would be on that property, and for them to
Speaker 2: jump away from that into a home, generally the home
Speaker 2: is bigger. They're going to buy more furniture, they're going
Speaker 2: to be buying appliances, they're going to be buying all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff to fill that home up. And so
Speaker 2: if they're spending less as far as a mortgage is
Speaker 2: concerned versus what they're paying in rent, they will have
Speaker 2: more disposable income for that and instead of paying a landlord,
Speaker 2: they're paying less on a mortgage. But then they're also
Speaker 2: having more money available for disposable income. And so that
Speaker 2: again star's boosting the economy. And when the interest rates
Speaker 2: come down, then people can afford to get into the market,
Speaker 2: because again with interest rates high, with the amount of
Speaker 2: the value of these homes up, a lot of people
Speaker 2: are not able to qualify for that based on their income.
Speaker 2: And what we've talked about in the past, I've talked
Speaker 2: about that on this program, the difference between your monthly
Speaker 2: payment at in terms of a particular income level, what
Speaker 2: you can afford based on a three percent mortgage versus
Speaker 2: a six and a half percent mortgage is astronomical. It's
Speaker 2: about a seven hundred to eight hundred dollars difference. So
Speaker 2: if you're coming from a rental property and that price
Speaker 2: is coming down and you can get a lower interest rate,
Speaker 2: that then gives you even more disposable income and more
Speaker 2: people moving into the market. Now in here one of
Speaker 2: the key features. Also when we hear from the spoon
Speaker 2: fed regurgitators in the mainstream media about the softness of
Speaker 2: the economy, they start talking about, oh, you know, unemployment
Speaker 2: is up, which, by the way, I am not buying
Speaker 2: this crap of this four point six percent unemployment rate.
Speaker 2: I think when they adjust that, when they find out
Speaker 2: what the real number is, it's going to be closer
Speaker 2: down to around four point three four point four percent,
Speaker 2: which is a heck of a lot less because we
Speaker 2: were at four point one throughout most of the year
Speaker 2: than it jumped up slightly to four point two than
Speaker 2: to four point three. I think the current unemployment rate
Speaker 2: is probably closer to that than the four point six
Speaker 2: that they're reporting. Now. One of the key features in
Speaker 2: here that they point out is that with distressed property
Speaker 2: sales at historic lows and the housing wealth at all
Speaker 2: time highs, homeowners are in no rush to list their
Speaker 2: properties during these winter months. Now. Distressed properties are where
Speaker 2: people are foreclosures, people are behind, they're about ready to
Speaker 2: lose their home. If they are at historic lows, then
Speaker 2: that means that people aren't struggling to pay their mortgages.
Speaker 2: We saw a lot of distressed homes back in the
Speaker 2: housing crisis back in two thousand and eight to two
Speaker 2: thousand and ten. Basically, we saw distressed homes back during
Speaker 2: COVID to a certain extent, except that some of these
Speaker 2: recovery programs for banks were given to where people could
Speaker 2: refinance or postpone payments, or the companies would actually work
Speaker 2: with them in order to reassess the loans or to
Speaker 2: actually do a refinance type of thing that was available.
Speaker 2: In some instances, they took some of the payments that
Speaker 2: hadn't been made and add those on to the tail
Speaker 2: end of the mortgage, so extended the length of the
Speaker 2: mortgage a little bit more, but at the same current
Speaker 2: interest rate. And in some cases I saw where some
Speaker 2: people actually kint a better interest rate than they originally
Speaker 2: did so the fact that distressed homes property as that
Speaker 2: historic lows is a good thing. In this they also
Speaker 2: talk about, as has been the case throughout the year,
Speaker 2: single family home sales outperformed condominium sales. In November, the
Speaker 2: typical price of a sold condo was thirteen point five
Speaker 2: percent lower than the typical price of a single home
Speaker 2: family home. Well, in most instances, your condos are smaller
Speaker 2: square footage than what a normal house would be. So
Speaker 2: if you're talking about a I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 2: they don't mention what the average square footage of a
Speaker 2: condominium is. But from what I see around the Greater
Speaker 2: Sins a northern Kentucky area, a place I'm most familiar with,
Speaker 2: most of the condos are between fifteen hundred to maybe
Speaker 2: two thousand square feet. Most homes I think in the area,
Speaker 2: or at least in the neighborhood where I live, are
Speaker 2: probably more in the neighborhood of two twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: and maybe three thousand square feet. So again, obviously the
Speaker 2: price for the condo is going to be less because
Speaker 2: you're talking about less square footage. So in and of itself,
Speaker 2: that's not too bad. Now, skipping through some of the
Speaker 2: stuff in here. One of the things that was interesting.
Speaker 2: They're talking about some of the statistics having to do
Speaker 2: with homes. Thirty six days medium time on the market
Speaker 2: for properties, up from thirty four days last month. I
Speaker 2: don't really think, well, unless you're in a situation where
Speaker 2: you've already bought a home and you're now carrying two mortgages,
Speaker 2: thirty six days on the market is probably bad. But
Speaker 2: for the most part, most homes from what I've been once,
Speaker 2: what I've experienced, is generally around that time. Thirty percent
Speaker 2: of homes were first time home buyers, unchanged from November,
Speaker 2: which is a good thing because as people move out
Speaker 2: of existing rental spaces and moving in there, they buy
Speaker 2: more stuff to fill that house and to equip the house.
Speaker 2: Twenty seven percent of transactions were all cash. Eighteen percent
Speaker 2: of transactions were individual investors or second home buyers. So
Speaker 2: that's eighteen percent of the market, sixteen percent last month.
Speaker 2: Two percent of again, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph,
Speaker 2: two percent of sales were distressed sales, foreclosures or short sales,
Speaker 2: unchanged from a month ago. So that would show that
Speaker 2: the economy is relatively strong. Not a lot of people
Speaker 2: are underwater as far as their homes are concerned. They're
Speaker 2: not behind on their payments and they're making their mortgage payments.
Speaker 2: So if the economy were bad, that number would be
Speaker 2: more than two percent, and there would be a heck
Speaker 2: of lot more quote distressed homes on the market. Mortgage rates,
Speaker 2: the average thirty year fixed rate is six point twenty
Speaker 2: four percent. That's down from six point two five percent,
Speaker 2: not much in October, but at the beginning of the
Speaker 2: year that number was six point eight one. And I
Speaker 2: saw a statistic and it was that, let's see, in
Speaker 2: mid January, interest rates were at seven point oh four percent,
Speaker 2: so they were just above seven percent, and you take
Speaker 2: that one percent off of a home loan the mortgage,
Speaker 2: and you see a dramatic difference in terms of price. Now,
Speaker 2: this was interesting. Not sure what he's saying here. The
Speaker 2: existing home sales figures suggest that the drop in mortgage
Speaker 2: rates in recent months has nudged demand up somewhat, but
Speaker 2: not by enough to signal meaningful turnaround. Now, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if it's because the interest rates have been more meaningful.
Speaker 2: If the interest rate cuts had been more meaningful, whether
Speaker 2: they would have been inclined to move. Now, that's something
Speaker 2: that you know, again they don't explain in the particular story.
Speaker 2: Let me see if I got time to squeeze this in.
Speaker 2: There was one other thing in here that was kind
Speaker 2: of confusing because they were saying that people are reluctant
Speaker 2: to move and because of the uncertainty as far as
Speaker 2: the job market is concerned. Now, what wasn't clear is
Speaker 2: that whether or not that affects people that are not
Speaker 2: into a home wanting to get into a home, or
Speaker 2: people that are in a home that want to upgrade.
Speaker 2: That was left on Uh, you know, that question was
Speaker 2: left unanswered. But anyway, well, we're up against clock, my friends,
Speaker 2: stay tuned for Red Eye Radio at the top of
Speaker 2: the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and Network seven
Speaker 2: hundred WLW