PODCAST: The 2022 Real Estate Market with Daniel Bortz
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Links mentioned in this episode:
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlooks: Energy Prices
- How Much Will Home Prices Continue to Rise in 2022?
- Home-Sale Prices in the 50 Largest Metro Areas
- Kiplinger’s Economic Outlooks: Inflation
Transcript:
David Muhlbaum: Houses are scarce. Home prices are high, and the all-cash offer is king. We’ll talk about buying or selling a house in this market with contributing writer, Daniel Bortz. Also, why do high gas prices hurt so badly? All coming up on this episode of Your Money’s Worth, stick around.
Welcome to Your Money’s Worth. I’m Kiplinger.com senior editor David Muhlbaum, joined by my cohost Kiplinger senior editor Sandy Block. Sandy, how are you doing? Is the car still working?
Sandy Block: It’s hanging in there. I just doubled its book value today by filling up the tank.
David Muhlbaum: That’s an old Yugo joke. Is that a comment on the low value of your Subie or the high price of gas?
Sandy Block: I would say both.
David Muhlbaum: Huh. Okay. Well, I filled up my car today too, which I just discovered was a mistake because Maryland signed a gas tax holiday like today, I think.
Sandy Block: Yeah.
David Muhlbaum: So the price should come down fairly soon. Now the gas tax here is about 36 cents per gallon, but truth be told, I don’t know that I could have held out much longer. I was on vapors.
Sandy Block: Yeah. I was thinking that a car guy like you knows better than to run the car on low.
David Muhlbaum: I should know better. Look, people get weird about gas prices. They seem to have this outside effect on the psyche and politicians are responding like with these gas holidays. Now I would really like to do a full episode on fuel, right? Gas prices, fuel economy, where to buy it, how to save it, all that sort of stuff. We’re kind of still hunting for the guest. But I did have an email exchange with one of my gas sources, John Eichberger, at the Fuels Institute. So basically the question was what I mentioned in the intro, like why do gas prices matter so much? Like they matter beyond the actual percentages.
Sandy Block: Right. It’s not a linear relationship. You don’t get 20% more annoyed by a 20% increase. So what did he say?
David Muhlbaum: Well, yeah, he called gas prices, quote, “the most transparent and advertised consumer price point in the market and a bellwether for consumer sentiment. ” And then he cited what research the organization did. I’m going to quote it again. He said, “during a five-year period in which we, that’s the Fuel Institute, surveyed consumers every month, typically 70 to 80% of consumers said the price of gasoline had a significant effect on their feelings about the economy in general.”
