Dave Ramsey Reveals 3 Ways To Fix The Housing Problem

Financial expert and radio personality Dave Ramsey recently dove into the conversation surrounding pinch points in the housing market. In a December 2025 episode of his podcast The Ramsey Show, he talks through a few issues currently stifling opportunity. An avid proponent of intent-filled financial decision making, Ramsey suggests three potential avenues for change, in particular. Specifically, he addresses capital gains exemptions when selling a home, market supply as a result of Airbnb listings and investment firms, and industry-wide overhead expenses impeding developers from bringing inventory to the market.  

Even though Ramsey is an investor rather than a developer, this last point seems to eat him up a bit in particular. Not one to mince words, he called a number of the expensive hurdles developers face in the building and planning process, such as getting permits and performing environmental studies, "stupid." Highlighting the issue he has with these requirements, Ramsey added, "All those expenses you can't expense. They have to be depreciated over a large number of years." The result is a large volume of capital sunk into each project, limiting the pace at which developers can jump to the next opportunity. Developers have the ability to recoup these costs, but they can't do it quickly enough to drive construction speeds to match pace with demand. Changing this would allow for a more robust construction industry, in turn creating more homes and driving affordability back into the conversation.

Perhaps the most workable solution that Ramsey brings up has to do with the current capital gains laws surrounding the sale of single-family homes. He recalls, "It used to be that you got a tax break, a little bit, on your personal residence and they changed it massively." Currently, the first $250,000 of profit made from selling a house isn't taxed in most cases, with that figure increasing to $500,000 for married, joint filers. However, Ramsey says that, with home prices ballooning so aggressively through the years, many older Americans in particular aren't willing to sell their home because they'd likely have to pay capital gains taxes on much larger portions of what they make from the sale. While there is a shift in the market expected over the next two decades, leaving questions over what will happen to the housing market when Baby Boomers die, the potential tax-related losses homeowners currently face for selling their houses likely deters many from making what could otherwise be an advantageous sale.

Ramsey suggests doubling the exemption, giving a much larger portion of American homeowners the ability to sell without incurring a tax penalty. This, Ramsey says, would encourage older Americans to sell their homes more readily, recharging the housing market while allowing sellers to move into properties that better suit their needs. If this sounds like a solid solution to you, you may be happy to hear it's already being talked about in Congress.

"I'm really against limiting free enterprise, but the basic use of a single-family home is for a family to get a toehold in the marketplace and to build wealth and to have a stable place to live," Ramsey offers. In saying this, he's talking about the pervasive nature of the real estate investment trust (REIT) marketplace and private equity firms' presence in the residential housing arena. Their efforts here are one reason why young adults aren't doing as well as their parents financially. According to CJ Patrick Company's analysis of BatchData research, real estate investors own roughly 20% of America's single-family homes (via CNBC). These investors can afford to pay what Ramsey describes as "unrealistic prices" to finalize a deal quickly, pricing out regular buyers and forcing would-be homeowners to continue renting.

Ramsey laments that REITs, corporate buyers, and foreign investors with money to burn have gobbled up hundreds of thousands of American homes. "Some kind of a stoppage" is necessary, he insists. Airbnbs are the source of another issue that plays into the same problem. Now, the amount of money Airbnb hosts really make can vary, but these properties create largely the same market impact and further demolish the community aspect of an area. Limiting "out-of-control capitalism," as Ramsey puts it, would reduce the portion of the market acting as a battle frontier for investors and give buyers a more favorable landscape to compete for places they'd actually live.