The CFPB changes its mind, two different approaches to EV charger installations and an eggs-cellent home selling approach. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of Feb. 24-28.
Hit: Reining in the Litigation: This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced plans to drop four enforcement actions against financial services companies. Three of these enforcement actions – involving Capital One, the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Vanderbilt Mortgage & Finance, Rocket Companies’ Rocket Homes Real Estate – were launched during the waning days of the Biden administration when then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra was asked repeatedly by congressional Republicans to pause all enforcement actions before the Trump administration took over. It is no surprise that these actions were jettisoned – Chopra’s habit of rushing into lawsuits rather than trying to settle issues with demonizing publicity and litigation against financial services company diminished the respect for the agency.
Miss: Maxine Flips Her Wig. And speaking of the CFPB, one needs to wonder what Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was thinking when she made this statement on the floor of the House of Representatives: “Republicans are defunding the police by stripping funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB is the only federal cop on the beat to hold Wall Street banks and Big Tech payment apps accountable when they cheat Americans. It is shameful that while families suffer from high prices, Musk is firing thousands, thousands of federal workers, and stealing sensitive data about his competitors.” Meanwhile, back in the real world…
Miss: No Update Here? While the CFPB is quickly dropping unnecessary lawsuits, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to drop its renewed assault on the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Clear Cooperation Policy. That matter was settled in December 2020 during the first Trump administration, but the settlement was unilaterally junked by Merrick Garland’s DOJ under the Biden administration. One should ask what (if anything) NAR is doing to get Pam Bondi’s DOJ to agree to the terms of the 2020 deal and drop this needless revival of a settled matter. NAR has been unusually quiet on the matter, and Bondi – who has no trouble multitasking – has yet to raise this issue amid her many ongoing tasks.
Hit and Miss: Different Approaches to EV Charging. Two stories this week offer very different approaches to the presence of electric vehicle (EV) chargers. The Hit involves a partnership where CBRE will help match 3V Infrastructure with multifamily properties looking to provide residents with an EV charging amenity. CBRE will oversee the installation process, and 3V will finance, own, operate, and install additional charging as demand increases – that’s how the private sector should work. The Miss involves the General Services Administration’s order to turn off EV chargers at federal buildings, claiming they were no longer viewed as “mission critical.” The announcement impacts hundreds of EV chargers nationwide with approximately 8,000 charging ports. While a positive argument can be made for the Trump administration’s rolling back of the Biden mandates to force consumers to buy EVs, it seems churlish to punish federal employees who are already driving these vehicles – that’s not how government should work.
Hit: Homebuying, Sunnyside Up. The intersection of real estate, TikTok and highly priced eggs overlapped into a newly popular viral video where a North Carolina real estate agent is promising free eggs as an incentive for a home sale. TikTok user @aaronc97_ documented this unlikely incentive when discovering a “For Sale” sign outside of a property that carried an additional sign reading “Free EGGS with purchase of house.” Kudos to Raleigh-based Diane Kleckner of eXp Realty for creating this amusing marketing stunt.
Miss: A Podcast We Don’t Need. One might imagine California Gov. Gavin Newsom has enough to keep him busy – the ongoing recovery from the Los Angeles County wildfires, the most expensive home prices and home insurance premiums in the nation, a homelessness crisis impacting too many cities, and an onerous cost of living compared to the rest of the country. So, what’s his new priority? Newsom is launching a podcast titled “This is Gaving Newsom” that will be produced by iHeartPodcasts and will seek Republican thought leaders and elected officials as guests. As the governor told Politico, “We already know what our disagreements are with the MAGA movement. I want to understand what the motivations are, the legitimacy of those motivations, and just really understand where people are coming from.” Newsom, who already makes appearances on the sports and culture podcast “Politickin,’” clearly seems more interested in promoting himself ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run rather than helping homeowners and commercial property owners dealing with the chaos created by his leadership.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Taxpayers are subsidizing EV owners with tax credits for EV purchases, EV charging stations and roads. EV owners don’t pay for the roads they use because they don’t pay the gasoline tax (which is used to fund roads)..
Therefore, it is not “churlish” or otherwise unreasonable for the federal government to stop forcing taxpayers to fund EV charging stations for federal workers. Particularly when the median taxpayer income is $66K per year and the median federal worker is paid $106K per year at taxpayer expense.
The bureaucratic bloat and corruption has gone on for so long that federal workers feel entitled to ripping off the taxpayers, whom they have forgotten they work for.
President Trump and DOGE are restoring sanity and integrity to our horribly expensive, and often corrupt, federal government.
Agreed
Did you forget that politicians are also paid at taxpayer expense as will. I don’t see them cutting their own budgets. Some of those federal workers you mention are also our customers and clients in the industry.
I agree as well👍
EV Chargers.
I could be horribly mistaken, however it is my understanding that the government is going to be getting rid of some 25,000 government owned EV’s and this is why those chargers are no longer needed. Unfortunately the article I read was short on details, and the number of emplyees that may or may not have been benefitting from these chargers was not clearly spelled out, but I got the impression that this idea was more of an assumption about how those chargers were used than a fact. Besides, if government employees were getting free charges on our dime, either they can be payed a credit to make up for it and or some of those chargers could be turned into feee based units. After all, I don’t know anyone that gets free gas when they go to work.