Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 08.18.25 Housing Update - Spotlight: Condos / Medical MalFEEsance About this episode In today’s episode, Clark talks about the condo market and what makes it different from the single-family home market. Later, there’s a common, costly fee that may appear on your doctor bill that is generally not disclosed, and charged after treatment. Clark explains what’s going on and how to prevent getting gouged by this. The Condo Market Difference: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Undisclosed Facility Fees: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: How To Freeze and Unfreeze Your Credit With Experian, Equifax and TransUnion Credit Lock vs. Credit Freeze: What's the Difference? NBC News: Did your doctor's office charge you a 'facility fee'? Here's what to know. Why It’s a Great Time To Get a Cheap Ticket to Europe What Is a Fiduciary Financial Advisor and Do I Need One? How To Find and Choose a Financial Advisor Best Financial Advisors in 2025 Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.
0:30 Speaker 01 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.
0:42 Speaker 02 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
0:50 Speaker 03 It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And in today's episode, we've been talking about housing, but I want to specifically talk about the condo market and what makes it different year after year from the traditional single-family home market. And later, there's a fee popping up when you go to see the doctor, and it is bad, big, and ugly for your wallet. And your insurer may say, joke's on you, we're not paying. You got to know what to look out for.
1:35 Speaker 03 And I want to protect you from damage to your wallet later in this podcast. Right now, I want to talk about the housing market in general, but then zero in on the condo market. So the housing market is stalled out. And prices have actually fallen in more than one-third of the major housing markets in the country from a year ago. And so we had a big, big, big, big run-up in prices over a five-year period. And now there's indigestion.
2:13 Speaker 03 And sellers are looking for the prices that things had escalated to through 24. And now here we are at the tail end of summer in 25, and those prices have stalled. And buyers are in a buyer's strike, still facing high mortgage rates. And sellers are like, what do I do? Well, let me tell you, what's going on in the single-family home market is nothing compared to what's going on in the condo market. The condo market, as I first realized back about, gosh, 35 years ago, the condo market
2:55 Speaker 03 patterns are more extreme than housing market. So housing markets, it's very rare what's happened with the housing market in recent years where it ratcheted up so much year by year. Usually, the cost of housing goes up by the rate of inflation, plus a little bit more. And the condo market does something completely different. The condo market, over time, when you look at long periods of time, trends exactly the same as the single-family house market, and price changes over the long haul. But in the short term, condo prices go up and down.
3:40 Speaker 03 You ever seen an EKG where it goes up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down? And it's pretty dramatic. Well, that's what happens with the condo market. Condo market is much more price-sensitive in the short term. And condo prices, right now, are dropping at a much greater rate than home prices are dropping in markets where home prices are dropping. And that's completely normal. And what's weird about this... Is people buy a condo often as a transition in their life, a shorter intention of ownership cycle than how homeowners think when they are homeowners to be when they're looking for
4:25 Speaker 03 a home, they intend to be in the home for a much longer time than potential condo buyers look at being in a condo and the economics of it are exactly the opposite. So, somebody who bought a condo at the exact right moment for this cycle as a buyer, which was when interest rates were crazy low and they bought a condo maybe six, seven years ago and then they sold it, you know, a couple of years ago or last year, they made out like bandits because of this thing where in the short term values rise and fall so much. The condo market has more to fall.
5:08 Speaker 03 If you look at days on market, the condos are sitting on the market for longer and longer and longer time periods and it takes a while for people to say, wow, guess we're gonna have to take less for the condo or we're just gonna have to take it off the market. So, if you are somebody who has a hankering to buy a condo, particularly in markets that are in crisis, the most of all in the country and the largest condo market in the United States is Florida, you gotta wait this one out a little bit to be a smart buyer because even though prices are dropping, for the most part, Florida condo sales are not at what's
5:49 Speaker 03 known as capitulation, which means that people are like, it doesn't matter what it was worth, if I wanna sell and I need to sell, this is what I'm gonna have to sell it for. We're not there yet, but the trend for buyers is your friend, for sellers, it ain't your friend at all. And there are a small number of exceptions to this in parts of the country where there has not been a lot of inventory built, parts of the Midwest and particularly parts of New England, what I just talked about does not apply, but generally around the country.
6:32 Speaker 03 And especially in coastal regions and at the top of that list, Florida, the condo market has more to give on the low side and better deals for prices that I expect are coming.
6:47 Speaker 04 Okay, speaking of condos, Jennifer in Alaska has this question. I'm soon to be 58 years old. In August of 2024, I purchased a condo for $128,000 at 6.5%. I have a traditional and Roth IRA totaling about $350,000 between the two. I contribute to my Roth IRA as well as contributing to a Roth 401k that I have through a part-time job. I'm not quite meeting my yearly Roth contribution max. I've been putting an extra $100 a month towards my mortgage. I will likely sell this condo and move within the next eight years. Would it be better for me to put that $100 a month into my Roth IRA or keep throwing it at the mortgage?
7:30 Speaker 04 Just curious which option will grow my money in a more meaningful way?
7:35 Speaker 03 So you throw money at the mortgage. You're getting a guaranteed 6.5% return right now. That's pretty fantastic guaranteed return. You think about people right now with savings accounts are happy to earn. If they can get 4%, they're like, wow, I got this high-yield savings account earning 4%. You have a mortgage that every dollar you throw to it, you're getting a guaranteed 6.5% return. At the same time, you can't eat that equity in the house. So there's an advantage to putting money into a Roth that grows tax-free and it's spent tax-free.
8:18 Speaker 03 But stocks are very highly valued right now. And returns are likely to be lower over the eight years than you contributing additional money towards the mortgage balance. So in this case, I vote for putting the hundred towards the mortgage balance.
8:37 Speaker 04 Wow, I'm surprised. This may be bad math. You always say I'm an English major. But when I was thinking about this, when I saw this question, I was thinking, well, whatever money I put into the Roth, then if it does grow at all over the next, you know, eight or longer years, then I'm getting whatever, I'm saving whatever tax bracket I'm in percentage. I mean, I know what tax brackets ratchet up as you go up in income. But you know, that's going to be higher than six and a half percent in terms of the savings on the taxes, isn't it?
9:08 Speaker 03 Well, no, because Jennifer, when she sells the condo, it'll be a tax-free sale.
9:14 Speaker 04 Right.
9:15 Speaker 03 So she's going to pocket all that equity. There'll be no tax on it.
9:19 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
9:20 Speaker 03 And she's getting guaranteed six and a half. Think about
9:22 Speaker 04 Got it.
9:23 Speaker 03 All the people who are sitting there with these ultra-low mortgage rates like you've got from back when the Federal Reserve was suppressing mortgage rates to try to keep us from a depression after the banking scandals. And it never makes sense to prepay on one of those because the rates that people are paying are so crazy low. You start looking at six and a half percent, there's a real advantage, especially because stocks are, by historical measures, meaningfully overvalued.
9:56 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
9:57 Speaker 03 So that's why I say that for Jennifer.
10:00 Speaker 04 Okay. Byron in Kentucky says, given the current state of the housing market, how long should a first-time buyer plan to keep a home purchase today? The general guideline has been five to seven years, and I've heard you recommend at least 10 in the last few years. Would it be even longer now since appreciation is likely to be flat or slow over the next few years after the recent run-up in home prices?
10:23 Speaker 03 So this one's a really tough call, but I stick to the decade I've said. A lot will happen between now and 35. And so that's why, over this 10-year cycle, I think you're going to be okay. But I also want you looking at what is the cost of renting right now where you live in Kentucky per month versus the cost of buying? If the cost of buying is per month significantly higher than renting, knowing that housing prices are likely to grow at a much slower rate over the next decade, it states a really
11:08 Speaker 03 good argument for renting longer than going ahead and buying if you're just looking at dollars and cents. Now, if you can buy Byron at a price that would keep it, monthly costs that would be not significantly higher than the cost of rent, go ahead and buy with the intention of owning until at least 2035.
11:31 Speaker 04 M in Colorado says, hi Clark and gang. I just got a notification from Experian that my social security number was found on the dark web by something called national security breach. I have all three credit bureau profiles locked and frozen, the free one. What else am I to do? I also have a hospitality question. As I was packing up to check out of my hotel in Alabama, one of the cleaning people knocked on the door. When she saw I left a tip on the table, she asked if she could take it. She said, management comes to take it as soon as guests leave and don't let the housekeepers keep the tip. I politely closed the door without giving her the tip. Do you know what this is all about?
12:10 Speaker 03 Yeah. There are hotels where the employees don't get to keep the tips and there are hotels now that will have a scan for paying a tip with Venmo or Cash App or something like that. And you don't know if that tip is ever going to the housekeeper. If you knew that was your housekeeper, I would have felt okay handing the money to the housekeeper. And in fact, I do hand cash when I'm leaving. If I see the housekeeper, I say, is this your room you're cleaning? If they say yes, I hand the tip right to the housekeeper so I know they get it.
12:52 Speaker 03 But no big deal, as long as it was in the room, the next person who's likely to be in it will be that housekeeper and they'll get the tip that you have left.
13:03 Speaker 03 Now, let's go back to your first question about the notification. Alright, so the reality is probably all of us have our social security number exposed at this point. Been so many breaches, starting with the medical industry, the giant Equifax breach of years ago. Uh, gosh, that one alone exposed the social security number of roughly half of all American adults. So just know that your social security number is out there, just waiting for a criminal to seize on it. You said something, you said locked, frozen. Okay, the credit bureaus try to steer you to this inferior thing called lock.
13:48 Speaker 03 And if you've done a lock on any of your credit bureau files, go back and change it to a freeze. A freeze is much more comprehensive at keeping information away from prying eyes. They're both free, but the credit bureaus make their money selling off your dossier over and over again when you have a lock in place. They don't get to sell it when you have a freeze in place. And that's why a freeze is the more effective thing to do, even though the credit bureaus will all three mislead you into thinking you should do a lock instead of a freeze. And I need to reiterate, you set up a credit freeze.
14:32 Speaker 03 It's free to do, free to thaw whenever you need to apply for credit, but makes no difference with any of the credit you already have. Coming up ahead, I need to warn you about a quickly expanding practice to harm you when you go to the doctor to get well or get better.
14:56 Speaker 00 Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones. Like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then, sometimes you make great ones. Like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.
15:26 Speaker 01 Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.
15:38 Speaker 02 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
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16:40 Speaker 03 There's something dirty and rotten going on in medical around the United States. Hospital systems are trying to become quasi-monopolies or monopolies in metro areas.
16:57 Speaker 03 And what they're doing is they're buying up all the facilities and doctor practices that can be lucrative for them in their area. And they'll go to a doctor's practice, maybe it's owned by several doctors, or it's owned by an individual practitioner, and they'll make an offer, the doctor finds it hard to refuse. You know, if you want to stay in our network, you've got to come to work for us, and we're going to buy your practice, and we're going to pay you, depending on the specialty and how valuable it is to the hospital system, they'll pay them something starting at a million dollars on up, could be many millions, they'll offer them.
17:40 Speaker 03 And the doctor's like, man, either I'm gonna be starving because they're gonna kick me out of their network, or I become their captive employee, and they pay me all this money for my practice. How does the hospital make that money back? Well, if you go to see that doctor, and you need to get a test done, where are they gonna send you for it? To that hospital's facilities. If you need to be admitted to a hospital, where are they gonna admit you? At that hospital, even if that's not the right hospital for what ails you, cancer, heart disease, whatever, and there's another place that's much better with much lower mortality
18:23 Speaker 03 risk for that, they're gonna put you in that hospital, because that's who they work for now, even if, essentially, they are doing harm to you by not referring you to the place that's really knowledgeable about the care that you need. And then there's this, you go and you pay your visit charge, let's say you have insurance, you pay your visit charge, 20 bucks, 50 bucks, 30 bucks, 10 bucks, whatever it is, and you think you're done, right? No, because then you get a stray bill called a facility charge. So you may have gone to a doctor's office in a shopping center, or an office building,
19:07 Speaker 03 or something like that, but that doctor now works for that hospital system. Well, how do they make back the million or millions of dollars they paid that doctor to become their employee and no longer own their practice?
19:24 Speaker 03 They do it by charging a ripoff facilities fee. It could be 800 bucks, 500 bucks, whatever. You never went to the hospital for care, but they bill you as if you had that care in the hospital. This is dishonest, unethical, crooked, terrible stuff. So if you go to your doctor's office and suddenly you see a sign for a hospital system, or you call in, or you go to the doctor's website and you realize, "Oh, man, I'm at the website of the hospital and this doctor's listed." Before they render care to you,
20:07 Speaker 03 you need to ask, "Do they charge a facility fee?" Because more often than not, there's no insurance coverage for that, and that 500 or so dollars is coming out of your pocket. Know this, be aware of it, and avoid it at all costs because it means every time you go, they're gonna rip you off.
20:30 Speaker 04 And there's no fighting that?
20:34 Speaker 03 Right now, there's no required disclosure. You know, my thing, if you look, you know, I've always got these libertarian instincts. If they wanna rip people off like this, as long as they tell me upfront, "Hey, by the way, our ownership has changed, and if you come here, you're gonna be charged 700 dollars to come here that's not going to be likely reimbursed by insurance. Would you like to keep your appointment?" That should be required, rather than being, "Ha, the joke's on you. You already ate the meal. You already had the treatment or visit, so now we're gonna charge you this fee, and we're gonna stick it to you." And first of all,
21:16 Speaker 03 Where's the Congress? Why is this not something that's required? Disclosure upfront, what it costs for medical services before treatment is rendered? I mean, they say, "Oh, well, we're going to put patients in charge by giving you these higher and higher and higher deductibles each year, but then give us no way to comparison shop?" How would you like it if you walked into Burger King and they tell you after you eat your Whopper that you now owe them a $500 facility charge for the building that they cooked your Whopper in? Come on, you're not going to do that. See, I gave an example other than McDonald's this time.
22:01 Speaker 04 Okay, okay. I love that my dentist is very good with this, I have to say. When if I have like a big thing, which thank goodness I haven't had in a while, they sit me down before and they give me an estimated cost of treatment, talk to my insurance company what they're going to pay. I mean, it's very thorough and I love that.
22:16 Speaker 03 And why do dentists do that? Because they're in the free market.
22:21 Speaker 04 Oh.
22:24 Speaker 03 Medical care is not in the free market anymore, once the insurance machines get involved. But dentistry, you go to a dentist, parking's almost always free. You go to a doctor's office, you have to pay for parking. I mean, it's like the whole system is kafue. You know what I mean?
22:47 Speaker 04 We know. All right.
22:49 Speaker 03 It's a nice way of saying something.
22:50 Speaker 04 We'll get us some questions here. Michael in Pennsylvania says, "I had a question about school bus stop sign violations. My wife and I share one car that she drives daily to and from the train station to get to work and home. The car is in my name only. About a month ago, I received a letter from a third-party company addressed just to me stating that my vehicle was recorded passing a school bus while its stop sign was out, and I owe $300. They have a QR code you can scan and view the footage. At the time they say I passed the vehicle, I was at work and driving my work truck, not this vehicle. I'm not..." Confirming or denying that my wife may have been approaching the school bus and they flipped their sign out, but the violation says you can contest the ticket if you were not the
23:35 Speaker 04 driver. There were a few options to contest it. I chose the email address and sent pictures of my violation and stated that I would like a court date. One month later, I received a late notice saying I could be accruing late fees now. I called and spoke with a rep and she said, just resend the email. They get very busy and miss some emails. In my research about this topic, I've read that I cannot be criminally charged for this, but they can send me to collections. I work very hard to have credit score around 825 and I don't want to risk them dinging me for something I didn't do. And I also don't want to fork over $300. Do you have any advice that could help me?
24:11 Speaker 03 Well, okay, so Michael, we've got a couple of things here. Does your wife fess up that she did it?
24:18 Speaker 04 I think reading between the lines.
24:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, so you're, you're asking procedural and technical, and then there's also the ethical.
24:28 Speaker 04 Right.
24:29 Speaker 03 I mean, the reason they have these laws is because of the danger to children. From an ethical standpoint, if your wife says that, yeah, I may have gone around the school bus, then that says from an ethical standpoint, she or you or both of you should pay the ticket. Now, let's talk procedural. I've heard this over and over again with red light cameras and all the rest, that when you appeal, the companies never respond. And so they, they have to have a procedure for you to appeal, but they basically ignore it. So you're
25:09 Speaker 03 the one who's going to have to keep following up with them. And I would follow up your email with a traditional letter sent by mail that also
25:22 Speaker 03 Protest, I'm assuming that's one of the ways you're allowed to protest the ticket. And the collection agency, you're right to be worried about that because if it goes to collection, you can keep it from harming your credit by disputing the validity of the debt. And that's a written process you can do with the collection agency. And you need to do that quickly from when it is turned over to collections, if that happens. But you're doing everything right from a procedural standpoint. And you've just got to continue to document and don't wait to hear from them. If they don't respond to you again, you need to call in again.
26:04 Speaker 03 Keep a record, a log of every time you call and every person you speak to at customer no service.
26:11 Speaker 04 Okay.
26:12 Speaker 03 Would you have answered that differently? Because you gave me a look.
26:15 Speaker 04 I think I'd just pay the ticket. The video shows that his wife-
26:19 Speaker 03 Well, see, that's why I'm saying you got, there's two answers there because, because he asked me a question.
26:25 Speaker 04 Right, I understand. It's not my decision to make. Yeah, for sure. Okay, Jessica in New York says, "Thank you so much for the reminder to reshop your flights. I'm flying to Venice and out of Palermo at the end of the summer. And when I initially booked, the tickets were almost $1,400 each."
26:41 Speaker 03 That's a lot.
26:42 Speaker 04 After reshopping twice, we now each have a credit of close to $600. And I've gotten several of those lately, so I thought I'd throw that in.
26:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's been a terrible, terrible time for the airlines to international destinations because even though Americans are going, foreigners are not coming to the United States because they're, they feel unwelcome right now in the United States. And so airline bookings are not to projections. And that's why you reshop your tickets and get these credits like Jessica's gotten, not once, but now twice.
27:15 Speaker 04 All right, and this is on a much more serious note. Isabel in California wrote in to you for some advice, Clark, and she says, "My amazing 38-year-old husband passed away in March of 2024 unexpectedly."
27:29 Speaker 03 I'm so, so very sorry.
27:31 Speaker 04 So sorry. "I was a stay-at-home mom for our two kids. We're receiving survivor's benefits, so I decided to enroll in college full-time to help better myself for our kids. My husband was a great planner and had a life insurance plan. I have over $250,000 in a high-yield savings account and his 401(k) with about $10,000. I also have CD accounts with $20,000 at 4% interest. I don't want to tie up all the money in CD accounts in case of emergency, but I feel like I should have the rest in maybe a different account of some type to earn more money. I don't want to risk losing money either, and I'm unaware of what to do with this 401(k) that is now under my name. I haven't done too much movement with
28:13 Speaker 04 the money because of my situation, and with everything being so expensive, I worry about the what-ifs. I also wonder if I should I have life insurance since I'm the only parent now. I also feel so overwhelmed and unsure of how to manage it all without my husband's input. Please help."
28:28 Speaker 03 Isabel, this is a brutal, brutal time for you, this last year and a half. You've got to be reeling in so many different ways. And being as conservative with the money right now is okay for right now. I'd like you, once you feel like, like you're not living in an earthquake anymore, when it feels like the ground beneath you feels more settled, at that point, I'd like you to do some serious planning for your and your kids' future with a fee-only fiduciary financial planner. That's someone who will help you set goals.
29:14 Speaker 03 For your life, talk to you about the goals, talk to you about financial security. And there's something you said, I don't remember exactly, "Oh, I don't want to risk losing money." Every year, you lose a certain amount of money to inflation. Right now, you're just trying to, to keep things on even keel. And that's why you need more time for healing before you go through this process I'm talking about. But for long-term, you really need to think about, how do you put this money to work? To build for you, knowing that in the short-term, when you move into investments, like you were talking about the 401K with the 10K in it.
29:57 Speaker 03 As you move forward with thinking about, not today or tomorrow, but long-term for your kids and for you, investing the money that is available to you becomes a big part of it. You have a base, the money that you receive from survivor benefits that provides, hopefully, a good base of financial support for you and the kids. And so, the money that you have, needs to go to work for you for long-term. You're not there emotionally or mentally yet, to get involved in that process. But I've got a thorough briefing at Clark.com.
30:38 Speaker 03 How you find a financial person you can trust, who's a fiduciary, meaning that legally, they're bound to do what's right for you, not what's best for their wallet. And so, you pay a fee for that, to get that kind of advice. And that time will come, where you feel more settled, and you can do that. For now, having the money and savings, things like that is okay. On the 401K, in the plan that that money's in, you almost certainly have access to a target retirement fund. And buy one closest to the year where your natural retirement cycle would be.
31:21 Speaker 03 And you just put that 10,000, straight in that target retirement fund, and leave it be, until you get to the point where you're building a more comprehensive financial plan for your future. And my heart goes out to you, and your two children.
31:40 Speaker 03 I hope that the next chapter in your life is a real positive one. And this additional education you're getting really pays off for you. On that note, we're going to end today's podcast YouTube show. And this is an extreme circumstance we just heard about. But so often what you hear me talk about is building plans for the future to create financial security for whatever occurs in the situation. That's why you always hear me talk about you focusing on how to save more money, how to spend less money day by day.
32:22 Speaker 03 That the whole idea is to create financial breathing room in your life regardless of what life throws at you. And have a wonderful rest of your day, and I look forward to being with you on Wednesday.
32:37 Speaker 00 Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.
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