Real Estate in 2026: Rent vs Buy, High Rates, and Building a Scalable Business | Patrick Soukup

Lucas Casarez hosts Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp and interviews returning guest Patrick Soukup, owner of Soukup Real Estate Services and leader of the Soukup Group in Northern Colorado. They compare the 2021 market to 2026, noting mortgage rates rising from about 2.78% to roughly 7.4%, national median home prices increasing, and affordability worsening as payments roughly doubled amid cumulative inflation. Patrick describes adapting to sustained higher rates since 2022, market segmentation by price range, and growing his team from four to ten people while shifting from doing most transactions himself to leveraging a team and focusing on marketing and long-form YouTube content. They discuss shiny-object marketing versus doubling down on strengths, rent-versus-buy tradeoffs (flexibility, investing the payment delta, maintenance, and long-term ownership), remodeling as a largely personal choice with limited ROI, and considerations around converting homes to rentals, including headaches, tax strategies, and being opportunistic on investor sell-offs.

00:00 Real Estate in 2026: Rent vs. Buy, Remodeling, Rentals & Tax Strategies
03:11 Business Growth & Team Building
19:15 Doubling Down vs Diversifying
24:29 Rent vs Buy in 2026
30:35 Remodeling Tips
36:36 Rental Property Strategy
45:00 Tax Strategies & Benefits
46:43 Final Thoughts & Wrap-Up

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqjpWM9lXcMIEMktSjR_DCg
https://www.instagram.com/patricksoukup/?hl=en
https://soukuprealestate.com/