00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. 00:00:01 Speaker 2: I'm Joel. I'm Matt. 00:00:03 Speaker 1: Today we're talking car insurance competition, early retirement increasing, and HOA horrors. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: Welcome to our Friday flight where we talk about some of the stories we came across this week and talk about how they're going to impact your money, your wallet, your ability to become financially free. So Joel's going to kick it off with an AI toothbrush story because he's really loving his. I'm just thinking about all these use cases. He uses it all the time. 00:00:38 Speaker 1: All these use cases for AI, Matt. They're finally coming out and they're getting me excited, right? There's been a lot of pomp and circumstance and then a lot of prediction of horror and destruction. All the things that AI is going to bring that's going to harm society and jobs and individuals and people are revolting. But maybe, maybe, Matt, this AI toothbrush from Dyson can bring us all together in love and affection for AI overlords. 00:01:04 Speaker 2: What do you think? If anybody can do it, it's Sir Isaac Dyson or whatever his name is. I will say, back in the day when vacuum cleaners all, I was going to say sucked, back when they were awful and didn't do what they're supposed to do, we considered getting A Dyson, but we never did. 00:01:24 Speaker 1: Back in the days where it was the ball Dyson. 00:01:26 Speaker 2: Uh-huh. Yeah, dude. It was like a groundbreaking... I. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Remember when that came out. 00:01:30 Speaker 2: Uh-huh. But since then, I feel like some of the other vacuum cleaners have jumped on embracing technology and how to improve their products. Yeah. So Dyson's no longer necessary. And this feels like another instance where it's a foray into an industry that's not necessarily warranted. Does it really need to be AI-ified? I don't know. 00:01:50 Speaker 1: Well, I'm curious... to see what it actually looks like. They just announced it, but this is a $ 499 AI-powered toothbrush, and it has an internal camera. They're calling it an intraoral camera, and it detects even the gaps between your teeth, and it automatically falses them in real time. So this is, if you're talking AI for tooth health, man, like I didn't know this was coming down. It's only going to set you back $ 500. I.... 00:02:19 Speaker 2: I don't know, man. 00:02:19 Speaker 1: I think this is finally the best use case. 00:02:22 Speaker 2: There are some scenarios where truly having AI, like it makes a lot of sense, but man, yeah, I definitely don't get this one. I'll be honest, for a while there, was it the Panasonic, the Sonicare? Kate had one of those. Was that Panasonic? But the ultra high frequency, I even tried out the Quip back in the day, but dude, at this point, I'm 100% the cheap Aldi toothbrush. 00:02:43 Speaker 1: Same. 00:02:43 Speaker 2: Where just.... 00:02:49 Speaker 1: That plus I'm analog on the toothbrush yes. 00:02:52 Speaker 2: Including some of the scraping tartar scraping tools that Kate got me for Christmas several years back that I thought was a joke and here I am once a month getting in there kind of scraping away some of the some of the tartar that's building up on my teeth. 00:03:06 Speaker 1: Man that's I think that's the only way you can justify never going to the dentist is by being your own dentist and you save money but the you're ultimately not saving money unless you put in the work yourself but you're putting in the work so it's. 00:03:18 Speaker 2: Okay I'm guessing there are plenty of dental hygienists and dentists who will maybe write in and say, you need to not be scaling your own teeth. And also don't chomp your teeth and make the teeth sound again, because that's also bad for your teeth. But so far, so good. I haven't resorted yet to doing that to my kids yet. We'll see if we draw the line there, but I'm very comfortable performing my own cleaning. 00:03:43 Speaker 1: To hear from either teeth enthusiasts or people who work in the dental profession that if they have any thoughts on how helpful these fancy Nancy toothbrushes are. Because I'm curious. I mean, this is obviously overkill, $ 500 AI-powered toothbrush. But is there a happy medium? And do you actually get additional benefit from the fancier toothbrushes? My guess is no. If you're a good brusher, it comes down to just how long you take and how well you clean your own teeth. And not just brushing. And maybe some make it easier to do that. Not just brushing your teeth, Joel, but flossing your teeth. Yeah. 00:04:21 Speaker 2: You know what I tell my kids? You don't have to floss in between all your teeth. Just the ones you want to keep. 00:04:25 Speaker 1: Well, okay, here we are, pearly whites. You can do it on YouTube. We're on YouTube and we, I wouldn't say we look adorable, but we look pretty good and our teeth are nice. 00:04:36 Speaker 2: I feel like I do pretty good. I've been blessed with healthy teeth. I have had very few cavities over the course of my lifetime. Okay, so gosh, our buddy Phil was telling us, okay, I swear we're going to end the conversation on teeth here in a second. But evidently most people, your mouth is either, and I looked this up, evidently it's true. He's just like, oh yeah, if you've got tartar buildup where it's like calcified, that's because your mouth pH is basic. And people who have a more acidic mouth chemistry, their saliva literally will break down Those calcium or whatever the deposits on the inside of your teeth, especially on the bottom, especially. But what those people end up dealing with is it also eats away at their enamel. And those folks end up with more cavities. So you tend to fall. You're not one or the other. You're somewhere on the spectrum. But if you have a lot of cavities, you probably aren't at home needing to scale your teeth and scrape the mineral deposits off because... your acidic saliva does that for you versus someone like me who never has any cavities, but I've got the mineral buildup. Isn't that fascinating? That is fascinating. 00:05:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:05:48 Speaker 2: I had no idea that that's what was going on, but Phil, he clued me in a little bit though. Okay. Six minutes in and we're still talking about teeth. Let's move on. Let's talk about auto insurance rates, Joel, because they are dropping. There is a journal article and they talked about how premiums are down four and a half percent year over year. This is the fastest decline that we've seen since 2020. Are you excited? Are you happy? 00:06:13 Speaker 1: It's finally, it's good to see something give on the prices are rising front. So yes, I celebrate, especially given what people have dealt with. You remember like right when the pandemic started, people didn't drive very much. Auto insurance companies were like, ah, like we're not going to make as much revenue. I mean, it helped people got in fewer accidents. But then shortly thereafter, we resumed normal life and inflation took over kind of the car insurance space. And we all, the premiums just skyrocketed for everyone. So for the first time in a long time, it is a buyer's market on the car insurance. 00:06:46 Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And they talked about how it's cyclical, right? Like, like there are softer markets and there are hard markets. So we happen to be entering into a softer market in part because there's more competition, right? So insurers are having to compete on prices. There are also fewer claims being made. Evidently, those are the two things that are driving the biggest drops in premiums. And my theory, I've got a theory. You want to hear my theory? I think it also might have something to do with teenage drivers. And so I hypothesized this, and then I went digging, looking for information to back me up. But there are fewer 16-year-olds who have their driver's license today versus 20 years ago. So if you look back, there's good data by the government back in 2003. And over 30% of 16-year-old drivers had their licenses and were driving. Today, or in 2023, so 20 years later, only 23% to 24% of 16-year-old drivers. 00:07:40 Speaker 1: And I bet that's dropped even more in the last few years. So that makes a lot of sense. 00:07:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. And who's getting in most of the accidents? Teens, right? 00:07:48 Speaker 1: Like, when did I get in all of my accidents? Between the ages of 16 and 18, I think. So I don't think I've gotten in one since. 00:07:56 Speaker 2: Good for you. 00:07:57 Speaker 1: Unless someone ran into me. 00:07:59 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:07:59 Speaker 1: And so some people might be saying, okay, cool. The CPI says four and a half percent drop. Are we actually as individual consumers going to see the savings accrue to us? Or is this just some sort of pie in the sky? Let's hope that my car insurer lowers my rates. If you hope that your car insurance company lowers your rates, you'll be hoping a long time. That's just not how it works most of the time. If you sit on your hands and hope, your rate will continue to go up. Some people will save, the people who take action. Some people will also actually save by not taking action. So State Farm, Matt, this is rare, but just a couple of car insurance companies are mutuals, right? And so what they do, they have a dividend payment that they offer to their customers if their profits exceed their costs over a certain threshold. So State Farm customers are going to get between a 4% and a 10% premium back whatever they paid in their premium back in the form of a dividend check. And this is, we can link to the site in our show notes, but this is already happening for customers around the nation. Something like 49 million cars around the United States are insured by State Farm. Amica and USAA are two other insurance companies who kind of work under this same mutual umbrella. And so this is good news for those customers. And then for anybody else who says, I don't have one of those companies. Well, And I'm not getting a dividend check, so what do I do? Well, now is finally, for the first time in a while, a chance for you in an era of more price competitiveness in car insurance to do the shopping, to be willing to switch companies to get the savings. 00:09:39 Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. Evidently, specifically with the State Farm dividend payout, it's going to take If you're thinking, what? That sounds awesome. Just be patient with it. Because like you said, nearly 50 million. It's like over 49 million. Nearly 50 million cars. 00:09:54 Speaker 1: So that's a lot of customers. So it's going to take a... I think the site was like down or slow at least. Everyone was like clicking through from the email at the same time and State Farm's like overloaded. 00:10:05 Speaker 2: But yeah. Yeah. So be patient. It should arrive soon. Joel, let's talk about investing because there's an article out talking about whether or not now is a good time to invest. And there's a new survey that found that people think that now is not a good time to invest, from 34% down to 25%. And I'm going to go ahead and jump on the most interesting, I guess, aspect of that survey, which was that, ironically, the older generations that were surveyed were the least concerned, as opposed to Gen Z. They were the ones who were most concerned, who were most switching up how it was that they were investing. Which is so ironic, right? Because you've got an older generation who arguably is going to be more impacted by a down market. Sure. But then again, they're the ones who are just like, whether it's wisdom, whether, you know, they're saying, oh, well, I've weathered many a financial storm and this too shall pass. But at the same time, I was a little concerned the fact that the boomers are We're saying it'll be fine because they're the ones who are most impacted by a down market as opposed to Gen Z. It's flipped where they're the ones freaking out. And whereas they should be the ones who are going to take advantage of the situation, right? Hopefully what that means for the boomers is that they are invested in a way where they're not worried because they're not like 100% stocks because they know that they need to withdraw their funds in the near future. And so they have a well-diversified portfolio? I don't know. Maybe so, yeah. Or, yeah, you're right. 00:11:44 Speaker 1: Or they're saying, hey, listen, I'm okay with the stock exposure I have, realizing that market dips and corrections can occur. But the young people, Matt, that is like shocking and sad because those are the folks who should welcome, in fact, a downturn in the market. That buying in at cheaper prices, think about, it wasn't great for the economy and you and I were not pumped about the great recession in 2009. And it obviously, 2008, 2009, it obviously had impacts on the job market too. There were a lot of, it wasn't just all wonderful for everybody who went through it and people lost their homes. I mean, there was a lot of turmoil. I'm not saying it was a positive thing, but as an investor in that era to be able to buy, right? As we, you and I were beginning our investing career essentially at that point, And that was a good time to start buying because prices were so low. And if we were to see a meaningful correction, we're not predicting it. And in fact, the people who have been predicting it for many years have consistently been wrong. The stock market has continued to perform quite well. And they've missed out. Yeah. But if we were to see that, Gen Z would benefit the most. And they should be the least concerned about that possibility. So is now a good time to invest? Yes, if you have 30, 40 years to invest. 00:13:05 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:13:06 Speaker 1: Is it a good idea to continue investing even if the market experiences a correction? Yeah, it's even better. 00:13:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, just keep investing. Do not try and time the markets. Just stick with it, right? Stick with the fundamentals. Spend less than you make. Invest the rest and you're going to see your wealth grow. And Joel, speaking of when your wealth grows, guess what becomes more of an option? 00:13:28 Speaker 1: Working. Working. 00:13:29 Speaker 2: Having to work for your income. There are more folks who were retirement age, who are 55 and older, and they're finally bagging work, which is a good thing if you are ready to finally retire. It also makes all the sense in the world, right? Because as you are invested in the market, you've got more potential income coming in via your portfolio. You start asking yourself, okay, you know, I was planning to work until... And also, I take slight issue with the title or the headline, that particular headline. I'm thinking in podcast terms, because they call it early retirement. But I'm like, I mean, come on, 55 is barely early retirement. That's still early. That's still early. 00:14:12 Speaker 1: Especially when you look at the long trek of human history, retiring at 55 and not working anymore is incredible. 00:14:19 Speaker 2: But for the average American, that's early. But we've got half of our folks who are on the path. I don't know. I'm just making this stat up. 49% of How to Money listeners are on the track to real early retirement, which is retiring at age 50. or sooner. That's what I'm going to say my definition is. But I would say that it's encouraging to see folks respond to that and valuing their time appropriately, which is saying, oh, why am I doing this? If I'm only doing this for the money, then okay, there's other things I can do. If you're also doing it for community, for a sense of purpose, to make the world a better place, then that's a great reason to continue to engage and work. But It's great to see that folks are making a different decision because they've seen the numbers change, essentially. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: I've seen some people retire early and they're so bored and they don't know what to do. And they end up getting another job, Matt, that doesn't really satisfy because they. 00:15:16 Speaker 2: Maybe made the move. 00:15:17 Speaker 1: They weren't quite in touch with what they wanted to pursue once they hit early retirement. And so for those people, I kind of feel bad for them. And then for other people, I've seen other people like retire or quit working. And it's the best thing that ever happened to them. They're lit up by life in so many other arenas that they're pursuing, including volunteering, free work, whatever it is that they offering themselves up in more beautiful ways than they could have in the traditional workforce. And so I think that I think this is a good thing, though, that more people have that option. Right. 00:15:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. Which, by the way. Joel hasn't stated this explicitly, but this is a plug to go back and listen to Wednesday's episode with your conversation with Wes Moss. Yeah. I just wanted to state it very clearly. Yeah. 00:16:00 Speaker 1: If you want to be the kind of person who retires early and has a good retirement, listening to what Wes has to say would be wise and checking out his new book. But I think, yeah, pivoting to not... The other great thing, Matt, about retiring before 55... is if let's say a stock market downturn occurs and you feel like, oh, wait, crap, I don't have enough money to fund the rest of my retirement, or I feel like I need to go back into the workforce and shore things up a little bit. You still have that ability, right? For someone who retires at 52, 53, 54, they still could in three, four years, their resume isn't, there's not a long enough gap to really prevent them from coming back into the workforce. There's still a lot of optionality and opportunity there. to go from retired to back to working for a couple more years if they feel like they need to pad things out. So I think people should be able to, if their net worth has grown at a rate that they didn't anticipate, feel more comfortable pulling the plug on work because they can always go back. 00:17:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. But I will say, I don't like your example there, pulling the plug, right? Because then you're making it sound like the tub is either full of water or it's empty, right? Like, As opposed to like, let's switch to the conversation or the article talking about passive income being sort of like the new American dream, right? And like that whole article, I think this is another article in the journal, but they're talking about, okay, it used to be the American dream was like focus on your career, career success, work, work, work, and then retire, as opposed to passive income, which is what? Oh, well, and the examples they gave are like, oh, this guy came up with this like oversized lint roller. You got this other guy that he's creating voice clones of his voice, and he does audio narration stuff. For audio tracks, like audio books, that kind of stuff. 00:17:51 Speaker 1: Really interesting side gigs. 00:17:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, really interesting stuff. And what I don't like, though, was the emphasis. I'm totally fine with more of the focus being on financial independence, owning your time. But what's the other? Back in the day, we did an entire episode talking about passive income and whether or not it's a myth. And it's not a myth, but there is truly only one type of ultimately truly passive income, which is having actually invested those dollars into the market. That's when you don't have to do anything. That's when you're kicking back and it's passive. Everything else in between is on the spectrum of how much time do I have to sacrifice? How much time do I need to give up in order to gain this? So on one end of the spectrum, you are, it's fully not passive, right? So it's fully active. You have to work. And if you are not working, you are not receiving any income. On the other end of the spectrum, you have already worked. You've acquired wealth and capital and you are investing those dollars passively. You're sitting back and you're receiving money that way. But all in between is just slowly ramping up towards achieving some sense of financial freedom, some sense of financial independence. And you don't necessarily have to start some wacky company or some amazing product. I don't want to call everything out there wacky. There's some really cool stuff. people are solving real problems, but that's not how everyone is geared and how everyone thinks. And I don't want to, I guess I just don't like how it seemed like that they were somewhat dismissing investing, which is truly the only true path to fully passive income. That's all. Yeah. 00:19:27 Speaker 1: And so many, so many of the avenues which people go down to try and generate passive income remain, you remain tethered to having to either keep the business afloat. There's keep the people employed who are creating the product that you're shipping out. You're still in charge of something. The same is true of rental real estate, which we talk about regularly. It's an awesome way to go for a lot of people, maybe less so in 2026 than it was seven, eight years ago. But it can be a really brilliant path to side income for you and eventually maybe replace your full-time job income. But it's not passive. It is a part-time job. Yeah. And so so many of these things, passive income has kind of become this catchphrase in American culture. Everybody wants in on passive income. How sexy does that sound? How nice does that sound to have that in my life? And it does like it does sound nice. The problem is most of the time what it takes to get that is front loading the sacrifice, right, is investing more than most humans are willing to do and live in a way that in a frugal manner that most people are unwilling to accept in our modern culture, because it probably means driving a 15-year-old car, not a two-year-old car. I mean, there are all these changes you have to make to your life in order to get to that point. And then the other thing that it takes is knowing the best route, right? In order to say, listen, do I want to go down this path? Because if I start my own business, sure, that could be a path to eventual passive income, but it might take even more work and it might take even longer to get there. The stock market is, for the vast majority of people, the easiest way to achieve passive income, real passive income. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: That's right. 00:21:10 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:21:10 Speaker 2: And not everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit, right? There's just inherent risks. Yeah. There's all sorts of things that we could get into. And what you got to do, Joel, is drive the 15-year-old car for a while, and then you can have the two-year-old car like we finally have. Which I don't even know. We weren't even planning to talk about it. We'll save it for some other time. The Tesla is driving nicely is all I'm going to say. Just like everything in life, we want it to be easy. But there is the time, the effort, the elbow grease that goes into eventually achieving passive income. And I think articles like this sometimes make it seem like, yeah, just pull something out of your butt. Invent something random. Create the new. 00:21:52 Speaker 1: I have friends who are pursuing businesses on the AI front and maybe they'll get it off the ground and it'll be a great business, but it's going to require a lot of time, effort and elbow grease, like I just said. And maybe someday down the line, they'll be able to even sell the business or have people operating the business that make it feel mostly passive. But all of these are long treks towards passive income. It's not like you can, passive income sounds great. It just takes a long time to get there and you got to put the work in to make it happen. 00:22:21 Speaker 2: Exactly. And for most people, they're truly going to be able to achieve that passive income, again, through investing their dollars, which is, I don't know, we talk about investing, and it just seems like this boring thing. But what we're talking about is being able to own your time and do and have the four hour work week, you know, like, like, they talk about all these sort of lifestyle things. And it's just like, well, that's actually at the end of this investing journey as well. It's just less of a, it's not nearly as sexy or exotic or, you. 00:22:48 Speaker 1: Know, that's where the savings rate The savings rate, the percentage you're putting into your 401k, such boring stuff. It's such tedious, minute detail. But the bumping that up 1% every single year gets you a lot closer to true passive income a lot sooner. And so making that a habit, a prerequisite for yourself, that's what's going to get you there. And articles like this, all right, cool. It's cool that somebody created a giant lint roller. How many people are going to be able to replicate something like that? I'm not an inventor. I see that, and I think it's great. It's a good story. Inventors are fascinating to me, but that's not something I don't have the skills for. 00:23:30 Speaker 2: Not something achievable or not something I'm pursuing at least. Yeah, so that's one end of the spectrum is passive income through investing. On the other end of the spectrum is, like we said, working for all of your dollars. So let's talk about if you're looking for a job. Ghost jobs that are out there, and evidently 20% of all listings that are on the job listing sites are fake. What do you think about these ghost jobs, Joel? 00:23:56 Speaker 1: You know, at first, when I first heard about it, well, I think ghosts deserve jobs too, Matt. You know, our buddy Casper. 00:24:04 Speaker 2: Sorry, bad dad joke. 00:24:06 Speaker 1: That, I think, at first when I heard about this, it seemed like not a big deal. Okay, some companies are posting jobs And maybe they don't actually, that job doesn't exist. Who's really harmed in this was my initial thought. And then as I kind of started to think about it more, I realized it's going to be really frustrating if you are on the job hunt and you're barking up the tree of these fake ghost jobs that don't actually exist. And so some legislators are attempting to do something about it. I think it's New York and Pennsylvania have proposed bills essentially to require employers to list hiring timelines and to remove like job role posted positions after the role has been filled. And companies who aren't attentive to this, I think are, yeah, they're frustrating people. 00:24:52 Speaker 2: And so. 00:24:56 Speaker 1: Should they be forced to, by legislation, take these job postings down? I don't know. I think that's a different question, but I could see how somebody who is hunting for a job could be demoralized by the fact, especially given the way AI has infiltrated the hiring process and there's so little human touch to the hiring process, it also means you have to take a different tact as someone who's looking for a job, realizing that these are the gatekeepers, the fake jobs, the AI rigmarole. And so you need to probably pivot and take a more analog human route in order to get the job you want. 00:25:29 Speaker 2: Dude, 100%. That's what I was thinking of. As I was thinking through this, the internet's going to get sloppy, right? Whether it's through AI slop, stuff that's being written by LLMs, whether it's lazy employers and companies who are leaving these postings up. But yeah, if these postings are up and they're old, I would say ignore these older postings. I would avoid any postings that seem really vague because they're talking about how these companies, it's not like it was a real role that they then filled. It's literally just a fake role. And so there's a lot of vague language as to what the role is. Or it's just like super generic to the company because they're just trying to maintain a pipeline of people into the company, even if there aren't actual roles. And so, like you said, relying on real people. So looking to your network because then you know, well, that's a real job because my buddy told me about it. And or heading over to the specific company site and seeing if there is a job posting for that same role on like their careers page. or whatever, as opposed to just casting a super wide net. They're trying to get as many applicants in as possible, as opposed to on their site, they've got a very specific job. And then you can research it a little bit, dive deep and figure out whether or not it's worth the time to reach out and research the role and see if you can land an interview. 00:26:51 Speaker 1: And we've been saying it for, since the inception of the podcast, networking is crucial, right? And there is, it remains true in the era You can crack the code and have the best resume that gets through all the AI filters. Congratulations. And I'm not saying that's not helpful, but I think your network is still your strongest asset when it comes to finding another job, finding a better paying job, finding a job with a company you'd rather work for, moving up the career ladder. I think that is still your number one way to like tend to your network and keep in touch with people, right? From companies you've worked for, at before, with people you've met at conferences, keep those relationships alive, help people who are in need, and then you might also receive help when you're in need. But I think the network is still top notch. Nothing beats it. 00:27:44 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:27:44 Speaker 1: All right. 00:27:44 Speaker 2: We got more to get to. We're going to talk about, Joel, I think we're pretty much going to be talking about real estate, but not just one facet of it. We're going to talk about how it is impacting the price of condos, how it's impacting family dynamics, how it's impacting The ability to work as a realtor. So we'll get to all that and more right after this. 00:28:14 Speaker 1: All right. We're back. Let's keep talking about personal finance stories, Matt, that we found interesting this week. It's the Friday flight. The ludicrous side of the rushes. This second half, there's a lot of real estate related stories that we're going to get to, and I think they are all well worth covering. But the ludicrous headline of the week comes from Yahoo. It is also real estate related. The headline reads, the market for older condos is cratering as buyers shun rising HOA fees. And Matt, you know what this made me think of? During the summers, we pay for a pool membership from a neighborhood that's like 10 minutes away from us because we do not live in a pool community, an HOA community. And so they opened up to outside members. I think we pay $ 350, $ 400 for pool access for the summer. Well worth it because we're there a lot as a family. But then I was talking with a guy who lives in the neighborhood the other day when I was there. And there are like tree roots growing into the bathrooms of this pool. And he was talking about how expensive it's going to be for all the homeowners in this community. And I believe it. 00:29:22 Speaker 2: Are the fees going up? 00:29:25 Speaker 1: The fees are going to have to go up or there's going to be a special assessment depth to fix these bathrooms. And so me as an outsider is thinking, boy, I'm glad I'm not actually on the hook for this. But I obviously felt for him. But then there was this article yesterday. in Yahoo, and it's essentially talking about especially older condos. They've been raising their HOA fees. They've been levying special assessments. And this website found that, and I quote, median fees for a condo constructed before the year 2000 were $ 11, 431 per year. You're talking about $ 1, 000 per month in HOA fees. 00:30:02 Speaker 2: Yeah. As opposed to newer condos that were constructed in the past decade, you're only looking at around 400 bucks. So that's a massive, massive difference. 00:30:13 Speaker 1: And I was texting with my mother-in-law yesterday and she owns a condo in town near where we used to live. She rents it out now. But she was just talking about how the taxes and the HOA fees have risen significantly. And it just makes it not nearly as good of an investment as it used to be. And that's just par for the course for these older condos too. There are just more and more things going wrong, things falling apart because like the siding is like in tatters and they've got to fix it and stuff like that. 00:30:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:30:46 Speaker 1: I think owners and buyers need to be aware of this trend. For some people, getting out of an older unit, if you see the writing on the wall, might make sense. And then for a buyer, you have to know the financial state of the HOA before you buy. Know the age, know the condition, and the financials of the HOA before you say, that one looks good, the price is solid, let's get into it. Because these secondhand costs that you might not be predicting can derail you. 00:31:13 Speaker 2: Absolutely. It makes that more important than ever, but also it could potentially make it an attractive purchase, right? I still see like there being an opportunity, like just because prices, because yeah, the HOAs are going up. But what that means is like the headline read, in fact, prices are cratering. And so you just, it's not a singular number anymore. That's like number above this. No, bad number below this. Good. You got to do a little bit of math, but those who can do math are going to see their wealth grow. All right, Joel, imagine a situation, you want to keep moving? 00:31:44 Speaker 1: I was just going to say the percent funded level, look at that. If the HOA is more highly funded, that means it's on stronger financial footing. If it's typically like below the 30% mark means it's in weak standing. And if you can kind of dig into the financials a little bit, you might know whether or not you're getting a good deal, good price with a well-funded HOA versus an HOA that's going to toss you a special assessment for eight grand right after you buy it. 00:32:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, they need to have well-funded reserves. I wanted you to play a little bit of make-believe and envision a scenario where one of your kids goes off to school, they go off to college, they graduate, and then they move back in like 49% of survey respondents did in a recent USA Today article. What do you think about that? Would you be happy if your kid did that? It depends. I'm not even going to pick which ones because I feel like you might have different responses based on... That's clear. We know which one it's going to be. Joel says he doesn't play favorite, but that's why I'm being generic here. The generic Larsgaard kid goes off, graduates, comes back home, sleeping in the basement. 00:32:48 Speaker 1: Every parent knows you always have a favorite. It's just rotating. You can say you don't have a favorite. 00:32:54 Speaker 2: You're lying. 00:32:55 Speaker 1: I love them all equally, but I have a favorite. It just rotates. Some days and weeks, it changes. 00:33:00 Speaker 2: That's what you got going on. Yes. So, okay. 00:33:05 Speaker 1: I think... It depends on the reasons why and for how long. And this story concerned me. If my kid was moving back because they were like, oh, this is going to let me have more financial freedom to take trips to Europe with my pals. Sorry, that's not flying. You're not moving back into my house if that's your mindset. What if it was just like one singular trip to Europe? If it happened to overlap that they were going on a singular trip to Europe, but they had their act together and they were working towards something. So I moved back home, Matt, for like four months. I was like, you're okay with it. 00:33:41 Speaker 2: All right. 00:33:42 Speaker 1: I moved back home for like four months. It was really actually right when I met Emily. And I remember telling her, she's like, where do you live? I was like, with my parents right now. But not for long. 00:33:52 Speaker 2: But not for long. 00:33:53 Speaker 1: Because I was so focused. I was saving up the down payment. Look at you. 00:33:56 Speaker 2: You still were able to seal the deal even though you were living at home with your parents. 00:34:00 Speaker 1: Even though I was. 00:34:01 Speaker 2: Pathetic. 00:34:01 Speaker 1: You got to help folks. 00:34:03 Speaker 2: No, you had a plan. You were pathetic. I had a plan. You're doing it intentionally. 00:34:06 Speaker 1: That's what you're getting to. And I was placing offers. My roommate had moved and our lease was up and I was placing offers on home and I hadn't found the right place yet. And so it just made sense to not sign another lease when I was trying to buy a house and finish the process. And so that four months gave me a little bit of extra money to put towards the home I was buying. But I did it with a mindset. This is a short-term stay and it's helping me get to the point where I can launch in a more successful manner. So if it is a, Hey mom and dad, I'm leeching what's in the fridge. What are you making for dinner tonight? Sort of mentality. No way, not going to happen. But if you, if it is this, can I stay for a short term because here are my goals and here's where I'm headed and this is going to help me get there. 00:34:54 Speaker 2: Come on, come on home. Yeah, and I think it's up to parents to set those expectations and to be very clear with how you communicate. Because, I mean, when I was that age, I was still pretty dumb. You know, like a teenage male, like you're not, I can't even speak, right? The prefrontal cortex doesn't even completely like fully develop until like age 24 or 25. Is that right? I'm just saying that there are dumb decisions that are made even at a young age. And it doesn't surprise me that when you're younger, you're thinking, all right, if there's an opportunity here, if they're going to make it easy for me, like, why not? You know, like the ability to have a nice meal at home and maybe your laundry gets done for you as well. You know, like it's, I think it's, I think the onus is on us as parents to set clear expectations. I like what you said. How long, how long is this going to last? And if it's beyond that, even setting clear expectations of like, look, You're going to start pitching in, you know, you're going to start, we're not trying to. Or pay a small amount of rent. Yes, exactly. Pitching in from, but that's what I was going to say. We're not trying to gouge you or anything, but like, hey, it's going to be, you know, 200 bucks a month. Like you can't live anywhere that's as nice as a house that we've provided for you where you can pay 200 bucks of. Yeah, a month. And then I don't know, maybe next year, hey, it's gonna go up to 300 a month, right? Just to set this runway. Because if they don't, if they're not out there like you, where you hadn't met somebody, because dude, I would, oh, man, thought experiment, I would love to know what you would have done. Let's say you had not met Emily. But like, that's the kind of thing that lights a spark under you. And you want to say, like, you don't want to go on the second, third date and say that, oh, yeah, I'm still living at home. You want to be like, yeah, I was actually looking at properties. And I put a down payment on a, they accepted like that's attractive, right? Like that's, oh, here's actually somebody who's got, when I bought my house, which is fine. Like I bought it, moved in and we started dating not too long after that. But she knew you, but y'all met initially. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But see, there you go. I feel like that's a perfect example. Like initially she was kind of like, I don't know about this guy. But then she sees you a few months later. She still doesn't know. You've got your act together in her eyes. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh man, this Joel guy, not so attractive before, but I don't know. A little rough around the edges, but he's looking better. He's got a plan. Anyway, I like that. 00:37:21 Speaker 1: Let's piggyback on this. There were a couple articles recently about what people refer to as the bank of mom and dad, right? And I've heard boomers say that, like, we're not the bank of mom and dad, right? That's just kind of how they talk to their kids about it. And I think you do have to have strict boundaries about how much of a bank are you willing to be and what does it look like to blur the lines between parent and benefactor. But there was a stat, something like 70% of Gen Z adults now are willing to admit, they say, that they're financially dependent on their parents, which is like, that's hard to fathom. And I understand that everything costs more, rent costs more, and we're starting to see, right, some declines in some of these, some plateaus and some declines in some of the costlier portions of our budget, which is a good thing. And I do think, I want to also acknowledge, I think it's harder to get by upon graduation now than it was 25 years ago, now than it was 50 years ago. I think the path looks different. But I also don't think financial dependence on your parents, especially in the long term, is the only way forward. 00:38:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree. And a large part of that, like you said, is housing, right? Housing is so expensive. And with that, we are seeing real estate. I was trying to find like a smoother segue, but I couldn't come up with anything. Real estate agents, man, they're dropping like flies. The NRA has lost, I think, over 400,000 realtors since their all-time high numbers back during the pandemic. And I've got two takeaways after reading the story. First of all, If you want to be a realtor, you got to work really hard. You can't just like sell property on the side. I feel like it was sort of like this, almost like a, it was like the millennial side hustle back in the day, like the older millennial high self. 00:39:12 Speaker 1: If you have another income, if your real estate license, I know people who dabble in real estate and they sell a home to their cousin or their friend's friend. or something like that once or twice a year. And it's a nice little influx of cash, but for the most part, it sits idle and they don't put much effort into it. And I think for some people that works. 00:39:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in large part, because I think a lot of realtors are having to be a bit more aggressive in how it is that they court. Like a lot of realtor volumes, if you're doing it full time, it's driven by volume. right? Like your numbers are driven by volume. And if there's just less volume overall, like you got to find a way to get those buyers. So you got to find a way to get this, to be able to sign and get the, to be able to represent those sellers. I'm just pointing to the increased competition, right? Going back to insurance, you got hard markets, you got soft markets. This is a soft market, I think, when it comes to being able to negotiate, not necessarily housing prices, but at least with realtors. And I think if you can find somebody who might be a little bit more willing after the NRA settlement, right? The ability to negotiate a little bit when it comes to fees. I think there might be some opportunity here for new homebuyers. NAR, not NRA. I always say NRA. I always do that. Not the National Rifle Association. 00:40:30 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:40:30 Speaker 2: The National Association of Rifles. Yeah. 00:40:34 Speaker 1: Well, I think what this, this is also one of those things, one of those professions where you have to make hay while the sun shines. 00:40:44 Speaker 2: And prepare for weaker years. 00:40:46 Speaker 1: It's a la Joseph in Genesis preparing Egypt for the famine, the seven fat cows, right? And the seven lean ones. And you just have to realize that's the kind of profession it is. And once you build up a clientele, you can just see substantial variations depending on market conditions in your income and in your workload. And so if you have prepared by saving extra and when the years are fat and good, like the 2021, 2022 years, and then you realize, oh, in the years like 2026 where things have plateaued and I don't have as much business coming through and my income's cut in half, I'm okay because I'm used to living on half of my pay anyway. 00:41:32 Speaker 2: And the extra was gravy. 00:41:33 Speaker 1: When you have an income that's more volatile like that, you just have to think about your finances differently and And so it's a tough dog-eat-dog world out there being a real estate agent. I think people, there are lots of people, loads of successful people still in that space. And even that settlement, Matt, hasn't truly impacted the percentage of commissions that most real estate agents are getting in terms of a percentage of the deal. It's still pretty close to 3% for most agents. But you just have to plan ahead in order to be prepared for years that aren't as fat as they. 00:42:07 Speaker 2: Used to be. Yeah, I think it's the combination of that, but coupled with the rise in different AI tools and software out there that are allowing buyers and sellers to completely bypass realtors. Did you see the Times article about the guy that used AI to save him a ton of money, basically? 00:42:26 Speaker 1: To create his own listing, to even use AI to create the responses to agents who were interested in making an offer on the property. And he he wanted to keep us and what amounts to tens of thousands of dollars in his pocket that would have gone to agents fees. He used something there. There used to be another website. I'm trying to remember what the name was. It was like donkey something or whatever that you could list here. I forget what the name was, but you could list your own home. 00:42:58 Speaker 2: Sure. It's called Donkey Kick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We all believe you. 00:43:01 Speaker 1: Everyone, go to donkeyhick.com. I should buy that domain now. But people used to be able to list their own homes, whereas for the longest time, you didn't have that ability, right? There was no personal ability for me to list my home on the MLS. I could list it on Facebook Marketplace, but it's not going to get the traffic that it's going to get if it's listed on the actual MLS. But then their sites started coming up where you could pay them directly, and they would list it on the MLS for you. Home coin appears to be the site to do that now if you're interested in representing yourself as a seller and listing it for sale by owner. 200 bucks is what he paid to get it on there. He got multiple excellent offers. AI helped him parse the details of the offers he was getting and then to negotiate back. I think this is another great use of AI, better than the toothbrush, because it's going to, I think this is the kind of thing where if you want to put in the work, AI can actually help you Do it better than you could have on your own before AI. 00:44:02 Speaker 2: I get your point. There's also, I'll go to, I'll go at bat. I will play devil's advocate and go to bat for the realtors out there because there is a difference between using the tools, which are more and more sophisticated that are available to you and then having the. experience, right? Like expertise is not the same thing as experience. And what you're gaining by using these tools is expertise to a certain extent. Um, but you don't have the experience. And even the writer was just like, well, maybe I could have ended up listing it for 50,000 more to begin with. Uh, and so he missed potentially missed out on a ton of money. I'm thinking back to the toothbrush. I got my tools, but do I have the expertise to know what I'm doing when I'm trying to scale my teeth? Right. 00:44:43 Speaker 1: Well, and you were talking to me this morning, about using AI to do research on your Tesla purchase and how it was just flat out wrong in some of the things that it told you. But it sure sounds like it knows what it's talking about. It sounds pretty certain, like I've derived these facts. Let me deliver them to you in a convincing, compelling way. And it's really easy to take that at face value and say, great, all right, let's go. Even taking the Zestimate as the starting place, which I think is what this journalist did, how accurate is that? It depends, right? And sometimes they're very accurate. Sometimes they're not. And a realtor in your neighborhood might say, your Zestimate says $ 750, 000. But man, very similar. Actually, inferior houses around here have been selling for just over eight. If we list at $ 799, 000, you're going to get multiple offers. That's the kind of insight that an actual agent who works hard in your neighborhood regularly is going to know that AI isn't. And so I agree. I think it's cool that he did this and went through this experiment. It sounds like it worked out decently well for him. But you could also be in an effort to save a little bit of money, be cheaping out and missing out on a bigger network of buyers and potential higher starting price point and a higher sale point because you went the AI route instead of going with the human. 00:46:05 Speaker 2: Yeah. What's the bigger misstep? from a frugal or cheap standpoint, trying to list your own house or trying to perform your own dental work on yourself? I don't know. We'll let listeners decide. While we're talking about AI, I wanted to touch on the story. Friend of the show, Elaine Glusack, talked about some of these trip booking. First, there are these trip booking sort of software and tools, and it's all called AI, which again, this feels more like an instance of like, here's a really great piece of software, this great tool that allows you to find the cheapest place cheapest flights and spend less on vacation, as opposed to AI, which feels like, this seems like an example of AI getting slapped onto something. Right. 00:46:47 Speaker 1: There's this one jetpack, right? And it's like, oh, monitoring airfares with AI. Isn't Google Flights kind of algorithmically doing that already? 00:46:54 Speaker 2: And specifically, I'm glad you called that one out because jetpack or jetback is a subscription model. And so I did not like that. Whereas I will say some of the other ones she highlighted, I wrote them down, mind trip stays, Autopilot, Junova, and Payback, I guess, is another one. 00:47:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, one was monitoring your travel, requesting refunds on your behalf, right, if there were delays in travel. And that is, I think, a good use case too. 00:47:23 Speaker 2: But the ones I just listed out, they're all commission-based, which I do like that, which is like, hey, you're not paying anything. You're not automatically getting parted from your dollars, whether or not you use this or not. It's all based on commissions, whether or not we're able to save you any money at all. I'm fine if you want to use some of those AI tools, some of that software. But personally, I don't know. I don't travel enough to take advantage of something like Jetpack. I would be more interested in some of these free options. 00:47:51 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, agreed. 00:47:53 Speaker 2: Still found that fascinating. All right. You got anything else? That's it. Awesome. Let's get out of here. We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday with a fresh Ask How to Money episode. So until then. Best friends out. Best friends out. Of course, I miss hitting the sounder board again. It happens to the best of us. Later, buddy. 00:48:21 Speaker 1: Later.