50-Year Mortgage, Hims & Hers "Labs," & Uber's New Skiing Partnership

0:28This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Wondering why the post office is texting you or why you owe thousands of dollars in toll fees? Because someone's trying to scam you. The good news? McAfee can help. With McAfee's award-winning scam detection, it's easy to tell what's real and what's fake over text, in your inbox, and online. If they're faking it, they're not making it past us. Get award-winning scam detection today. McAfee.com slash keep it real. Public.com presents the Rich Habits Radar, a new Friday episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, where every Friday morning, Robert and I are coming at you with the biggest headlines impacting you and your money.

1:08My name is Austin Hankwitz. I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croak. And the three things sitting at the top of our Rich Habits Radar this week include the longest government shutdown in history finally coming to an end. Disney taking it on the chin by the tune of$30 million a week because they can't come to an agreement with YouTube TV for their ESPN distribution there. And here we go, Robert. Ready? The introduction of the 50-year mortgage. What the heck is going on? I can't wait to dig into some of these. But be sure to stick around to the end to learn more about Uber's new partnership with Vail Resorts for Uber Ski.

1:44Talk more about that one later. So, Robert, kick us off with our first story. Before we jump in, make sure you guys check out the survey below because you have a chance to win a$250 Amazon gift card just by filling out the survey. So give it a try. Our first story today is about the government reopening. After 43 days, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has finally ended. But the reopening of the government isn't like just flipping a switch. This shutdown created a massive economic and logistical mess for everyone. Millions of federal workers went without pay, major agencies halted their operations, and critical economic data that the market relies on, like the job reports, inflation prints, and GDP updates, never came out.

2:30Now we're heading into a period where all this missing economic data rushes back in at once, creating a lot of noise and some confusion for the stock market. According to the accounting firm Ernst & Young, the shutdown erased about 0.8 % of annualized GDP growth, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates$11 billion of real GDP has been permanently lost. So, Robert, let's explain why the government shutdown and now the reopening matters for our listeners and their money. I feel like everyone needs to take a deep breath and ooza for a minute because of everything that's going on. But given the backlog of muddy economic data, the markets are just more volatile than normal.

3:12So expect continued swings in your 401k and your traditional investment accounts. And additionally, the Fed now has a less clear view into economic data. So a December rate cut might not happen. Finally, we might be doing this all over again in January. And that's when the spending budget is expiring and they'll have to meet again and start this all over. Well, let's hope that doesn't happen and we can just keep getting paid and the economic data keeps coming out and the markets keep going up and to the right. All right, Robert, let's now talk about our next story, which is Disney losing$30 million per week for every week the YouTube TV blackout lasts.

3:49So as of October 30th, Disney's channels, which include major ones like ESPN and ABC, went dark on YouTube TV because the distribution contract between Disney and YouTube TV expired and they failed to reach a renewal agreement. Now, Disney wants higher distribution fees for their channels. YouTube TV is arguing, hey, man, we're already paying you too much already. You know, we don't want to pay you any more because if we do, we'll be forced to raise subscription prices for our YouTube TV. And I don't know if you remember this, Robert, they just raised prices last year. So that would not be good.

4:23Yes, YouTube TV is actually offering their customers a$20 credit because of the lack of access to the Disney channels. Wall Street analysts estimate Disney is losing$4.3 million per day, translating to that$30 million per week if this blackout continues. And Disney has publicly stated that it cannot predict how long this service blackout will last and build a hedge into its earning guidance for this uncertainty, which is why we're seeing their stock drop dramatically by 8 % just today. And here's why that matters for your money. Yeah, let's talk about why it matters, right? Because on one side, you've got YouTube TV saying, we don't want to pay you more money for this distribution.

5:03And then Disney is saying, no, we want more money. And then YouTube's like, well, if we give you more money, we're not going to make enough money to make a profit. So we're going to have to raise prices to our customers. And I'm already paying like$90 something a month for my YouTube TV. And I don't get any ESPN anymore. So I can't watch my college football. So it's just, it's a lot. So if YouTube TV actually ends up paying more to Disney, they're unfortunately going to have to pass those costs on to their subscribers. Where if Disney doesn't do that and they just cave and they say, listen, we don't want any more money.

5:32They're going to have to raise prices elsewhere to offset that gap, right? So maybe that's higher Disney Plus or higher Hulu prices for their subscribers. Now, more importantly, if YouTube wins this negotiation, every other streaming provider is going to try and pay less for those channels, which then forces networks to raise their pricing. So either way you look at it, Robert, our monthly bills are probably just going to have to increase somehow, some way as it relates to consuming the streaming content. It's crazy to me that Disney's profits so far in the fiscal year 2025 are$10 billion. And they're already in this situation where they're blocking out YouTube TV.

6:14All this is happening and the consumers are going to have to eat this increase again. It's crazy. It's not fair. $10 billion in profit and they can't find a way to make this work for YouTube TV. It's crazy to me. It is crazy. And you know what else is crazy? Our third point, which is the introduction of the 50-year mortgage. So the idea of a 50-year mortgage is back in the headlines as policymakers and housing advocates debate ways to make monthly payments more affordable in a world of high home prices and even higher interest rates. Now, the basic concept is pretty simple. You just stretch the term of the loan out from 30 years to 50 years, assuming that monthly payment is going to drop because it's stretched out longer.

6:54On paper, it could solve the affordability crisis, but then once you look a little bit deeper, it tells a different story. That's right, Austin. Definitely a different story for sure. So I did a little bit of math here, and a 50-year mortgage dramatically increases the amount of interest a homeowner would pay over the life of the loan. That's a foregone conclusion, but your equity builds much slower because early on, the payments are almost entirely interest. So for example, I broke it down on a$400 ,000 mortgage, and after 10 years on a 30-year mortgage, your principal would reduce by$47 ,000, but only$14 ,000 for the same loan at 50 years, which is just crazy to me.

7:40And additionally, the interest rates are going to be higher on these mortgages than a 30-year mortgage because it's going to be higher risk for the lenders. So I assume these mortgage rates are going to be 50, 75 basis points more expensive than the 30-year mortgage. So let's break it down of what this means for people and their money because it's not all what they think it is. And I think it's a bad idea to even consider these 50-year mortgages. Well, on one side, right, you've got these monthly payments that would theoretically go down, but the total interest paid over the life of the loan goes up substantially.

8:14So you can carry mortgage debt also into retirement, right? Getting one of these at 30, I'm 29. If I got a 50-year mortgage, it wouldn't pay it off until I'm 79. Theoretically, that would be crazy. And if longer-term loans become standard, here's the key. Home prices could rise because more people can now afford these bigger loans. Rates could be higher for such long terms, reducing the benefit, right? There's a lot of different things to consider here. You know, Robert and I were talking about this before the show started, and it's interesting to kind of think, right? Let's say that for that same$400 ,000 home that someone purchased and you've got your normal 30-year mortgage on it, assuming you now, you know, pay it off in 30 years, the house probably appreciates all that fun stuff.

8:52As you think about paying pretty much nothing toward the principal during that first 10-year period of time, I mean, Robert just gave us an example there. only$14 ,000 would go toward the principal over a 10-year period of time, you're essentially relying entirely on capital appreciation, right? The equity to be built because the home value is appreciating over time, which, I mean, you look at what happened in Texas, what happened in Miami, what happened in some of these other areas, you know, houses should go up and to the right over a long period of time, but it's not a foregone conclusion. It's not guaranteed.

9:24But what is guaranteed with a 15 and a 30-year mortgage is that you pay it down over time, specifically in that 5, 10, 15-year period that allows you to say, cool, I've got some good equity. It's not the case with these 50-year mortgages. Yeah, I think that's a great point. We're so used to hearing about capital appreciation in real estate. But if you look at markets right now, like Cape Coral, Florida, prices are actually way down from where they were two years ago. So imagine the situation where someone buys a home because we always talk about you shouldn't buy to what they'll loan you. You should buy to what works within your budget.

9:59And so many people don't do that. They're like 50-year mortgage. I can get more home for a lesser payment. But at the end of the day, you have to be very, very careful because it might be better off to rent if you become house broke because of this 50-year mortgage. So just make sure you understand the numbers because we want to really guide you guys in the right direction for the future, not just getting a lower payment right now because if you look at it on this$400 ,000 example, you're only going to save about$280 to$320 per month on that payment. I don't think that is enough to go to a 50-year mortgage.

10:33I'd rather see you go get a side hustle one shift a week to pay the difference. I think it's a great breakdown, Robert. Now, before we jump to the rapid fire section of the show, which as you guys might remember is Robert and myself bring three of our favorite headlines that have caught our eye throughout the week that we want to share specifically with y 'all, we're introducing a new segment of the show called Movers and Shakers, brought to you by ETF Central. ETFcentral.com is in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange. They're a wonderful resource and hub for all things data and inflows and performance and holdings of all the different ETFs that exist out there.

11:08There's over 4 ,600 ETFs trading on the stock market right now, and ETFcentral.com is a great place to learn more about them. Now, according to the website, as you can see shared on screen. We've got our best performers and our worst performers of the week, Robert. So let me do this. I'll cover the top three best, you cover the top three worst, and then we'll have one big takeaway from what we've learned. So the best performers this week in the ETF space include life sciences up nine and a half percent, precious metals when you exclude gold up just north of 7%, and finally tomorrow's treatments of 6.8%, which could be better defined as like oncology, weight loss, biotech, kind of the future of healthcare.

11:50Blockchain is down 6.5%. Space and deep sea research is down 3%. And volatility is down about 2.5 % as well. So it's been a pretty crazy market with these categories. It definitely has. And I would say my biggest takeaway across all of these, right, best performing, worst performing, I think it's interesting to see precious metals when you exclude gold performing so well up just about 7.2 % this week, right? Think palladium, think silver, think copper, things like that. You've been talking about copper for a while. Silver's obviously breaking out. So I think as we see more volatility in the markets, we should expect to see precious metals when you exclude gold continue to trend up into the right.

12:32Yeah, I agree, Austin. I think that's a great call out there because I do see a lot of continued growth in the precious metals market. I don't know that gold is going to continue to rise as much as silver is because silver obviously has all of its use cases in EV and phones and solar and everything else. But I think it's a great call out to mention for people that are investing in the precious metals sector. All right, Robert, with that out of the way, let's now jump to our rapid fire section. The three new stories sitting at the top of my rapid fire section today include HIMS and HERS launching their new Labs product, Anthropic investing$50 billion in AI infrastructure, and Uber partnering with Vail Resorts to launch their Uber Ski product.

13:15So let's kick things off with the Hims and Hers Labs product launch. Hims and Hers announced on Thursday the launch of Labs, their new product that directly competes with Function Health. The product is available in two plans, base in advance, and offers yearly blood draws to run over 120 biomarker tests across 10 key categories. Now, why I think this is exciting is one, I am a customer of Function Health. I've done the blood draw. I've done the urine analysis. I've got the app. I know all my stuff. It's really cool. So knowing that that can now be done to more people on hims and hers, I think is really, really impactful.

13:51But two, Function Health is doing a quarter billion dollars a year in annualized revenue. So if hims and hers can sort of capture some of that, right, to the tune of 50, 100, 150 million dollars a year in annualized revenue, I think that's going to be material for the company long term. Up next is Anthropic investing$50 billion in AI infrastructure. The AI company is building data centers alongside FluidStack in Texas and New York to meet the demand from their more than 300 ,000 business customers. This makes a lot of sense as the company reportedly is going to reach profitability much faster than OpenAI.

14:29I'm sure you guys saw that headline this week. Anthropic expects to be break even by 2028. Now, what's exciting about this, Robert, is I'm sure you remember October of 2024 inside the Rich Habits Network, we offered the opportunity for people to invest in FluidStack, the company that Anthropoc is building these data centers with, at about a$700 million valuation. Now, the current valuation is not yet public, but I can confirm it is a lot higher than$700 million, which is really exciting for not just us, but everyone who invested alongside of us via the Rich Habits Network. So go check out the Rich Habits Network.

15:04Now, finally, Uber partnering with Veil Resorts to launch the Uber Ski product in their app. Now, Uber has partnered with Veil Resorts to provide skiers a seamless way to buy lift tickets and reserve a ride to the slopes this winter. With Uber Ski, riders can now reserve an Uber that can accommodate as many as four passengers and their ski gear, as well as purchase the Epic Pass directly through the Uber app. Robert, I'm not much of a skier. I do more of the water sports. As you know, you've been on my boat, more wakeboarding, stuff like that. But I guess good for the skiers. My big takeaway from your rapid fire today is the HIMS and HERS with the preventative care.

15:42Because if I read it correctly, it's only$199 a year, which I think is incredible at economies of scale with a company like HIMS and HERS going up against function health. Because for someone like me that cares about my blood work and I get it done a lot, that's incredibly affordable. I'm sure they're just going to send us a packet right to our house. We do a quick prick with the thing and send it in and give us all those biomarkers. So I love that call out from you. And I want to get into my rapid fire right now as well. I'm going to start out with strategies. Michael Saylor says he has no doubt in his mind that Bitcoin will be bigger than gold within a decade.

16:19So in 10 years, 2035, Michael Saylor predicts that Bitcoin will outpace gold and have a larger market cap. So to give you guys some numbers right now, Bitcoin currently has a market cap of$2.04 trillion versus the gold's market cap of$29 trillion. So for Bitcoin to surpass gold, the price would need to climb to around$1.4 million per coin. And although I'm very bullish on Bitcoin, I don't know if we're going to see that high of a price in the next 10 years. And I'm not sure about these numbers, but I'm an investor in Bitcoin and gold. I assume we're going to see substantial growth in both. So more to come and we'll definitely touch back on this in a few years and see how close to right Michael Saylor is.

17:07Number two for me today, I think is an interesting one. I think it's really good for the housing market. And that is, and I don't know if you guys saw this or not, but Fannie Mae drops their 620 minimum credit score requirement to be able to get the Fannie Mae loans. And I think this is really, really good to no longer require a 620 or greater credit score. And they base the eligibility more on broader bases as it relates to your past payment history with rent and payment history with utility bills. This is going to help a ton of people that have lower credit scores or non-traditional income, but that may not currently qualify.

17:45But as long as they have these longstanding on-time payments, they will now be able to get these really awesome products from Fannie Mae. And number three, and this one is my favorite radar today, and that is Michael Burry pulls the plug on his hedge fund. Scion asset management status was terminated and ended operations November 10th. And this is huge news in light of him recently being in the headlines due to his massive short bets in the AI sector. He had notional value of$912 million of put options on Palantir and$186 million on NVIDIA. And these bets comprised around 80 % of his fund's portfolio.

18:26So I'm assuming that, you know, he is really getting a lot of internalized pressure because of a lot of wrong bets over the last few years. And so maybe that is the reason for pulling the plug. But we'll see more in the future. And for those of you that don't remember, Michael Burry's claim to fame was that he accurately predicted the housing market crash of 2008. And they even made a movie about it. But it hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns for Michael Burry as of recent. So we'll hear more from him. But he did do a cryptic post on X the other day talking about what is next on November 25th.

19:02So more to come on that one. I will say, Robert, Michael Burry shutting down is no surprise. He shut down after he shorted back in 2008, 2009. Maybe he's... I also saw some Alex and Palantir shorts that were going to expire in 2027 via some put options. I don't know what's going on with that guy. He's just maybe a little out of touch, and he's made too many wrong moves, and investors are like, Michael, might be time to hang it up and do something else. So we'll see what he comes back with. All right, so let's now jump to the Q &A section of this episode. As you guys know, the Q &A section of the Rich Habits Radar Friday episodes are entirely focused on small business ownership, entrepreneurship, and just like making more money.

19:43Dave Ramsey says, go pay off all your debt. We say, go make more money. Go increase your income. Go get more money in your bank account. So we got a first question here coming from Paul. Paul says, hey, guys, I love the podcast. I'm looking for some guidance on wanting to purchase a local business. I'm 42. I make$125 ,000 a year. I work as a service advisor at a dealership and have for many years now. I've got$50 ,000 saved that I could use towards a purchase as my dream is to own a small independent repair shop. I've seen several listed for sale over the past few years in the$500 ,000 range on BizBuySell.

20:19So my question is, what are the best places to look for these types of opportunities? Do I use BizBuySell somewhere else? And what are the best ways to actually purchase this? Do I do an SBA loan, seller financing? What do you guys think? Robert, you've bought and sold businesses. What's your take on the situation from Paul? I think, Paul, it's a great idea. I think you should look at owner financing. But before you do anything, I want to make sure you understand one fact. Mechanics don't grow on trees. They're not very reliable. So make sure you at least have one or two mechanics, you said small shop, that can be there to help you along the way.

20:54Because if you're going to be a mechanic as well and you're going to be in the trenches, you need to make sure you have one or two people you can rely on. After that, I love this idea for you. Go to BizBuySell. Drive the areas that you think have the most growth near you that would be great to have a shop and look at buying one of those. But before you agree to any numbers, make sure you get the details from them. Get the real books. Get the books that come from the POS system or the cash registers so you make sure they line up with what they're reporting. Because a lot of people still get those cash service bills and don't include those in the sales.

21:30and really understand what you're paying for and always negotiate to what you can get to rather than just laying down and giving them what they want. I love this idea because you have the experience. You'd be very good at running this type of business and then you can control your future because a lot of people are getting older. I know a mechanic shop right now in Toledo, Ohio. I'm trying to back the son because the father's retiring. Similar situation. We're gonna get owner financing from his father and move on. that's what I would do. I like that. I guess a couple of pieces of advice I'd share with you, Paul, you mentioned it's your dream to own a small independent repair shop.

22:07It's one thing to have a dream like that. It's another thing to have a dream like that and really understand what part of the dream drives you. I think a lot of people are like, yeah, it's really cool. I'd love to have a coffee shop one day or it'd be really fun to have a boutique. Do you like the idea of owning a small independent repair shop because you like working on cars, because you are super big on customer service because you love running the backend operations of types of like, you know, a business like that? Like what about the business really gets you excited? And once you figure out what that is, now you can begin to think about how do I bring partners in that are going to allow me to really double down on what I'm good at, which could be, you know, working on cars or the back office or the customer service, and then they can support things I'm not good at.

22:56So a great example of this is there's a candle making company in Tampa, Florida that I went to about this time last year. And it's a it's a husband wife duo. The husband is really, really good at the customer service explaining the different types of processes of making candles and the different smells and like he's very personable. The wife is the opposite. She likes the bookkeeping. She does the online social stuff. She does the, you know, the behind the scenes stuff that makes that's the glue for the business. So Paul, I think Robert's did a good job tactically speaking how to buy this business.

23:29But I want you to look more introspectively in thinking about what do I really enjoy about this idea of a small independent repair shop. And once you understand what you enjoy most about it, what you're most excited about, it's time to find people that can sort of, you know, bode well to your weaknesses there and really kind of buoy you up. If it's maybe you're not that personable, and you don't want to do the, the hey, man, your car is ready, you just want to turn a wrench all day, right? So there's a lot of different things that you need to be cognizant of before you go and you buy something like this.

23:58So our next question comes from Charles Q. Charles says, I love the creative and people side of my business, but the numbers drain me. Every time I sit down to do bookkeeping or analyze cashflow, it feels overwhelming. So I just end up putting it off. How do you stay financially organized without killing your creativity? Should I outsource the financial side completely? Or is there a basic system that every entrepreneur should understand no matter what. You know, Charles, let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. It's like 20 years old. They've got AI, it's bookkeeping, it's cashflow, it's invoicing, and it's affordable.

24:30Not an ad for Intuit, but I've been using Intuit now for the last half decade. Super, super easy, super, super reliable. I mean, every accountant that we've worked with and every bookkeeper also can speak QuickBooks. So I highly recommend doing that. But yeah, hire a bookkeeper. There's nothing wrong with that. It's part of the cost of doing business is having someone there that can handle the things that you don't like to do. Because think about it, you keep putting off the cash flow bookkeeping stuff. But let's say someone else was a part time bookkeeper and did that for you. Now you can focus 100 % of your time on being creative.

25:02Just think about it like this. If you're over here spending, you know, an extra couple thousand dollars a month to hire a part time bookkeeper, but because you're able to focus 100 % of your time on the creativity and the people side of your business, just think about all the extra money you're going to make by not having to feel this burden of bookkeeping or the financials or the numbers that's kind of taking you away from your vision of what you're really, really good at, which is being creative and having that customer service side of the business. You'll make more money having a bookkeeper than not having one.