Moody's Talks - Inside Economics - Philly Thrives, More Immigrants Arrive

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

The Inside Economics team is down a regular with Cris on the road, but two Moody’s Analytics colleagues, Adam Kamins and Laura Ratz, try to fill the void. Mark and Marisa recap a busy week by talking about GDP, inflation, and even Fed independence. The discussion of domestic migration features a healthy dose of Philadelphia homer-ism, and the team talks about the implications of the recent surge in immigration, along with plans for new population estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.Follow Mark Zandi @MarkZandi, Cris deRitis @MiddleWayEcon, and Marisa DiNatale on LinkedIn for additional insight. Questions or Comments, please email us at [e-mail]. We would love to hear from you.  To stay informed and follow the insights of Moody's Analytics economists, visit Economic View. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Inside Economics. I'm Mark Sandy, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics, and I'm joined by a few of my colleagues, my trusty co-host, Marissa Dina Talley. Marissa, how are you? I'm good. How are you, Mark? Good afternoon. Not too bad.

I've been traveling much of the week, but returned yesterday. And good to be here in Pennsylvania on a beautiful sunny day, really. Did you go anywhere good? Yeah, I'm on the board of MGIC. That's a large mortgage insurer. so I was in Milwaukee. I go there a couple times a year, and I love Milwaukee. Really?

Yeah, it's a great city. A very livable, great, I think a great place to raise a family. It's really a wonderful place. And the interesting thing is MGIC's headquarters are right next to five-serve convention center, I guess. A forum. A forum. Oh, yeah, you know that because you're a basketball fan, I'm sure. So you're watching the Milwaukee Bucks.

But the R&C, the Republican National Committee, is holding their convention there in July. So MGIC's headquarters are kind of in a very strategic location and high demand, that kind of thing. But, yeah, it was a good meeting. And we're missing Chris. Where's Chris? Oh, that was Adam, by the way.

Adam Kamens. Hey Adam, how are you? Good. Hey, Mark. Yeah, and you've been on Inside Economics before. I've been a couple of times. Actually, Chris has missed a couple of times I've been on, so I'm starting to get a little insulted. Oh, is that right? Yeah. He's not here. You're our Chris replacement. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah, he's got more hair than you do, though. That's true. Yeah, at least on TV. I'm not sure, you know. I think in real life, too. Oh, is that right? Okay. All right. And who invited you on? I think you did. I did. Why are you here exactly?

Because of that invitation. I'm here to talk about demographics. Mostly, I think I'll be talking about domestic migration. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You do this really cool work with the Equifax-based credit file data. We can track the address changes of individuals, clearly based on anonymized data, but nonetheless. us. And you can, it's real time. I mean, it feels real time, right? We have data through March of

this year on migration flows. So, yeah. We also have Laura, Laura Rats. Laura, good to see you. Good to see you. I hear you're a bit of a prima donna, though. We got to watch out for you, no? You just the first time on the inside economics. And Adam said you like, you need a two nights at a hotel, preferably something comparable to the roots Carlton, you know, something like that. Well, you know, I got an 18-month-old. So, you know, I got a... I need some solitude. I got a barking dog. It's for your benefit that I made those demands. Totally. I totally get it. I'm all for it. Well, it's good to have you. And you're going to be talking about foreign immigration, another aspect of the demographic picture that's really key.

So, I'd have you here. And we were doing a lot of work in this area. And it's a bit of a bear, isn't it? They're trying to incorporate these new immigration assumptions into our modeling and forecasting. Yeah, yeah, bear is the right word. Bear is the right word, yeah. You're leading the charge. Okay, well, before we dive into the demographic issues, let's talk about the economy and the data this week. And Marissa, maybe I'll turn to you.

What struck you as the most important statistic of the past week? GDP for the first quarter of the year came out and showed that the economy slowed between, The fourth quarter in the first quarter of this year. So it was 1.6% annualized in the first quarter. That's down from 3.4% at the end of last year. Consumer spending, yet again, was the largest contributor to growth, as it typically is, that contributed 1.7 percentage points to GDP growth.

Fixed investment was up. Detractors from growth. So the reason growth slowed so much between the fourth and the first quarter, was that there was a drag from inventories. So the change in inventories was lower than the change in the fourth quarter. And also international trade was a negative for growth this past quarter. And that's the first time that that's happened in well over a year. But still, one thing to note is that investment was up and fixed residential investment.

So this is investment in housing structures, contributed. about half a percentage point to GDP growth. And that was the strongest contribution to GDP growth in quite some time. The government contribution to GDP growth slowed quite a bit. So that contributed less than it has. You know, that's been a strong contributor in the last six to nine months to GDP growth,

government spending. It was a much smaller contribution this quarter. So this reading was a bit below. what we were expecting. It was below consensus forecasts, but I mean, still, if you look at the trajectory of GDP over the past year or so, you know, we were growing well above potential for the past six months, the last half of 2023. This kind of brings GDP growth back down to something a bit closer to potential. Yeah, I mean, abstracting from the vagaries of the quarterly data, what do you think the underlying growth rate is? I think.

I think it's around two. Two. Yeah. Yeah. Give or take. And two is, as you say, the economy's potential rate of growth, that rate of growth that is consistent with enough job creation to keep unemployment stable. And of course, unemployment's been stable now for two years at sub 4%.

Yeah. So this doesn't change your view of that. This report we got doesn't change your view of that at all. No, we were expecting a slowdown. It slowed a bit more than we were expecting, but it doesn't, I don't think it changes our outlook our assessment of where the economy is heading for the next year. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, and the slowdown was, as you said, a bigger reduction in inventories,

a bigger increase in the trade deficit largely due to more imports, which goes back to strong consumer demand. Yeah. And some weakness in decline in federal government spending. Although there's a kind of a measurement quirk there. it's very closely, quarter to quarter movements are very closely tied, believe it or not, to oil prices because that affects the deflator used to calculate real government spending. And so when you have oil prices move up like they have in the first quarter, that'll push

down the measure of real government spending. I mean, I think nominal government's, federal government spending is soft anyway, but then you throw in the mix this increase in the deflator due to oil prices. You get that declined. So those are things that, feel more or less one-offish temporary. They're not going to continue. So yeah, I was on the soft side, but, you know, abstracting from, you know, there's measurement and one-off factors, it feels like we're still kind of right down the strike zone here, right? Yeah, I think so. I mean, consumer spending right below 2%. You know, it's been a bit above 2%, a little bit below 2%, for the past several quarters. So that's the real driver here. And that looks good. And,

investment actually increased, you know, investment actually accelerated over compared to the past several quarters. So really the fundamentals of the economy, consumer spending and business spending, look very solid to me. Yeah. Hey, Adam, I know you look at this data too. Any comments on the GDP number? I had the same impression. Marissa did. I thought that, right? It seemed like the factors that were dragging it lower or not kind of structural concerns. I mean, I think it's also worth keeping in mind, The strains of the labor market in the first quarter kind of juxtaposed with that number. I mean, it gives me more reassurance that, I mean, there's nothing to be overly worried about about Q1. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, that was, there's a whole plethora of data, GDP kind of top of the list. What's next on the list, Marissa? Well, I would look at inflation next, right?

So we got the PCE deflator. That was up 0.3% over the month in March. March. That's the same reading we got in February, slightly lower than we got in January. The core PCE was also up 0.3%. So we're looking at year-over-year PCE inflation, and this is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation as opposed to looking at CPI, right? So year over year, the total PCE is up 2.7% and core is up 2.8%. And I'll also note the gap between the CPI and the PCE widened a bit this month too. So markets didn't really like this inflation report. You know, we saw mortgage rates rise. We saw bond yields rise on this report. So, but it didn't accelerate, which is good news.

And I want to point out housing, right? This is what we've been laser focused on as being the major source of inflation. So house prices, housing costs in the people. PCE stayed the same over the month. Housing and utilities prices rose 0.5% over the month, which is the same as they rose in February. So no acceleration there. So here again, it's not, it'd be nice to get an inflation report that shows a clear deceleration in inflation. We didn't get that. We got steady. I guess it's better than the alternative of an acceleration and inflation? Yeah. Well, so when we got the GDP number, that was on Thursday, today's Friday, so on the Thursday, April 25th, we got an estimate of the consumer expenditure deflure, the core

piece, so-called core consumer expenditure deflure, core PC, X food and energy, which is what the Federal Reserve targets. That's when they talk about, when you talk about the 2% inflation target, that's the measure that's being used. and came in strong. I think it grew 3.7% annualized, and the markets really didn't like that. We had a bad day. Stock prices were down, bond yields were up,

the kind of thing on Thursday. But here on Friday, we got the monthly estimate of the core PCE for March, and that came in at 0.3, as you say, just because listeners of the podcast know we're going to the second significant addition, 0.32.2. People calm down a bit. Investors calm down because most of the increase in the quarter happened in January. That's when we saw the big pop, and that's probably mostly related to measurement issues because that's the, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's, that's when you go to the new calendar year, a lot of companies raise their prices, very difficult to seasonally adjust for that. And now the point three is still, you know, you want point two, maybe point one, every once in

you don't want point three, but point three isn't hair on fire and before the markets are having a much better day. Obviously, lots of other things going on, earnings from some of the tech companies has been pretty good. So you get, but you know, that really helped. So if you look at bond yields, it's kind of your barometer of how people are thinking about these inflation statistics feels the bond yields are down today, stock prices are up, you know, You add up to both days and we kind of, no change.

We're kind of where we started. Yeah, that's right. I think they saw the GDP report and they were backing out what they thought PC inflation would be, right? And they were worried about that. Now they see the monthly numbers. It's calmed down a bit. Calm down a bit, right.

And my, you know, I just, I know I said this many times, but I'll say it again. A lot of the difference, if not all of the difference, maybe even more than all of the difference between what core PCE is now, and on a year-over-year basis, it's 2.8 percent. And the target 2 percent, so that 0.8 percentage point difference, that 80-f basis point difference, is the growth and the cost of housing services for homeowners, the so-called owner's equivalent rent, the implicit cost of owning a home. You exclude that, And I would strongly argue we should be when trying to think about monetary policy because it's impossible to measure. But by the way, it's impossible to measure in normal times.

It's like forget about it in the current situation when the housing market is as upside down as it is today. But even more significantly, this is an obvious point, but just to articulate it, homeowners actual cost of owning the home isn't rising because most homeowners have a mortgage, they don't have a more, 40% of homeowners don't have a mortgage. The other 60% have a mortgage, but almost all of that is 30 year fixed rate debt that they locked in at 3, 3.5% and so their mortgage payments are rising. So their cost of living isn't really rising. Yeah, I mean, their real cost of housing is actually fallen given today's prevailing mortgage rates, given what they have.

The gap between the effective mortgage rate and the prevailing mortgage rate right now is huge just because we know that, you know, 75, 80% of them have a mortgage below 4%. Yeah. I mean, I think the average coupon out there is three and a half. Maybe it's migrated up a little bit. But so my point is that if you really want to understand what underlying inflation is, which I think is what the Fed wants to target, right, ultimately, something they have some control over, it's, it's, you need to exclude OER. And if you do, we're there. We're at target,

you know, firmly at target at that 2% target with no magic tricks. You know, I'm not making, not making stuff up. I'm not, you know, doing anything other than saying, we want to get the underlying inflation and you have to exclude OER, which by the way the Europeans do in their measure of inflation. They don't use OER because it's, as I said, pretty difficult, if impossible to measure. Adam, I see you shaking your head. Anything you want to comment on there? Or you're just agreeing with me? I'm mostly just agreeing and also contemplating how my statistic may or may not have just been compromised. Okay. You probably shouldn't have told us that. Happens a lot here. Yeah, I know, I know.

I've got a plan B. I've got a plan B. We always need a plan B and a plan C. Plan C. Okay. Any other statistic you want to call out that came out this week, Marissa? I mean, we got spending data. We got personal income data, and both of those were quite strong. They were both up half a percentage point over the month. So, again, the consumer looks solid, right? I mean, certainly there are headwinds, mostly stemming from inflation that we're talking about. We have gas prices that are higher now.

We have high costs of housing and food still. these things are deflating, but yeah, consumer spending and personal income look good over the month. And then we got job market data too, right? We once again keep joking about this, but the unemployment insurance claims like they're just not changing. It's like a straight line. Straight line. I mean, nothing. In fact, I think they fell a bit over the week.

Yeah, they were down by. 5,000 claims. So they're down to 207, which is just incredibly low, right? 207,000 unemployment insurance claims per week, right? Yeah, as of last week. So just no signs of surging layoffs or layoffs picking up in any of the data that we're looking at. Well, it's funny. I, you know, I am on Twitter at Marks, Andy, just saying. I think it's called X now, Mark. Oh, yeah, X. Yeah, I'm on X at Marks. Andy. And what was I going to say? What was I going to say about that? Oh, this, the fact that unemployment insurance claims, I think if you take a four-week moving average, I think they're like,

they've been 210,000 on the nose for like, I don't know, I'm making this up, four, six, eight weeks, something like that. So on X, there's all kinds of conspiracy theories going. That's shocking. Right. BLS is making this up. How can it be so close? And I'm thinking to myself, well, if they really were going to make this up, wouldn't they create a little bit of variation in the numbers? So there's a really bad conspiracy if they're just picking $210,000 and just writing that in. But I thought that was pretty funny.

But that goes to the remarkable, probably unprecedented. We should take a look. Unprecedented stability. in that number. I've never seen anything like it. Just rock solid. Yeah, I'm looking at a chart of it. And since,

basically since September of last year, it's kind of just, you know, little movements, right? But it hasn't gone anywhere since summer of last year. Yeah. I mean,

it's just amazing. And at the end of the day, as long as businesses are not laying off workers, the economy is going to continue to push forward. I think a necessary condition for recession is layoffs. And that's just not happening.

Yeah, absolutely. Just not happening. Hey, talking about conspiracy theories. Do you see that Wall Street Journal article about folks in the Trump, former president Trump's camp thinking about ways to, what my words, capture the Fed? in fact, I think one of the ideas that was being discussed or has been discussed, again, this is coming from the Wall Street Journal, is that the president should have the ability to review any interest rate changes before they actually occur. Did you guys see that report?

Yes. Yeah. Did I get that right? A bit disturbing. Sure, did I get it right the way I can. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, essentially, there's a group of Trump advisors that have put together a 10-page outline for how they would rejigger the Fed, which basically would give the president, basically would put the president at the head of the FOMC for all intents and purposes, right?

He would have final sign off and consultation on any changes in monetary policy. He could use the Treasury Department to his will. in terms of expanding and contracting the money supply, he could rearrange the makeup of the, which of course he can do, right? He can place whoever he wants as the chairperson of the Fed. Yeah, that he would be consulted on all monetary policy decisions. Wow. What do you think of that? I think it's terrible. It's scary.

I mean, the pillar of our monetary system is, is an independent Federal Reserve. This is not supposed to be political in any way. And we're talking about completely politicizing the economy and the financial system. Yeah, I mean, I think politics, it's hard to say, you can't say politics don't play some role in how the Federal Reserve conducts policy. Because at the end of the day, they are beholden to Congress and the American people. So they have to be cognizant of the political situation.

So for example, I think it's very possible that the data might be saying, if there were, let me put this way, if there was no presidential election, the data would be arguing by September that the Fed should be cutting rates. But if you get to September and you haven't cut rates, you've got a November election a few weeks away, are you really going to cut interest rates at that September? September meeting, because you'll clearly be brought into the political process, you will clearly be politicized. And do you really, is that in the best interest of the Federal Reserve long to run, maintaining that independence? The answer is probably not. So all else being equal, you'll probably wait to actually cut interest, right? I agree, but that's all in an effort to try to

remain apolitical, right? And I guess what you're arguing is, Exactly. Maybe what they should do is not what they will do because they are cognizant of any political blowback, which I agree with. But they're doing it, I think, not because they want to give one guy an advantage over another. They don't want any impression that that could be what they're doing, right? Here we're talking about a politician actually having control over monetary policy. And isn't that a major risk to inflation in the long run, right?

Because what politician is ever going to condone raising interest rates? That's the point. That's why we have independent central banks because we could never get inflation was a real problem. And that's why globally countries everywhere, even countries with autocratic governments, have central banks that are largely independent. It varies obviously from place to place. And those countries that don't, like in Argentina, I'm just throwing that out there, they got an inflation problem because you're right.

It's a lot easier to cut rates than to raise rates. And you're always, your proclivity is going to be always cutting rates. And if that's the case, then you're likely going to end up with inflation that's uncomfortably high and be a problem. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a central, that a independent central bank, Federal Reserve, is a necessary. condition for a well-functioning economy, market economy. I don't think it works without one. Ultimately, it'll just break. Now, hopefully, if anybody decides they want to go down the path of trying to capture the Fed

and politicize it and change the conduct of policies that revolves around more politics than the economics, investors would throw up all over that, right? I mean, interest rates would, I would think, right? We're not the only ones would conclude this is going to be more inflation. So if you're a bond investor, you'd say, okay, have at it, but now you've got to pay me a much higher interest rate for that. And then, of course, an equity investor is going to say, oh, the interest rates are a lot higher.

So price earnings multiples in the market are lower. So stock prices are going to go down. So it just feels like the result is going to be a lot more days with a lot of red on the screen. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine the chaos. in financial markets this something like this would cause. Awesome.

Yeah. Although, you know, it's one of those things. It could be one of these things that, like a boiling pot, you know, it just changes slowly over time. You know, the fake gets captured over time. And it's not, there's no like catalytic event. It's like, you know, you're okay. And then you're not okay.

And it's too, by that time, it's too late. It's too late. I don't know. But anyway, hopefully we don't. Hopefully this is just talk, you know, fine. Talk all you want, but, you know, hopefully that's what this is. Okay, anything else on the economic front you want to bring up, Marissa? So we talked about spending GDP.

House prices, we got the Moody's Analytics House Price Index. That was up almost 6% over the month in March, year over year. Amazing. Very strong. down a bit from where it was in February, 6-1 in February. But yeah, we're still looking at 6% year-over-year house price increases nationally with most markets rising, a few notable ones posting declines. But yeah, there's not a lot of inventory out there.

It's a tail as old as time at this point as we talked about. Nobody's moving. It's keeping a floor under house prices. You know what I found interesting? And maybe Adam, you saw this too in the data. This is our repeat sales index. That's right. All the transactions in the country every month.

We know from courthouse records. We know the price. And then we take a look at that price on a home and look at what the price was the last time that home transacted. We had that all up and create an index by market. And the interesting thing that I found very interesting is the strongest price gains, guess where they are? They're in the northeast and Midwest, which is pretty.

Philadelphia is one of the top. Oh, Billy is doing really well. New York, Billy. I saw the shore Ocean County, New Jersey, which is where we go to the beach on July 4th. I think like I saw, and this may be just a data issue, 20% year-over-year growth. Can you believe that? I'd be careful with Ocean County, New Jersey. There's all kinds of quirks with at least the employment data for there.

But I believe the rest of what you're saying for the Northeast. I mean, we've seen a lot of these outmigration from the northeast, from big cities. That has slowed really dramatically. I've actually had an interesting stat on Philly. Yeah. If we get the Equifax data, which we'll talk about more. Let's talk about it now because this is a great segue. It's part of the conversation.

Yeah, the demographic conversation. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So maybe I'll just give a little context on the Equifax data for people who aren't familiar with it, right? that it's a 10% cut of the Equifax credit file where we're able to track changes of address. I think you mentioned already. It's anonymized.

But we are able from that to back out kind of the degree to which people are moving within the U.S. So we have in migration, out migration for every metro area for seven different age cuts. And then we also have data on metro to metro patterns. So we know how many people like left, you know, Philadelphia went to New York and vice versa in each month. So what I was going to say about it, actually, is there is what the vast majority of metro areas in the U.S., right, just overall movement has declined pretty sharply over the last couple of years, right? And especially in 2023, just given the high, the effect of high interest rates and the lock in. The lock and the fact. Exactly. Exactly. There's one of the top

75 metro area divisions, the 75 largest. There's only one. where actually the number of people moving in kind of gross. So they're not a net number. Just volume of people moving in has risen from 2022 to 2023. It's not Philly, is it? It's Philly. That is. When you say Philly, so what are the counties you're in?

Philadelphia County and Delaware County. Oh, okay. Metro Division. Yeah. More, wait a second. So this is in migration. In migration, just in migration. The other 74, even places.

where, you know, people have been moving in rapidly, right? You have fewer people moving in and fewer people moving out, and so they might be looking good on net. But only Philly actually had more people move in in 2023 than move in in 2022. And where are they coming from? A lot of them are just coming actually from the suburbs. So a lot of them coming from like the mainline suburbs, maybe moving back in. I have a feeling you might have some younger people who are, you know, maybe we're living at home for a little while. and, you know, my sister. My sister.

Yeah. Yeah. She's now living in Fiddler Square. Fiddler Square. Yeah. So that's some of it. I mean, we are seeing some movement still from New York, some other expensive areas where people have been moving in for for a while into Philly.

So I think it's kind of that combination. I think you have some people coming back in from suburbs, some people from the New York, New Jersey area. But it's affordable, right? And it's affordable. That's a big difference. Nothing's affordable, but is relatively affordable compared to New York and D.C. Exactly. I think that's the big difference, right?

These big cities are faring a lot better over the past year or so than they were in 20, obviously 2020, but even compared to 2021, 2022, but they're still expensive. So it's still hard to draw people to move in in large numbers. But Philly, to your point, is affordable enough that I think you do have some people coming in from some of the more expensive big cities in the Northeast. a little bit of migration from some other markets within the U.S. to Philly. So it's pretty encouraging story for our hometown. Well, what about net, though?

I mean, because you say in, then you have out, and the differences that is net in migration. So what's net in migration like? So I think Philly is experiencing net also improved, right? I think out, I believe out fell a little bit, Philly. Out fell most places. So the net story, this isn't that in and out, both kind of. I moved up at the same club. Philly is, I looked at this before. I think the most improved metro area from 2022 to 2023, no surprise in San Francisco, just because it was bleeding residents

and it's just bleeding fewer residents, basically. I believe Philly was number three on the last term or number two is. Is net migration negative or positive? I think it is still negative. It's just less negative on a less negative than it was. Yeah, it's improving almost as rapidly as anywhere else. And it's compared to the other ones that are improving really quickly, it's in a much better starting position than, say, a San Francisco. You know, we went right into the weeds. I mean, immediately into the weeds. Maybe can we just take one big step back and can you give us a sense of what the data is saying more broadly about domestic migration? Well, it's a thing number one, you said that it's

really important and very consistent with everything else is that the number of people are moving, is down. So we're not seeing as much in or out migration just because there's just people are locked in. They got a 3.5% mortgage. The mortgage rate is seven. They, they can't move. The economic does make economic sense. And so we're just seeing fewer moves. So that's one thing you've observed. What else have you observed in the data? Sure. Yeah. There's a bunch. And I can't help myself. I jump right into the Wii. I live in the week. Yeah, we go right down to block level in Philadelphia. Yeah. So. Yeah, so if we do them out.

But everyone out there should know, I mean, this is a rare thing for Philadelphia. I mean, like, I've lived here all my life. And never have I felt the city as good as it feels today. I mean, I know that's a very anecdotal, squishy thing to say. But it's true. And you can kind of see it in the data, right, broadly. But, okay, I digress. Let's go broad again.

Go ahead. When I saw that data point, I figured I had to give that to you. Yeah. You need that up. But I think big picture. So with the data show us, I mean, first of all, no surprise, right? People have been migrating out of the Northeast. By the way, one more point.

One more quick point. I can't resist this either. I, my own, my view is that the presidential election is going to boil down to Philly. I'll just leave it at that. Go ahead. Well, if people keep moving in, then you might be right. Maybe it'll be half the country by the time. I'm not joking.

I'm not joking. It did. It did last time, didn't it? I mean. Did it? I mean, it certainly must have played a big role. It was definitely a big part of. Wasn't Chester County one of major

determining counties? Yeah, Chester County, Delaware County. Montgomery. Yeah. Anyway. There were a lot of memes on the topic. We're just trying to make ourselves feel important. But anyway, go ahead.

I'll leave you alone, Adam. Go ahead. I wonder if we should construct a model where people move into an area just so that their vote can be the deciding vote. Maybe that's the motivation. Yeah. That's an interesting concept. Maybe.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. All right. So I guess the big, if I really zooming out, right, the big picture with migration has been for as long as this data set goes back, and even before that, this data goes back to about 2005, right? there's been movement out of the northeast, out of the Midwest, into the south, and into the mountain west. And after the pandemic, that, that kicked up dramatically, right? You saw a lot more movement out of big cities into the mountain west, into the southeast in particular.

I'm not saying anything. Anybody here hasn't heard a million times already. But what we've seen in the most recent date over the last year, year and a half has been much slower movement into the mountain west. A lot of these kind of secondary tertiary markets, the Boise's of the world in particular, have really seen a marked slowdown in migration. We've seen actually the southeast is still doing very well. There is a few, I won't keep quizzing you,

but the state that looks like it's adding residents at the most rapid clip on a per capita basis is South Carolina. I was going to say that. That's not fair. I was going to definitely say that. So I didn't want to quiz you. I didn't want to give you too much satisfaction here. So, yeah, so South Carolina has grown really rapidly.

We really aren't seeing any real meaningful deceleration in the Southeast. And so those are kind of the two broad trends among the kind of areas of the country that are kind of the winners, you know, the winners demographically. And then the other kind of broad pattern we're seeing is that like I mentioned before, big cities, these gateway markets that were, losing residents really rapidly, you know, in 2021, 2022, they look a lot more like they did in 2018, 2019, which is to say they're still losing residents, but it's not anywhere near the clip that they were. So the pandemic hits, we see the mass outflow of people from these large urban centers. The net migration was negative and deeply negative and getting more negative.

I think that kind of peaked in 2020. No? Am I right? I'd say 2021, but it probably was near its peak still and we got to 2022. Yeah, late 21, early 22. Yeah. That's kind of the peak of the remote work dynamic.

And then remote work started to come back in a little bit. Business to say, hey, you've got to come back to work in person. And that net outflow has slowed. And last time I looked, the amount of net out migration is still a bit elevated relative to the pre-pandemic period. Is that correct or is it all the way back into pre-pendemic? It is almost all the way back. Oh, it is. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. But it depends on the market, too. So San Francisco still looks a bit worse than it did prior to the pandemic. New York looks pretty similar. So it depends. I mean, the one thing I would say, too, though, I wouldn't put. all of my stocking up because you see like daytime population. So if you look at commuter traffic,

office vacancy rates, it's clear that these big urban centers, there's not as much activity. The economies are not as robust, especially on weekdays as they were prior to the pandemic. But in terms of just people moving in and out, it looks very similar to 2018, 2019. Yeah, it's so interesting. I've got this, you know, you go, I visit all these I told you, I said I was in Milwaukee. And Milwaukee is a good case in point. The office towers are, the occupancy rates are a lot lower than they were pre-pandemic. Although I'd say Milwaukee, the remote work dynamic hasn't played out quite as significantly

as in a place like New York or Philly or San Francisco. But nonetheless, it has happened. So you have fewer people coming into the office every day, yet you've got these large, apartment towers going up everywhere for people. It just, it's just, it feels like, how do you square that? I mean, so they're moving into a city, but they're working remotely from their home in the city. They're not going into it. Is that what's going on? I mean, it sounds kind of, I don't know, sounds like what you're saying. I would think, I mean, we've seen in a lot of the data, right, the people that are moving back into cities generally, that was actually one of the other

trends that we're seeing consistently this Equifax data is it's the young adults, right? The 18 to 34 year old cohort is generally pretty pumped about city living again. And so a lot of them are, I think, Marissa, I think you're right. They're moving into these urban apartments and they're moving there not to be close to where they work, but because they're attracted to the way of life. And they want the amenities. They want the nightlife. They want all that. I mean, they're kind of agnostic about where they live relative to their office location, because a lot of them are working remote jobs anyway. I mean, that struck me at our All Hands Day. You know, a couple weeks ago, we were all together in the suburbs of Philly.

How many of our younger colleagues were telling me that they all recently moved into the city. They all live in Philadelphia. And a lot of them live near each other, you know. when they're there, not because their job is there, but because they want to be in a city. Yeah. An interesting conversation a couple weeks ago about this were offices that are located in cities.

I was talking to a group, and a few of them work in offices located in cities, I think particularly in D.C. And they were saying the people that go into the office regularly are the young people because it's near them. And then I was saying, well, my experience, I think our experience with kind of a more suburban office is that generally it's been some of the more experienced people that, or the younger people,

at least that I have worked with and on my team, they don't want to go anywhere near the office if they don't have to. So I think all of that, it's sort of the people, the office occupancy and kind of who's going in, it's just a function of where it's located. And I think basically, if you want young people around, you kind of need to follow them into cities. So this whole idea that remote work and the hollowing out of these office towers was going to be the death knell of these urban cores, maybe not. It's just a reshuffling.

It's an adjustment process, obviously, but it's kind of a reshuffling that, and the city's going to end up being just more residential. This is a place to live as opposed to a place to work. That's exactly right. I think that and a place to travel for, you know, I think tourism is still very popular in a lot of these cities. But yeah, it's a place people go to have fun as opposed to go to work. Yeah. I mean, like Philadelphia, you've got the professional sports. You've got universities having basketball tournaments. You've got all kinds of performing arts all the time. Yeah, that's interesting. That's very, that's very interesting. Okay. So. Can I ask a question about the other part of what Adam said about people moving to the South and the South Carolina? Yeah.

Antiquette. So Adam, what is, who's doing that? Is this, is this sort of the baby boom retiree migration to the South that's going on or is this also younger people? I think it's a little of both. I think, though, in the case of South Carolina, I think there is an outside share that is the retirees moving there. So like Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, those are really popular destinations. And I think a lot of that is being driven by retirees. But there is, I think Greenville was another one in another metro area in South Carolina that's been very popular with movers. And I think that that's more balanced, right? there are young workers that are following jobs there. So it's a mix, but I think the South Carolina example in particular,

I think it does skew more towards seniors and retirees. I think you're seeing other areas, like whether it's Nashville or Raleigh, Durham, or Jacksonville, where it's more young people that are migrating to those areas. Okay. Any other friends in the day that you want to call out, Adam, before we move to the stats game and we start talking about foreign immigration with Laura? I think those are the key ones. I'm sure we'll circle back to some, but those are probably the biggest observations I've seen so far.

Okay, very good. Well, let's play the stats game. The game as we each put forward a statistic. The rest of the group tries to figure that out through clues and questions deductive reasoning. The best stat is one that's not so easy. We get it immediately, one that's not so hard. We never get it. and if it's apropos to the topic at hand, demographics, or recent economic data, all the better.

And we always begin with Marissa. Marissa, you're up. Okay. 3.6% year over year. In the GDP numbers? No. In the inflation numbers? No.

But it's inflation related. Is it wage growth? No. Is it housing related? Yes. Is it house price related? No. Rent?

Yes. Rent? Yeah. Is it? Yeah. I'm going to tell you what it is because I kind of went a little bit off the grid for this. Okay. Because this is data from Zillow.

By the way, that was very good. Adam. I did all the work and then you got the answer. It's a roller reversal, right? It only matters who buzzes in at the end with the correct thing. I know. I agree. I agree. Rent growth is 3.6% year over year. Okay, explain. So this is Zillow. Yeah, this is data from Zillow, right? So we're having this conversation about rent price growth and OER showing up in the

official inflation statistics put out by the government. We know there's a lag between when real-time rents get signed and when that shows up. So this is, Zillow has a data point that they put out every month. It's a repeat purchase rent index. It includes all kinds of rent. So it includes people renting single-family homes, people renting multifamily apartments. So the latest reading that came out in April showed that rent prices were, rents were up 3.6% over the year. If we go back a year ago, so if we look at the data that came out in April of 2023,

rents were growing 5.8% over the year. So this has come way in, but what's kind of interesting is that if you look over the past few months, rents have sort of started to accelerate a little bit. So the bottom of this Zillow, repeat rent index was showing rents growing at 3.3% toward the end of last year. And we're now up to 3.6%, which suggests there could be a little bit of, you know, rent acceleration in some markets. But the broader point I want to make is that this is way, way down. Whether you look at it

from a year ago or you go back several years, you know, if you go back to 2022, we were looking at rent growth of 16% year over year on the same month. So 16% in 2022, almost 6% last year, and now we're looking at a little bit over 3.5% now. Yeah, I don't like the Zillow data on rent. I think that's the listed rent. It's not the actual. Transacted rent. It's not the actual effective rent. Yeah. And if you go look at, I think I have that right.

Someone should just check to make sure. I think if you look at like apartment list.com, which I find much preferable, because that goes to the effective rent, the people are paying, the actual rent that they're paying. And you look at that data, the most recent data,

and again, this is from my mind's eye, so I don't know if that exactly right. But it is definitely not up at all. If anything, it's, you know, down, still down. Not a lot. You know, it's not. You mean it's a negative number. It's a negative number.

I see. Okay. Okay. So I'm skeptical of the Zillow data. I don't know that I would focus on that. Adam, do you have a, or Laura, do you have a view on that data? Have you looked at it at all? I've looked at it a little bit, but I don't.

I've not got I've not gotten into the week. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have that right. Chris would know if I, you know, if he were here. But I think that's the case.

So, but anyway, your broader point is that it's decelerating. The level may be a high relative to the, you know, the actual rent, but the, the pace of growth is decelerating here.

That's right. And if you look at, if you just, if you go to the, pre-pandemic, right? So if we looked at like March of 2019 compared to here, rents are, you know, I was looking at that compared to the CPI, rents are up almost like by a third according to the Zillow data. If you look at the CPI data for rent of shelter over that time period, they're up like 27%.

So we're talking about roughly between a quarter and a third of rent price appreciation since the pandemic started. So, you know, we're still still have high housing costs, right, relative to where we were. It's just coming in. Oh, I see what you're saying. You're saying because of the surge in rents.

Right. Cumulatively since the start of the pandemic, rents are up by somewhere around 30%. Depending on the source of that. Kind of in my mind's eye, before the pandemic, the kind of the typical rent, you know, for like a single bedroom

was like $1,000 a month. Again, I'm making all this up, but roughly speaking, now I think it's like $1,250 a month, you know, something like that. And so... Yeah. The Zillow median was like 19, almost 2000 a month as of this March, compared to about 1900 a month.

That maybe the other thing, Zillow might be more at the high end of the market than the total market. It feels like it if that's the, you know, the median is $1,900, I would think. That sounds high for the entire market. But anyway, but anyway, that's a good one, though. That's a really good one.

Laura, do you want to go next? Sure. I have two. I was trying to stick, keep mine within my topic of immigration. That is what you're supposed to do. Yeah. So do you want the, do you want the easy one? or the more obscure one?

The easy one might be too. Let's see how easy it really is. Okay. Someone says it's easy. It's not easy. Well, I'm going to say it might be an Adam. I might have to ban you from guessing until a few moments go by. But I don't know, maybe not.

20. Well, mine's a year. 2040. Mine is a year, actually, in which something will happen. 2040. When a minority population outpaces the white population? No, but in that realm, yeah. In that realm?

You mean it's, you're on the right track. When the foreign born born is high, no, no, that can't be. Hornborn will outpace native born by 2040. That can't be it, right? That's not it. So it's the year per the CBO estimates, which we're all really invested in right now. That is the year at which natural population growth will cease to support overall population growth. and immigration will be the sole source of U.S. population growth.

That's a good one. So you're saying- You got it like in three seconds. You're saying if there was no immigration, then by 2040 the U.S. population will start to decline. No. Well, yes, yes, yes. If immigration went to zero on 2040. Yeah, if immigration was zero, the natural burst and deaths would not be- Yeah.

Essentially, a central natural population change will go negative. That's a lot pace births. Right. Yeah. That actually is a very good one. So 2040, so that's 16 years from now? That'll be the case. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's one estimate. You know, there are others that put it a little bit sooner, actually. Oh. What about the minority versus the white population? I think I got that roughly right. It could be a little bit. That I can't say for sure, but I would say it's around the same time.

Around the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I would even, I would think sooner, yeah, or so. I mean, it's already the case in California. Yeah, it's already pretty close.

Yeah. What is already the case? That the non-white population is larger than the white population. White population? Yeah. All right. You want to give us the hard one? The hard one.

The hard one would. Well, if we had talked about immigration already, maybe I'll single back to that. We'll let's do that at the end. Yeah, let's just save it because Mercer's got to leave a little early anyway. Yeah. We don't want to deprive Adam his turn. Yeah, exactly. Adam, what's your staff?

All right, I will say because I know we, I don't want to take too long. I'll give you one that. It might be a little bit easy because it kind of goes back to something we were talking about before. But I look at the 3.781%. Wow. Three digits on that one. That's three digits. I'm not being the ante.

Uh, Is it demographic related? No. Well, it will come back to a point about demographics, but this is not specifically a demographic. It is not, but you're in the, you're in the ballpark. It's housing related. Housing related. 3.781 percent.

Is it a year over year growth rate? It's not a growth rate. It's a proportion of something. It's a rate of something. It's a rate. Is that the, That's not the share of the population that moves in a given year. Oh, no, that's demographic.

No, it's, yeah, that was a statistic I wanted to go to, but it was hard to find. Well, I'll get it to that. It's hard to find, yeah. Yeah. Housing related. Is the three decimal points, is that telling? Like, should that? Yeah.

It's just how it's reported. Okay. So that is how. And I will tell you, it's from, I believe it's from the bowels of the GDP report. Oh. So it's something to do with the, oh, is that, oh, is that the mortgage rate, the effective mortgage rate?

Yeah, yeah, it's the effective mortgage rate. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, for, yeah. For outstanding mortgages, which is actually down slightly from Q4. It's almost flat, but it's, it, so I was surprised that it was down. I'm not sure if that's just sort of a statistical anomaly. It's only about a hundredth of a point that it's lower. But I mentioned that only to just sort of reemphasize a point that we've already kind of made here, but right, that gap that Marissa that you were talking about between the effective rate and or the effective rate on outstanding debt versus the actual kind of prevailing rate, that that rate lock effect has kept people tethered to their homes.

and it basically is really evidented a lot of the domestic migration data that we're seeing. And basically the mover rate, it's hard to get 2023 data, although there are some sources out there that are reporting 2023 data in the mover rate. And basically, it's not clear exactly what that number will be, but it's pretty clear. It is the lowest mover rate on record, right? And that goes back to the 1940s. So that and then you combine the rate lock effect with the aging population. and sort of the reduced mobility associated that.

Just people aren't moving at the same clip they used to. Yeah. Yeah. You want me to give you my statistic real fast? Yeah. Okay. Two numbers. 62 percent and 62 percent?

Yeah. And 66 percent. And it's actually 65.9 percent, but I'm rounding the 66. So it sound like homeownership rates. Hmm. Yeah. but that's not it, but you're right, the ownership rate is 66%. Yeah.

Consumption's share of GDP. No, it's demographic related. Does that have anything to do with the labor force participation, Mark? It does indeed. Is it foreign-born participation? Which one's-born? What were the numbers again? 66% and 62%.

66, I will say, is foreign-born participation? and 62 is native. Very good. Excellent. Yeah, that was fantastic. Yeah, very, very good, Laura. That's funny. That was on my list.

I'm wishing I'd done that now. That wasn't my hard one, but that was on my list. That's a good one. Well, 66, the participation rate for foreign born is back to pre-pandemic, and it really hasn't changed in 10 years. The native born is 62% and that that is down a bit from pre-pandemic. It was 62 and a half percent. So we were down a little bit. And that goes back to older native born Americans leaving the workforce and not coming back.

But that's another reason why foreign immigration tends to support economic growth, right? Because it's not only about people, it lists labor force more because it's the people and the fact that they, a higher share of them go into the workforce, looking for work or working. But that's a good segue into the last topic that we'd like to discuss, and that's foreign immigration. And maybe, Laura, you can give us a sense of the motivation why we're focused on this. I mean, it's obvious in some respects, but in other respects, not so much. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I think you've teased this topic a little bit before in your previous speaking events. But basically earlier this year, the CBO released new estimates on their demographic projections.

And, you know, among other things, this included different immigration numbers. When I say different, I mean different than the Census Bureau, which has long been, you know, kind of the definitive source for all things, demographics. And basically, going back a couple of years, the CBO is saying that immigration numbers into the U.S. have just been way, way higher than originally believed. You know, just from a point of reference in 2023, the Census Bureau has it at about 1.1 million immigrants came into the country. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has it at about 3.3 million. And so quite a bit higher. What's really interesting about this is that it helps to explain a lot of employment data that we've been seeing.

And if you go back, you know, the past couple of years, this discrepancy started, you know, back in like 2021, where the CBO is estimating much higher immigration than the Census Bureau. And that's roughly around the same time that employment data started to just roll in quite a bit higher than we were expecting. And, you know, we economists were scratching their heads. And now we kind of have a better understanding of why that there was just so many more people in the labor force to help the economy add these jobs. Right. So CBO is the congressional budget office, the nonpartisan government agency that does the budgeting for the U.S., they had to do an economic forecast because that goes to how much revenue is going to be, tax revenue is going to be generated, what kind of government spending? is going to take place to do the budget, to do a forecast of the budget. And of course,

the economic outlook is very closely tied back to demographic assumptions in the long run, over a 10-year horizon. And they actually go out 30 years for some of their forecasting. And foreign immigration is a big part of that. And so that's why they're focused. They've been focused on this. And they have gone back, taken a look at data coming from the, the, border and the data showing how many people are being stopped at the border by border patrol, because that's tracked on a monthly basis, and they've used that to construct estimates of how many folks are coming across the border, and they estimated total immigration, both legal and undocumented, at 3.3 million in 2023. And if you go back pre-pandemic in the U.S.

leading up to the pandemic, typically it was closer to a million. 250K undocumented, the rest to legal visas and everything else. And so that you're saying is having a big impact on the labor force and therefore on economic growth. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So if you look at the CBO forecast, so they have to do a forecast, right?

They have this strong immigration continuing in 2024. It comes in a little bit in 25 into 26. I believe by 2027, 2028, it's back down to that million per annum that prevailed prior. Yeah, just over a million. Of course, we have to do a forecast, right? We're now in the process of incorporating these new estimates on immigration into our own estimates. So we're not going to be using census data. We're going to be using estimates that are based on the CBO methodology.

And of course, we have to do a forecast, and our forecast doesn't necessarily have to be the same as CBO. In fact, it certainly won't be. What do you think is behind the CBO? And this is a high degree of speculation, but we'll speculate away. Under what circumstances do you think you get the CBO forecast, and do you think that's the best forecast going forward? Sorry, I don't understand the question. Under what circumstances? Well, okay, so I told you gave you the CBO forecast. So they basically, they're basically saying that, you know, this current surge will continue over the next few years.

When it does start to come in a little bit, you know, they offer a variety of explanations. You know, one is just that so much of this surge has been, you know, they put into the so-called other category. And, you know, that includes people that we, you know, that, you know, you might call illegal, but it also just includes people who, you know, they came into the country. They had an interaction with Border Patrol, but they're now in awaiting worker authorization. They're awaiting, you know, a day in court, essentially, to decide their status. That number will come in a little bit just as the system adjusts to allow for this, you know, to accommodate this surge coming into the border.

or, you know, essentially not as many people will be allowed in to, you know, await immigration proceedings. That's a big part of what will kind of bring that number in in the next couple of years. Meaning they're expecting a changing policy around immigration. Policy to an extent, but just the systems wherewithal to handle that many people coming into the country. So they'll turn more people away. Yeah, essentially. Okay.

Oh, okay. So right now, the border is completely overwhelmed. People are pouring through the border patrol and other resources aren't adequate to address this and therefore we have lots of people coming in. But the policymakers aren't standing still. They are working to regain control of the border and those flows. And the CBO is assuming in their forecast that that is going to be successful over the course of the next. several years. As you look towards the end of the decade, immigration would be back to something that's more typical. Yes, yes, that's it. Sorry, I apologize. If you guys can hear the dog going that's in the background. No, no, don't forget about the dog. Doesn't matter. We don't get dogs everywhere. That is essentially it. Yeah. Okay. So do you think that that's a good forecast, you know, what they have? I mean, if we have to do a forecast. We haven't gotten there yet. We're in the process of going in that direction. And again, you know, this, is something we have to discuss in iron out, but I'm asking you your intuition at this point.

Do you think that's a good forecast going forward? Under the current climate, yes, I think so. I think so much just depends on immigration policy. You know, to a large extent, I feel like these latest numbers, they're kind of a smoking gun in the immigration discussion. You know, there's no argument to be made that the U.S. has done a lot, has done so well the past few years because of immigration. And, you know, as I said, in 16 years, the U.S. population growth will depend entirely on

immigration. So I think that is a policy motivator to change things. Now, as for not this forecast is valid, yes, under the current policy environment, yes, I think so. But a lot depends on that and what changes may or may not come. Probably won't come, like, as in the end. what you're not saying, but I'll just say it. You can shake your head up and down or sideways. It does depend on how the election. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, but even

then, immigration policy has been stuck in the weeds for decades. I, you know, it's, it's going to take some significant political will to make any meaningful changes. Well, it feels like whether it's Biden or whether it's Trump, they both want to control the border, right? I don't there's a difference there. Yeah, yeah. So, and if that's the biggest part of the surge in immigration, then under both- Which it is, yeah, either way. Well, and that's exactly what the CBO is forecasting, is that in time, the system will get a better handle on it, and they'll be turning more people away at the border, essentially. Regardless of who's president and who's in Congress. Yeah. Okay, so it feels like it's not, it feels like it might be a reasonably good forecast,

then. Yeah. Right. Okay. And then I guess, uh, it, what, will be driven by the election results, perhaps, is what happens with the number of visas, you know, how many people can come into the country legally. That may vary under both whether you get a Biden or a Trump. And the other thing that may vary is policies with regard to the illegal or undocumented immigrants that are already in the country, right? Because I think former President Trump has been talking about deportation. Now, I don't know that.

Yes. And how quickly these cases are processed through. I mean, right now there's a very significant backlog. Right. And just, again, to state the obvious, I mean, if you have deportation, these are net numbers, right? These are the number of people coming in, less than the number of people that are leaving. Right now there aren't a whole lot of people leaving. But if you had deportation, mass deportation, then you'll get much smaller net inflows or maybe even a negative number.

depending on what the magnitude of deportations are, correct? Yeah. Okay. I mean, just for a point of comparison, in 2019, we had less than half a million immigrants coming into the country. So it can definitely make a significant impact who is in the White House. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, this is to be determined, and we had to work this through it. But in the meantime, you're working really hard to incorporate these new estimates into our own numbers and in forecasts. Yep. And share it down to the state level so we can get a picture going forward there as well. I mean, why stop at the state, right? Well, Adam will tell you, I say state and I just mean that as a regional, yeah, state,

metro. That's the next stop on the train, right? Because this has to go all the way down, right, to metros or counties, metros, the whole way down, doesn't it? Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Well, okay, so you got a lot of work ahead. Yeah, we have a meeting week after next. Let's... Who's we? Is I in that meeting? You're in that meeting, yeah. Okay, all right. We'll figure this out. Yeah. Okay. All right. Anything else on the...

I mean, obviously, there's a lot of implications for what it means. You kind of alluded to it in the context of the data. one of the reasons why we have this gap between employment in the payroll survey, the survey of businesses, and the household survey, the survey of households, is that the payroll employment data comes directly from the businesses, and that would include, there's no distinction whether that person that person that's working is an immigrant or not. Whereas the household surveys, that data is a survey that's benchmarked ultimately to population, And those population estimates at the current point in time are the census estimates, not the CBO, and they're therefore undercounting, you know, what's going on in terms of everything, labor force growth, employment growth, everything else. Correct?

Yeah, that's what's part of the big discrepancy in terms of the household survey versus the payroll survey numbers. Right. Okay. Okay. All right. I mean, in my view, the one way, the most obvious way to lift the economy's growth rate, underlying growth rate, that potential growth rate we talked about at this top of the podcast is to have rational immigration reform, right? Control the border.

I mean, that feels like that's beyond economics. That's the national security issue. You've got to control the border. but then after that have immigration reform that reforms the system in a way that we bring in immigrants into the country that are most beneficial to the country's economic health going forward. And if we do that, that could supercharge growth, raise the economy's potential and ultimately have enormous benefits to our long-term fiscal problems.

I mean, if we can have somewhat stronger growth here, you know, more people working, more production, higher tax revenue, goes a long way to address her on long-term fiscal problems. Anybody find Dumbridge with that? Any disagreement with that statement? No. And I would say at the state level, that's very stark. Certain states will benefit quite a bit more than others. I'm talking about big states too, New York, California.

And that's where the individual goes. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, there's a lot to be worked out here. Anything else you want to say, Laura, before we call it a podcast? Anything else? Nope. And I think I got to let Marissa go pick up her niece.

We're going to do that. I just, anything else, Adam, that you want to bring up before we? I think we covered the highlights. Okay. I just want to say, call back to my statistic from Zillow. It is asking rents, not effective rents, for sure. Yeah, which is. Yeah. Yeah. That's good to hear. So, so, so, so, so, so, So I was kind of sort of right then. You were right. Yeah. That was right.

Okay. Yep. Yep. I always like to hear that. You were right, Mark. Mm-hmm. As usual. But you can always say, Mark, you know, you're wrong.

And I have no problem with that, by the way. It doesn't happen a lot, but, yeah. To know that I can take that opportunity when it happens. Anytime. Anytime. Anytime. Okay. Marissa, go go get your niece.

And guys, Adam, Laura, really appreciate you taking the time with us. and we're going to call us a podcast. Thank you, dear listener. We'll talk to you next week.