The Best One Yet - 🤮 “The Rent Is Too Damn Higher” — Housing’s spillover effect. Lyft’s backseat tablets. Videogames’ 1 step backward.

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

If you're worried your Landlord is about to jack up your rent, it’s because they probably are… and it’s because of the Spillover Effect. Lyft is tired of just driving you around, so it’s launching a media arm and in-car screens (Spoiler: you can change the music without asking the driver). And the maker of Grand Theft Auto just revealed that video games miss you — In fact, the entire video game industry has taken 2 steps forward, 1 step back.$LYFT $TTWO $MSFTFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, August 10th, and today's pod is the best one yet. It's the best one yet. TBII, but Yetis, you know how travel's been kind of awful recently? Like JetBlue ate your bag? Spirit Airlines, please, just give me back our child. Well, Nick's trip to Vermont got delayed yesterday.

Jack, when I said I'll see you tomorrow. I meant tomorrow tomorrow. Does that work for you? That's not work for it? That works. That works. All right, what's our first story for the T-boy? What we got?

The bad news? Lyft is adding screens. in the back seat of their cars to show you ads. The good news. Now you can control the music in your ride without awkwardly asking the driver. For our second story, does it feel like your landlord

is about to jack up your rent? Well, they are, because housing drama is spilling over into apartments. Our third and final story, the video game icon behind Grand Theft Auto just told us it misses you. Here's what it comes down to two steps forward, one step back.

But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of story, Fantastic mix. Keep the maple syrup in the fridge for me, please. We don't want to sound dramatic. No. But we're running out of time, man. Literally. We like, we have less time. On the pod, check your clock. Watch your watch your watch. Time, actual time, the time, this time. It just disappeared. Yeties, this isn't Christopher Nolan's next movie. We're talking real life. Get this, the earth officially just had the shortest day ever on June 29th. It turns out there is an official time.

timekeeper for planet Earth. It's a pretty good job. The International Earth Rotation and References System Service. It's a working title. Those international bureaucrats have an atomic clock. That's way more precise than your time X is. Well, our buddies over at the IE.R. Double S just said that Earth rotated itself 360 degrees faster than ever on June 29.

Now, we all learned in second grade that each rotation of the Earth should take 24 hours. That's why we call 24 hours a day. Ipso facto 86,400 seconds. But on June 29th of this summer, the Earth spun 1.56 milliseconds faster than normal. And that is 1.56 milliseconds of less daytime for us. Now, we're not going to go into the rocket science behind the why this happened. Let's just assume the Earth was in a rush to get through the pandemic too. But did your meditation feel like it ended early on June 29th?

It's because of those 1.56 milliseconds. Did your two-mile around Central Park feel like it was run faster? It's because of those 1.56 milliseconds. And did our podcast on June 29th not feel like a T-boy? It wasn't us. We swear it wasn't us. We blame those 1.56 milliseconds. They were the best 1.56 milliseconds yet.

But they're gone forever. Yeties, check your watch. Check your time. Check your clock. Let's hit our three stories. Let's go, baby. It's before this song, Two, Boys. from the Northeast met in the dorm.

They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more.

So just start the show. Start the show. For our first story, Lyft needs to make more money. So they're selling some really creative ads. Everywhere. Everywhere. They're doing it everywhere. Because Lyft figured out how to add spinach to a smoothie and you don't even notice.

Okay, Jack, can we talk about Lyft here? Lift, Lyft. They're looking less Honda Civic, more Lamborghini. Lift stock is up 50% in the past month. It's up 50%. Oh, and we should clarify, lift stock, though. Lift is still worth one lift. True.

And that's because rides have climbed all the way back to near pre-pandemic levels for Lyft. Jumping into that white acura like never before. But Lyft just announced a new move. It's called Lift. Lyft is putting little digital billboards everywhere. Now, Uber already does this. You might have noticed in your Uber app that they're tossing an ad at you while you're waiting for your driver to arrive.

Get this. Uber makes $225 million this year on ads. Lyft is doing something more. They're putting big screens on the top of the cars for hyper-localized out-of-home ads. Which reminds pedestrians standing nearby that, hey, go-puff delivers on this block from that bodega. Right there. Lift is also putting ads on its bike share stations in New York City and other places. It's even letting brands do an entire takeover of the Lyft app while you're using it. This was one of the coolest parts. Vita Coco, the coconut water brand. They paid Lyft to take over

the little car icons that you see moving around the streets on the Lyft app. Instead, they don't look like cars. They look like coconuts. It's adorable, but it's because you're arriving in that lift near a grocery store. Oscar Meyer did the same thing. They paid to take over the car so that they look like weiner mobiles in the app. Because the temperature outside your lift was above 80 degrees Fahrenheit and that's barbecue. But that's not even the wildest part. Lift is doing even more. The way Jack and I see it, Lyft is turning the inside of the car into your phone. Erisout Yeti's Lyft is adding tablets to the inside of Lyft vehicles.

Yeah, one out of four Lyft cars by the end of this year is going to have one of these lift-made tablets. It's a single screen. It's going to be in the backseat. And it's going to let the passenger control the car and the ride as if the car was their phone. Here's where things get interesting. Jack, do you want to be the backseat DJ in the back of that accurate? We all do. We want to be like, hey, driver, why are you playing Nickelback?

And can I change that? Instead, now you can use that screen to like turn on an enia playlist and apply massage oils to your face. Now, I heart radio pays for the music, pays lift for the privilege to do this music and to get in front of you. It's a nice little ad. Or Jack, let's say you're, like, sitting in traffic and you're tired of reopening the Google Maps to see how close you are at a point B. The map is right there. So you don't need to pull out your phone. The ETA is seven minutes.

It's right there. Which is annoying, but like, now you know. So you're engaged with the tablet in the back seat. Yes. Lyft knows where you are so they can target. Add that up, Jack? An advertiser would pay for that ad. Yeah, that's advertising power.

You can't buy. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy? You actually can buy it. I guess they are buying it in this. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over a lift? Lift discovered that if you add spinach to a smoothie, you can't even tell there's spinach in there. Yeties, we know what you've been thinking the entire time, Jack and I have been speaking. Doesn't this sound exactly like those TV screens in the back of New York City yellow caps that are so annoying?

The New York City taxi cab giant screen right in front of your face, yelling commercials at you at one air. Love New York City yellow caps, hate those screens. In fact, 22% of New York City. cab riders turn off those screens because they're so annoying. They are a huge nuisance. But for Lyft, only 1% are turning off the tablet. We repeat, only 1% of Lyft riders don't like these tablets. For New York City cabs, 22% don't like them. The reason Lyft's tablets are so much less disliked is because Lyft surrounded the ads,

which are annoying, with some great features, which are actually pretty nice. And it reminds us of a smoothie. It does, because like the music you can. and the map you see in that Lyft tablet, that's what you taste. Those are the maple almond butter, the milk, and the blueberries that make up the heart of the smoothie. They're delicious. The ads, you end up barely noticing. They're like the greens in the smoothie. That's the spinach and the kale. You barely even taste it's there. Lyft figured out how to add spinach to a smoothie. For our second story, for over two years,

the conversation has been dominated by house prices. Can we please just talk about renting for a second, Jack. Is that too much to ask for? Yes, because our housing problem has morphed into a renting problem. Okay. Before we jump into this, Jack, I'm going to hit you with an address. 231 East 14th Street. Not Jackson my last rented apartment, but our favorite rented apartment. Right above the beauty bar, right above the L train. I could hear the L train announcements all night. Next stop, Bedford. All right, it was us. It was Dave and our buddy Timmy, four guys in like a really big living room. We were there from 2011 to 2014. We had the biggest couch in the city. We did. It got stolen during Halloween. Four bedroom apartments, $6,500 a month, $1,000 per person per month. We called to the

arena because everything happened there, but we hated the management company. The management company jacked up our rent 500 bucks a year like clockwork. I thought the super was going to kill me. Anyway, the number one question, every boomer on a golf course is talking about right now. It's not Jackson my rental. It's, did you hear how much Bob sold to condo for. No open house, no contingent. No. A million dollars over as well. Yeah, because yeties, the pandemic turned the housing market into a housing crisis. People were like literally bidding on three inch zillow picks. Because the pandemic house hype had people wanting their own home. So demand annoyingly went up. But supply chain drama meant builders couldn't build new homes for

everyone. So supply annoyingly went down. And now the feds jacking up interest rate. So mortgages are annoyingly more expensive. Add it all up in the average home price. in the second quarter in America was 40% higher than two years before. Which leads to the big question and what is it, Jack? If people who can't afford to buy are renting instead, is that affecting rent prices? Well, Besties, the answer to that big question is yes. Like, yeah, we are. It is the spillover effect and it's hitting rent prices. Home buying problems are spilling over into the rental market. Okay, so Jack, what's going on on the lovely island of Manhattan?

In Manhattan, which remember, like, during the pandemic, everyone fled. People were freaking. Today, only 1.9% of apartments are vacant. You're like can't get onto the island of Manhattan. There's like a bouncer basically at every building. And the result of that shortage of apartments is that the average rent in Manhattan is up 29% compared to last year, passing $5,000 a month for the first time ever. That's a record high. 5,000.

We're not talking about a wing of Buckingham Palace. We're talking about a four-floor walk up in the West Village with no air condition. Oh, and to quote Frank Sinatra, if you can raise rent there, you can raise rent anywhere. It's up to you every landlord to raise rents apparently. In Miami and Austin, rents are up over 20% from last year. It's not just cities. Sunbelt Susan. She's feeling the rent hike, too.

Nationwide, the average apartment across the entire country, rents are up 15% compared to last year. Renting has gone up almost double the rate of inflation. And for the first time in this country, the average apartment costs over $2,000. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for everyone in the housing market? The less local your landlord, the higher the rent hike. Yeties, the Hustle newsletter recently conducted an interesting survey of over 2,000 renters. It turns out whether your rent got jacked up in the past year, depends on what type of landlord you had.

Okay, let's say you've got a mom and pop landlord who has like five units or less. A mom and pop landlord owns the building probably. They probably live in the building. So they fix the plumbing and the broken steps themselves. Well, only 57% of apartments owned by mom and pop landlords had a rent hike this year. Conglomerate landlords? These are the big corporations and the big investors that own 10,000 units or more. Well, 85% of apartments owned by conglomerate landlords had a rent hike this year.

So 50% of mom and pop apartments, 85% of conglomerate apartments. Yeah, it is the less local the landlord, the higher the rent hike. And now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. So for the last three and a half years, Jack and I were running a startup, within a startup, basically. We turned our company Market Snacks into Robin Hood Snacks, the newsarm of Robin. And at Robin Hood, we co-hosted the Snacks Daily Pod that you got to know and love. At Robin Hood, we also got to hire an awesome team of news people who run the Robin Hood Snacks newsletter. Wild fact here. The biggest newsletter in America, Robin Hood Snacks. A key detail, though,

not many are aware of is the editorial independence. So Jack and I set it up so that we could independently cover the most interesting and most important news stories of the day. Robin Hood's commitment to free, digestible news snack style was an awesome differentiator. Yeah, if you're not investing in Robin Hood yet to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-boy and choose a free stock. That's robinood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply. All investments involve risk.

Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, ready, player, none. The video game companies are all announcing sales shrinkage. Video games, they enjoyed two steps forward during the pandemic and one step back since. Okay, when Jack and I were kids, yeties, like stay at home meant play video games. So the pandemic's shelter in place was just another way of saying turn on PlayStation. But video game company, take two, just made it official.

It's game over for the pandemic-fueled video game growth. Take-2. You may not know Take-2 the company, but they're the video game studio behind, like, some of the biggest video games, like Grand Theft Auto. NBA 2K. Red Dead Redemption. And they just announced their earnings. And if you don't include the company that they bought last quarter, which was the gaming company Zingka. Then Take-2 sales barely rose by 3% compared to last year.

But Yetis, here's what Jack and I found fascinating when we jumped into these Take-2 earnings. it's actually way worse for the other players playing the video game game. According to the research group NPD, overall spending in the U.S. on video games is down for two straight quarters overall. Yeah, Sony's PlayStation, Microsoft's Xbox, Nintendo Switch, they all sold fewer consoles last quarter. Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard. For them, it was big disappointments last quarter, too. Get in the game.

Just get in the game. They're out of the game. No one's getting in the game. And even the chip companies that make the key parts for the game. gaming consoles, they've announced a weakening of sales forecasts. Now, there are two clear reasons for this video game game over drop off. First, you're hanging out less with Mario. You're hanging out more in real life with Mary instead. And number two, inflation is punching people's wallets. You're spending less in those Pokemon cards. Take two CEO, summarize this phenomenon.

Honestly, he said it perfectly, Jeff. The new normal is better than pre-pandemic, but it's also softer than we would have liked. And when Jack and I heard that quote, it really made us think of a takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the video game industry? This is a story of two steps forward and one step back. Yeties, Take Two's earnings report reflects the overall video game industry. And the video game industry actually reflects just about all the pandemic winning industries. Yeah, here's how Jack and I see it. The pandemic represented a huge surge. That was two steps forward. But the return to normal has been one step back. So the business of pandemic winners, it's bigger than pre-pandemic, but it's smaller than peak pandemic. And if you want to see

this visually, just look at the Bitcoin price chart. Honestly. It does. Pre-pandemic, a Bitcoin, that would cost you about $8,000. Peak pandemic, it would cost you about $64,000. And today, a Bitcoin will cost you $23,000. For all the pandemic winners, it's been two steps forward and one step back. Two steps forward, one step back. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before I on that paddleboard. Lift is supplementing its ride-hail revenue with a bunch of new ad revenue. Yeah, they figured out how to add spinach to a smoothie. You can barely taste it. For a second story, the housing market, froth, has spilled over into rentals. And the less local your landlord, the higher the rent hike. And our third and final story is

the video game industry. Their numbers are down from the peak, but they're still up from pre-pandemic. Two steps forward, one step back. Now time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Abby Larges from lovely Buffalo, New York. And this is a follow-up from our best fact yet this week about mosquitoes. Hi, Nick. Hi, Jack. My name is Abby, and I am from Buffalo, New York. Although the mosquito is responsible for the highest number of human deaths in a given year, one of the most venomous animals on earth actually lives in the ocean. The boxed jellyfish's venom is so poisonous, it can kill a human in two minutes. One of the more unique things of the box to jellyfish is that it actually seeks out its prey. Other members of the jellyfish family just float around in the ocean and

passively wait for its food to come by. A hunting, poisonous, boneless, I'm going to meet you on that paddleboard, Jack. I'm not certain. Jack, and we thought the fallen coconuts were scary. This thing's part barracuda, part tiger. It's a man bear pick. Yeties, you look fantastic today. And if you want to help grow the pot, the best thing you can do is turn to the person next to you and say, hey, H-Y-H, T-B-O-Y. Have you had the best one yet? And then get them to subscribe. If you know, you know.

And before we go, happy birthday to Yeti, Anthony Lewis in Bethlehem, Georgia. And happy 31st to Gaiatri Gotti in Seattle, Washington. And Kong Wong-Lee, happy birthday over in Belmont just outside Boston. And a big H-B-D to Zach in Chicago. And Brandon W's turning 33 over in Foley, Alabama. Congrats to Susanna John, who just got a person. promotion at one of the big four firms in Barbados. Yeah, watch out for those falling coconuts.

And happy birthday to Summer Noodle Mastas in Brooklyn, New York. Who's using our rap jingle, by the way, Jack, as her alarm clock. No way. Way. That's fantastic. And Soham, congrats on that new job over in Boston. Congrats to Serena for retiring after 23 championships. And to Deloitte's Austin, Texas, MBA interns.

Congrats on all getting full-time offers. Everyone? Everyone. We shirts, everyone. Hire this fan. Amazing news. And to anyone else celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Zillow and Robin Hood, and we both own some Bitcoin. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Nick, you got introduced to the Robin Hood app the old-fashioned way, right? Yeah, I did. My girlfriend now wife's older brother, who was that guy who worked in tech and knew about the next iPhone before Apple did. He told you about the Robin Hood app.

He told me about the Robin Hood app. All right. So you signed up because you wanted to buy a. stock. Because like it was hard to figure out how to buy a stock when you're 25 and it's 2014. Yeah, back then you had to find a broker, call a broker on the phone. Call them pay a commission to that broker. Instead of calling suddenly there's his app, you just swipe and you could buy the stock. Robin Hood's interface felt as easy as ordering an Uber or snagging a sandwich on Seamus. And it still is. So if you're not a Robin Hood user yet and you want to get started, you can go to

Robinhood.com slash T-boy and you can choose, get this, a free stock. That's robinode.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply and all investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member S-I-P-C. Robin Hood, by the way, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast.