The State of the Housing Market and Why Real Estate Is Not AI-Proof with Jason Oppenheim

Is it a buyer's market? That is the question on everyone's mind. And Jason Oppenheim has the answer. He is, of course, the real estate agent, broker, founder extraordinaire of the Oppenheim Group, the luxury real estate brokerage that's covered in Netflix's hit show Selling Sunset. You might think that Jason is a reality star first, but I can confirm after spending a couple of hours with him that he is definitely a real estate fanatic way before he's a reality TV star. He talks about how AI is changing real estate investments. Humanoids will be replacing lower end real estate agents. Whether real estate is a good investment right now. I'd say 90% of my clients would have been better off renting for the last 10 years than buying. And so many hot takes. Listen, at some point, there is no work. Work is a fetish. Work is going to be an elective. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. it's time for some money rehab. Jason Abenheim, welcome to Money Rehab. Nice to be here. It's great to have you here. There's so much to get into. Obviously, everybody probably asks you a question that I imagine you're going to be annoyed with me asking, but is it a buyer's market? Oh, no, that's not the question that I normally get. It's usually, can you give me some advice you know on whatever like some like there's some interesting intelligent nugget that i have that's going to change their financial future so no this is an easier and much better question yes it is it's a buyer's market but you have to say that why because you're in the business of selling real estate well i prefer it to be a seller's market honestly if i could choose And I prefer to have that as my answer, too. Yeah, I think I probably have more listings than buyers, although it's probably pretty close to 50-50. As a brokerage, I think we have more listings than buyers. So a seller's market would be beneficial for me. I also own a bunch of real estate. So a seller's market would be significantly beneficial for me. But it just happens to be a buyer's market. But you're talking about California specifically or in general? Sure. I mean, I think overall, even nationally, it's a buyer's market. But specifically in L.A., it's a buyer. We've had a rough time in LA. The market's had a really rough time. The mansion tax kind of crushed development. Explain what that is. As if everyone take a shot. I bet there's people that just take a shot when I say mansion tax. Yeah, it's a drinking game surprise. You've got just build costs are exceptionally high. Carrying costs are exceptionally high. You've got not a lot of buyers out there. You've got more sellers and more supply than you do buyers, significantly more. and you got a lot of wealthy people leaving LA, you know, a lot. I mean, in droves. So that's probably the biggest thing. It's just a lot of wealthy people leaving LA. Explain if somebody doesn't realize what the mansion tax is. Well, the larger issue, the larger issue is a lot of people, a lot of the wealthy people leaving LA and people, you know, there's a lot of people that just, oh, we don't need the wealthy or we don't like it. Well, sure. You can hate on the wealthy all you want, but they pay the taxes. So a lot of the people that don't care for the wealthy do care for social services. And the wealthy pay for all the social services. They pay for the education, you know, roads. They pay for the, you know, you want money to go to the homeless and you want money to go to, you know, babysitting kids. I forget. I don't know if money goes out. Yeah, it does. All those like, you know. I have a one-year-old. All those like, yeah, but you drop them off at, there's like programs for daycare. Aren't there programs for? Babysitting programs would be amazing. They're out there. Yes. And so I just think the reason that most people have laughed are, you know, it's been a rough few years. I mean, I started with COVID. And I said the biggest reason is that people don't have to be in LA to work. And this isn't, by the way, not just happening in LA. I mean, it's happening all over the world. All large cities are losing their wealth. London, obviously LA, New York, Chicago. I mean, you name the big city and it's just not doing really well. Big cities are having probably the toughest few years they've had in decades. So where do you go? Well, you go to wherever else is going if you want. I'm not going anywhere, but a lot of people are going to... I mean, it depends where you live. If you live in London, you don't like the taxes, you don't like the big government, you don't like the crime and other things. So you go to Dubai. Interestingly enough, a lot of people from London are coming here. And taxes are really high in England. I'd say Dubai is the biggest draw for London. For LA, the biggest draw is probably Texas and Florida. There's a few others, Tennessee, Georgia, Carolinas, Nevada, but mostly Texas and Florida. They're getting the benefit of all the droves of wealthy people leaving California and New York. But then do you worry that there's so much room to expand in those places? Like everybody's going to Austin. I wouldn't buy real estate there. Why not? Because of what you just said. I wouldn't buy real estate in anywhere where there's no supply constraint. Miami, there's no supply constraint. Not for condos. You can go up in Miami. Yeah, because you can go up. And then in Austin, you can go out. Yeah, exactly. So in both cases, Nashville, you can go out. Austin, you can go out. You're exactly right. In Miami, you can go up. Vegas. Now, Vegas, you can go up and out. So you're screwed. Yeah, I wouldn't buy a house in Miami. I mean, sorry, I wouldn't buy a condo in Miami because there's no supply concern. I think a house in Miami is a better investment because land is not plentiful in Miami. Okay, so dig deep and give us a tip. that will change people's financial lives. Okay, I would say, I'm a big believer that AI is going to change everything. Everything. I'd love to even get into it to some degree. But if I were to focus on an investment strategy, I'd say you need to focus on what is it that AI can't produce. You certainly don't want to be investing in goods and services because AI will be very deflationary with respect to the offering of services and the production of goods. I mean, robots will be building robots that will be building goods. A new car is not going to be a good investment. Anything, any product's not going to be a good investment. I would probably invest in things that AI can't produce. Land is probably the most obvious. Houses will eventually be produced by AI and robotics, but that's a long way away. So I think housing is still probably going to maintain its value significantly better than most other assets. The BFAB houses aren't there yet. No, no. And not in major cities. I mean, you could potentially start doing prefabs outside of Vegas somewhere, but we've got way too much regulation and bureaucracy in LA. They're never going to allow a prefab. All the other structural plumbing, all that stuff is never going to work. So don't do it. I don't see prefab ever coming to big cities. I just think I've never believed all that bullshit. I don't ever think that's coming. I've been hearing about that since I was a kid, and I just don't think there's any real viable. Now, to solve the homeless problem or something like that, yes, if you change a lot of building codes, yes, I think that's not a bad idea. But in terms of a real answer to housing, no. But AI is also coming for you, right? Only or open to? Yes and no, not really. I'm pretty insulated, luckily. Okay, maybe you, but other state agents. Real estate agents are largely insulated, and I would say for a long time, particularly luxury real estate agents. because AI will be very helpful to us. And I think it will replace the kind of tertiary jobs around real estate. You know, you're not going to have a, it's going to replace civil engineers and architects and designers and appraisers, videographers, you know, it's going to replace a lot of that. But I don't think it's going to replace the luxury real estate agent for a long time. Interestingly, our job is very nuanced and also it's both physical and intellectual. The physical aspects of just, you know. Yeah, you have to put your little sign up. Yeah. From the house and down the street. Yeah, that's it. That's all we do. That's why I got these arms, just carrying all those signs every day. I think we're safe for a good 10 to 20 years. But we're one of the, I think, lucky professions in that regard. Let's take us out of fancy land and come down to earth and, you know, not in the luxury real estate market. These sites that allow you to list your house, sell your house. Oh, those have been around forever. as well. You're not scared. No, I really believe that real estate agents are largely insulated from any near-term replacement from AI. And I think just lucky. It's nothing particularly skillful that we did. It's just we are lucky that we're such a unique combination of multifaceted intellect and physical labor that it's just going to be very hard to replace. I mean, just like a plumber is going to be extremely hard to replace. And an electrician, they're the last on the ladder. They're the highest rung of the ladder. That ladder's disappearing. It's going to replace rung after rung. But luckily, real estate agents, particularly luxuries, but still just regular real estate agents, I think they'll get replaced first. If you're selling a $400,000 tract home in Nevada, more likely to get replaced than selling $8 to $20 million homes in nuanced locations in Southern California. So that $400,000 house, you could have a virtual tour, right? Well, you'll always have virtual tours. But real estate is still a human experience. You still want to walk the house. You still want to look at the finishes. You still want to touch it. You still want to understand the scale and the flow and the floor plan and the yard and the views and the street. It's a very tactile experience. And I just think that it's going to be hard to replace the real estate agent. first of all you're going to need robotics right because you're going to have to still do open houses and walk people through a property and open the doors and turn the lights on so there's you know clean up the dog poop there's still fluff the pillows you're still going to jason you're not i clean up dog poop quite more often than you know well i also have a dog i clean up yeah absolutely if i go to a house and there's dog poop i clean the dog poop up you're not too big i don't have an ego especially when it comes to a presentation no i'll get to work so you don't see a day where there's humanoids walking around. Absolutely. Humanoids will be replacing lower end real estate agents probably in 10 to 15 years. I think luxury real estate agents, and I'm guessing at this point, but I'd say, you know, we got a couple decades left before we're... Listen, at some point, there is no work. Work is a fetish. Work is going to be an elective. You know, For everybody. For everybody, yeah. I don't see humans working in 20 plus years. Absolutely not. I don't see anyone working in 20 years. So what are we going to be doing? We're going to have to re-describe what it means to be human, what it means to have purpose. We're going to get purpose from family, from friendship, from relationship, from eating, hanging out with friends, reading. There'll be intellectual pursuits. I mean, we're going to have to redefine where we get our purpose. It's not going to be coming from work anymore. And that's a, you know, we needed, it's a human construct that we get purpose from work. It's not like some innate thing. Largely, I mean, I think capitalism has kind of ingrained that in us to where we do derive a lot of purpose from work. I certainly do. It will be a very hard transition to start figuring out how to get purpose elsewhere, to be honest. But it's certainly possible. Back in tribal times, we weren't really getting as much purpose from work as we do today. I mean, that's more of a social construct, a result of capitalism. So I think we'll be able to redefine that. I think you're drinking some Elon Kool-Aid. You'll see. You'll see. How are you going to afford to live then? Well, it'll be very inexpensive to live because robots will be providing all the services and product. I mean, it's going to be very, it's just going to be CapEx is going to be the cost of everything. I mean, the costs are going to go down astronomically. I think whatever costs $100 a day will cost five bucks in 20 years. It'll be almost free. Food, everyone will have their own Michelin star chef. Growing food will be done by robotics. The transportation of food will be done by robotics. I mean, give me an industry and it will be done by superhuman intelligence and robotics. There's nothing that humans are better at than a super human intelligent robot. I mean, it's going to be faster, stronger, smarter. I mean, humans are not going to be able to compete. There's no work and there's no money. Yeah, there probably won't be money in 50 plus years. But now we're going way down the road. We'll still have some form of currency. It'll probably end up being more energy. It'll be the currency that we'll be looking at in 50 years. Not so much money. And where are we going to live? Earth. But we'll probably be exploring the moon. I'm sure that there'll be opportunities to live on other planets. Mars will be tough, but the moon is... I mean, I don't know why we'll need to leave Earth, but we will certainly be exploring the solar system for sure. And there'll be opportunities for people to live off Earth if you want. Sounds so fun. So how long do you think the real estate agent life is? Again, no one's working in 20 years. So the top rung of the ladder, the last rung to disappear and be replaced by AI and robotics will probably be around 20 years, I'm guessing. And that's going to be you. You're going to be like survival of the fittest. No, I won't be the last. But I do believe that real estate agents are near one of the top rungs of the ladder, for sure. I mean, lower rungs, lawyers, accountants. They're gone in five years. I mean, I'm already replacing my lawyer with, well, no, but Gemini DeepThink. I just redid all of my onboarding documents. I'm going through all of my insurance stack, everything with DeepThink Gemini. And it's creating 50 times, I mean, what I'm getting, I'm redoing my estate planning with it as well. It's giving me hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of legal work in a day. I mean, I get research reports. I literally type in the most nuanced question, and then Gemini Deep Research will give me, within about 15 minutes it takes, a 10-page research report on my specific issue with about 80 citations. It would take a cadre of lawyers a month to create I mean I am a lawyer I mean I done these Yeah I was about to say in your previous life people don realize what a high lawyer you were working on these big AMT Enron cases So are you able to feed it the right prompt? Yes. Prompting is what is the most important thing. So you have to be intelligent enough. So far, right now, you have to be intelligent enough to be able to prompt it. That's the difficult... Can I? I told you it was going to happen. Can you put your dirty Dior shoes They're not that dirty. Let's be honest. Maybe the bottom is... I can't see the bottom, but the sides are clean. You know what? You can. I'll put my feet up too. We're going to get comfortable. Okay. So into the future where there's no work, there's no money, there's no real estate agents, there's no... Work will be an elective. There'll still be work. People will still want to... There'll still be a desire to have a baseball bat made by a human. There'll still be old people that want their accountant to be human. I mean, it'll still be kind of fetishy work, but it won't be a necessary work. But isn't that the definition of a utopia anyway? I mean, doesn't any utopian definition really not have required work? That's so interesting that you said utopia because I was going to say dystopian future. Let me push back on that. I mean, most definitions of a dystopian future would largely involve like labor camps and forced labor, whereas most definitions of a utopian society would be elective work and not required work. So I would argue that we're headed more towards a utopian future than a dystopian. OK. And what do we do until then? You're investing, it sounds like, in AI? I mean, what are we doing? We're watching probably the most exciting 15 years in the history of human civilization, maybe even Earth. I mean, we've been around, Earth's been around for billions of years. I mean, we are literally, I think, as we get into AGI and superhuman intelligence, we're going to see the most interesting, exciting, and anxiety producing. I mean, it's not all positive, but I think we're about to just be a fly on the wall and watch this. And it's going to be the most interesting movie you've ever seen. Yeah, it's so anxiety producing. It doesn't have to be. A commercial that was like, oh, Alexis is going to kill you. It's so funny. I'm like, this is not hilarious. I also think there's a good 20% chance that AI wipes us out. And that's not dystopian? That is. but I am choosing to be an optimist about AI. At the end of the day, you're not going to stop it anyway. We're not going to stop AI. And we can't because we need to be the leaders. We're not going to let China dominate AI and be the world dominant force. I'd rather the US do it. If there's any country on planet Earth, there's people that have their problems with the United States, but you name another country that you'd rather be in control besides the United States. I'll take the United States. And so we need to keep going. So how does this change your investment strategy over the next couple of years? I heard you really talk about and get into treasuries, 30-year treasuries. That's true, because I think that AI is unbelievably deflationary. I will give you an example. Deflation occurs when people, you know, obviously when people expect prices to go down. And so they won't spend money. You're not going to buy a car for $50,000 today if you think it'll be $40,000 next year and $30,000 the year after that. Well, you might. Fine. But most people won't, right? Because they'll wait. And so they won't spend. And so the Fed will need to lower rates to encourage people to spend. It may get to a point. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to a point where you're getting, instead of a bank paying you interest for your money to be at their bank, you're getting charged a fee for the money to be. we could have negative inflation and negative interest rates. I really think that AI is going to be particularly deflationary in goods and services, and the Fed's going to have to chase that by lowering rates. It's not going to happen necessarily this year, but I think we're going to start seeing enormous job losses, and that's probably the biggest problem. And by the way, that is counter-deflationary, because I think we will then need to pay UBI. we'll need to be offering a universal I wouldn't even say basic it could be high income, it could be a service income, but also that'll be a lot less expensive too we'll give robots, I mean homeless people instead of spending $100,000 a year like we're doing now you can get a robot for $30,000 that will cook clean and do many other things for people to provide services for them, so I'm generally optimistic, I think the quality of life for a lot of people is going to go way up, almost everyone I really think that a person who's a poor person today in 10 or 15 years will be living like a wealthy person, or at least a wealthy person today. I actually think the quality of life will come together. I think the bottom is going to benefit the most because look at – I can get most of the things I want anyway right now. If I want a Michelin-starred chef and I want to – Yeah, but you're Jason Ovenack. I'm saying a person with money can get most of the things they want right now. But in 10 or 15 years, a person without that much money is going to have a maid, someone washing their car, someone doing their dishes, someone cooking for them, someone that's going to be able to handle their health care largely, babysit their kids. I mean, that quality of life, it's going to raise people's quality of life. I can afford that stuff right now, but it'll be, that will be, instead of costing me, for all that stuff, it could cost me maybe $400,000 or $500,000 to get all that stuff all day long. That could cost, in 10 years, that could cost $30,000. Are you first in line for a robot? Not first, because I don't need to dick around with an early generation robot. But when they're able to clean and do dishes and wash my car and cook for me, the quality of what they're going to be able to do is going to be a 10. My robot in five years will be the best chef on planet Earth. There's no human that will be able to cook as well as my robot. So I will have the best chef in the world. You'll have the best chef in the world. It'll be amazing. It'll be a therapist. It'll be a chef. It'll clean my house better than any maid could ever clean my house. It'll answer every question I have. It'll do everything. So how are you putting your money where your mouth is around? Well, I'm heavily invested in Tesla and long-term bonds. Listen, nobody knows, but I mean, I'm definitely betting on deflation and I'm betting on some of these AI companies doing quite well. Tesla's building robotics and it has artificial intelligence and there's a relationship to space and space is going to be the new frontier for energy. I mean, energy is going to be money and we're going to be launching data centers off of the moon in 20 years. I mean, we're not going to be getting, we're going to be getting energy from the sun and it's probably going to be coming from, you know, swarms of satellites collecting that and then microwaving it back to Earth. You know, I sound crazy, but it's going to happen. I'm into it. But it's going to happen. So are you still big on the leveraged treasuries too? Are you still in TMF? Yeah, I'm still in. It's not doing well right now because of the war and oil prices. But yeah, in the long term, there's TLT, which is a non-leverage. There's TMF. Actually, I think it's a great time to get in it now because I think the war has caused some inflation with oil. So it's at like $35 a share. Honestly, I think it'll be double within a couple years. I really do. What are you buying now? Well, I'm buying a condo for myself, but not as an investment. I'm kind of tapped out on real estate. I own a lot of real estate. I'm not really buying anymore. LA and Newport Beach. That's where your condo is going to be? Well, I'll be living between Newport Beach and LA. I have a house in Newport Beach, and I have a condo in LA. I'll be going back and forth. I don't think that I would be investing in real estate right now. You can't make any money in L.A. because anything I'd be investing in would be eventually over $5 million. And the mansion tax would just wipe out too much profit. Also, I don't see the market going up considerably over the next few years. So I'm not really buying real estate. Well, there's a bunch of headlines. And I know you love all these headlines that you get asked about. Well, they're always right. Which is that there's a new crisis housing bubble going on. No. No. Because sales have been down like 8.5%. Wait, so they're saying that there's a bubble? and if it's going to burst? I mean, prices suck. Prices have been in the gutter for like five years. LA real estate, luxury real estate market's down over the last- Prices have gone up to 400K for median price. Well, I can't speak so much for the national average. I don't do real estate across the country, but the LA luxury real estate market, we're selling houses now for the same price they sold for eight, 10 years ago. And that's common right now. I mean, the luxury real estate market is basically at where it was eight to 10 years ago. No growth. That's terrible. I mean, it's not a bubble. It's the opposite. It's a new type of bubble where you're not making money. Well, no, I don't understand that definition of bubble. Crisis. I thought a bubble was when something's going to pop. Scary headlines. Big. No, no, no. Then I think you're not using the term bubble in the way that we hear about it in real estate. Bubble is something that's going to pop and then prices are going to go down. And that's not going to happen. No, because prices suck right now. Prices have been going down for years. But what about an affordability crisis? What kind of crisis are we in? Give me a crisis. I mean, this is not going to be popular, but we're not in an affordability crisis in the way that you would normally define affordability. Everyone loves complaining about being in an affordability crisis. And yes, we're in a high interest rate crisis and an inflation crisis, so to speak. Not anymore. I mean, now inflation's in the twos. The idea that prices are still going up is nonsense. CPI, every acronym that measures inflation is in the twos. That's historically pretty average. Yeah, 3% is average. Yeah, so 2% to 3%. So we're closer to 2% than we are. Who cares? We're in the 2% to 3%. So inflation is no longer a concern. And like I said, I'm a big believer in deflation coming up. But we've had a lot of inflation in the last few years. When people talk about affordability, they should be talking about rent, not purchase. Because purchase price has everything to do with interest rates. So it's nonsense to say we have an affordability crisis if you're talking about interest rates. you could say we have an interest rate. Interest rates are up, sure. To say that an affordability crisis is directly related to interest rates, then what, when interest rates go down in a few years and we fix the affordability crisis? That's nonsense. That definition is stupid. I don't think it has to do with interest rates. I think it has to do with income. Incomes have been going up considerably, on average, over the last few years. No, no. The income gap has increased dramatically. Well, income gap is not an affordability. It used to be 3x your income to get a house and now it's six x that's because of interest rates that's an interest rate problem not enough it's a it's also a wage problem when you're thinking about rentals no it's not let me get into rental you would have single digit increases in wages but double digit for rent rents are not rents are not higher i will i'll square it right now i will do the unpopular and i will teach people uh why they're wrong and i'll get all the comments come in you can hate me as much as you want. But let's put aside purchasing, okay? Because obviously when interest rates are high, it's going to take more of your income to purchase a house. That's an interest rate problem. It's not an affordability problem. Affordability should be about rent, okay? Because that's not so much related to interest rates. If you do an analysis of what it costs to rent a 1,000, and I've done this deep dive. So just you can- I heard you and your brother spent 30 minutes with Chachi between this. Oh, you're right. So encourage people to do it on their own. If you look at what it costs in the similar location over the last 75 years, pick a, I don't know, a location. I mean, I'll just say Merced or Pasadena. I don't give a shit what location. It doesn't really matter. But it's important that you apply apples to apples. If you pick a location and you track the cost of renting a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom with similar amenities over the last 75 years, it has unbelievably similarly tracked the percentage of median income over the last 75 years, within 1%. I mean, it's astronomically close over a 75-year term. So there's no affordability crisis in that sense. It costs the same. Now, why does it feel like there's an affordability crisis? For a multitude of different reasons. One, yes, purchasing has become astronomically more expensive because of interest rates. It's not affordability, it's interest rates. But interest rates used to be 15 or 20%. My only point is it doesn't do the discussion of service if you call a high interest rate environment an affordability crisis. It's not. I mean, you're not moving the ball for it because do you fix an affordability crisis when interest rates go down? No. Affordability should be about rents. It should be about the cost of goods that you need to buy and then rents. If you want to talk about the cost to purchase a house, I agree. It's more expensive because of interest rates. Everyone knows that. There's 26% of first-time homebuyers in the market versus historically 40%. I just want to divorce the definition of affordability to purchasing a house because I consider that solely related to interest rates. So let's put that aside. Yes, interest rates are two to three times higher as they were five years ago. So the cost is going to be significantly higher. I agree with that. And when interest rates go down, it's going to cost a lot less of your income. I don't think we should attach the word affordability to that. I really want to focus on rent. So here's why people think that rents have gone up, because they're not applying apples to apples. They go, oh, my parents lived on, we're making this, and they lived in this apartment, and they could afford it, and they could have kids. Yes, I bet you that your parents lived in an apartment that you wouldn't be willing to live in. I bet you that your parents' apartment was 700 square feet. I bet you that it didn't have a pool. I bet you that it didn't have appliances. I bet you that it didn't have a washer and dryer. I bet you that it wasn't in the middle of town. It wasn in West Hollywood It was probably out in like my parents lived in a place in Sebastopol Nobody knows where that is Exactly right It was two hours away So people don compare apples to apples What people say is oh well I want to live in a two bedroom that new and has all these appliances and has a gym and has a pool And it's located in the middle of West Hollywood. By the way, it's 1,800 square feet. And it's $2,800. That's a lot of money. Yes, if you compare that to what your parents lived in, it's going to cost you a lot more of your income. But the size of apartments has gone up astronomically over the last 30 years. So we're not comparing apples to apples anymore. What you get when you get an apartment, you're getting a lot more services and amenities than you ever did before because they're just offering more saunas and pools and appliances. Sure, I mean, sometimes. You're saying we're all fancy. Security, whatever. We become fancier. Our demands have become higher. And more importantly, people want to, up until the last few years, have been wanting to live in the city where things are more expensive. Go to Sebastianville. 20 years ago, 50 years ago, the percentage of people living in the city was much less. So cost of rentals was less. My only point here is that if you do compare apples to apples and you do a fair analysis of what it would cost of what your parents were living in. And you take that 1,000 square foot apartment with the same amenities in the same location, it costs the same amount of percentage of your income. I'm super surprised that you say this because people come for me so hard when I say that renting is not throwing away money. It's not at all. I never understood that argument that buying and... First of all, renting is, I would argue, is throwing away less money than buying. Well, because you throw away money somewhere. You give the bank interest. Yeah, you're either giving it to interest or you're giving it to your landlord. I don't think it... Why don't you just call the bank president your landlord? And then it's the same thing. It just doesn't make sense. I've never understood that. Throwing away money. I really don't. In fact, when you buy, you're tied down. So you actually have less physical mobility because you now have to, if you want to move when you're renting, you don't have commissions. You don't have transfer taxes. You don't have to move all the furniture and goods. I mean, you could be renting a furnished place. You're much more mobile. That is inherently valuable. Valuable, yeah, in a different way. And it costs less to rent right now than it does to buy because interest rates are higher. So yeah, I never understood that. I'm a big believer in renting. There's a psychological pride of ownership, But if you just look at it financially, no, renting makes more sense than buying and always has. Unless you think that the market is going to appreciate and then buying makes more sense. That's the only reason that you would buy from a purely financial perspective is if you want to leverage your loan because you think that there's going to be market appreciation. And historically, there has been market appreciation. But not as much as the stock market. You would be better off buying a house if you think that real estate is going to appreciate even 5% a year. Even if you thought the stock market was going to appreciate 7% a year and the real estate was only going to appreciate 5% a year, then you're better off buying. There are a lot of people, I'd say just about everyone, I'd say 90% of my clients would have been better off renting for the last 10 years than buying. Why? Because they're making no money because the market's back to where it was 8, 10 years ago. and they didn't have the mobility. They had all the problems with fixing up the house and the stress of fixing up the house and they didn't, and they have to pay commissions to me. They have to pay property taxes. They have to pay the mansion tax. So they would have been better off renting for the last eight years. I mean, that's just a fact. That's just a financial fact. It's crazy that you're saying that as a real estate guy. I mean, there's been many real estate guys sitting there, not with their feet on the table, but arguing with me about how wrong I was. No, you're not wrong at all. And that I'm irresponsible for suggesting margin. I think a lot of real estate agents just push the narrative that they think benefits them. I think just honesty benefits everyone in the long run. But you don't say this stuff on Selling Sunset. Well, we don't get into this stuff on Selling Sunset. Glorifying, glamorizing buying houses. Well, there's something very glamorous and sexy and rewarding and fun about buying a house. But I'm just talking to you financially. Can we do renting Sunset? I've made a lot of money buying homes and renting them out long term. I'm not suggesting that you can't make a lot of money in real estate. But if you don't think the market's going to appreciate, then you're better off renting. And I don't think the market's going to appreciate anytime soon. And it certainly hasn't been appreciating the last few years. So for the last few years, especially in a high interest rate environment, it usually makes sense to rent. I mean, I've been renting for the last three years. Can we have a spinoff? Of selling Sunset spinoff? Renting Sunset? Yes, fine. It might not get as many viewers, but okay. I mean, why does it get so many viewers? We've had Emma here. We've had Mary here. Like, these women are smoking hot. Obviously, not all the agents that you hire are Emma. But like, oh, my God, is she real? Yeah. There's a lot of beautiful – Emma's stunning and there are a lot of stunningly beautiful women at the brokerage on and off the show. The brokerage, I think largely because of the show, has attracted tons of women. We're like 85% women. We started a commercial division that is so far largely men, although I really did tell the guy I really would like to bring in a lot of female commercial agents. But yeah, we're just a very female-driven brokerage, which is fun. I think it's great. Oh, Polly was here too? Like next level, like unreal. Oh, yeah. No, I know. Do you think, though, honestly, in sales, being attractive? Of course. Of course. I think being attractive probably helps in 99% of professions. Do you think it will continue for how many more seasons? You guys are on nine? Ten will be the next one. We've had nine. Nine came out. My hope and expectation is a lot more seasons. Honestly, I enjoy it. And I don't take it for granted either. It's done so much for me. It's done so much for the business. I love it I really do love it I've really just come to love it and appreciate it the more and more it looks like you guys are having fun most of the time most of the time I mean the drama is is is taxing truly is it real drama though or is it like reality no unfortunately it's all real and that's what's taxing but and stressful but I have kind of allowed myself to not get as caught up and not feel that I need to solve problems. And I've come to realize that what I think is stressful today will end up being okay in six months. It usually is. So I'm just, I kind of resigned to just a more like laissez-faire approach to it. And it's really worked. Trying to use financial terms for you. Oh, thank you so much. Is Christine coming back? Christine Quinn? I can't, you know, I can't like confirm anything. Just between us. Oh, is it just between us? I respect my contractual obligations. I appreciate that. Where are you on your scale of happiness? I've heard you talk about checking in on a scale of one to 10. Yeah, it varies. I say I float between a seven and a nine, you know, which is great. I mean, I'm in a pretty great place. I mean, honestly, everything in my life is amazing. I have like an appreciation list in my phone that I try to go through and remind myself. Because a lot of happiness is just your perception and your appreciation. I mean, I was really happy. I've been really happy most of my life. But let's say when I was 20. I was a really happy guy when I was 20. I didn't have that much money. I was driving like an old 1969 Camaro that I kind of built myself. I was eating at the Roche Coach, like the little burritos, and splitting Subway sandwiches with my brother. and wearing a wife beater and working on my car and a waiter with my buddies at Macaroni Grill. And I was really happy, really happy. I don't know if I'm any happier today than I was then. So I think happiness is... No, it doesn't mean that like... So money doesn't buy happiness? Well, it does help a lot. It does help a lot because it removes the financial stress. I didn't have financial stress back then because I didn't have any needs. not needing things, not wanting things, and not needing things is really powerful. And yeah, of course money, you're more likely to be happy if you have money, but you can't just directly buy it. It certainly helps. It can put you in the right environment to be happy, but there are a lot of unhappy wealthy people. And there are a lot of really happy people that aren't wealthy. Yeah, I think it's more a question of appreciating your circumstances. I mean, honestly, I have got great friends and I've got a great dog and I got, and I go into the office with great people and I've got a healthy family and I'm healthy. Is that what's on your list? Yeah. I mean, health is the biggest one. I mean, really, if you, you, you are having a good day, if you wake up healthy and the people that you love are healthy, and that's just a, you're starting your day off really, really, really well. And you're not in like some labor camp or in some suppressed society. If you wake up in California under the sun and you're healthy, that's a nine. You're at least a nine right there. If you don't see that, then that's on you. You just had your car stolen from your office. I did have my car stolen. Did that bring you down? No. I don't get unhappy over material things. Material things can make me happy. They don't make me unhappy. So if I buy something and my Rolls Royce made me happy, when it got stolen, I wasn't unhappy. Yeah, it's either up or even, I think, on material things. I don't get super attached. I mean, it's a car. But you spend. Like, you're a spender. Well, I have insurance for it. Otherwise, I would be much more unhappy. Generally, outside of even the car. Oh, yeah. Money, for me, is meant to be spent. Like, how much of what you're bringing in do you spend? or do you just like? No, I say, I mean, I can't, I would have a hard time spending everything I made. So I spend a lot and I still, you know, my net worth goes up. Maybe not this year because my stocks are getting shellacked. But yeah, generally I don't stress about money and I certainly don't stress about spending things. Also spending, you know, you don't lose all the money when you spend it. You buy a nice watch or you buy a nice car, you don't lose all of it. I don't look at buying a Rolls Royce, for example, as spending $400,000 or $500,000. I look at it as spending $100,000 because I'll sell it and I'll lose $100,000. If I buy a watch for $100,000, I don't look at spending $100,000. I look at spending $20,000. I'll probably lose $20,000 on it. If you had kids, would you think about it differently? Yeah, to some degree. I don't know if I would change that much. I still want to take care of myself. I have enough money to take care of my kids and do the things I want to make me happy. Do you have a number, like an FU number? Oh, my FU number was passed a long time ago. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that I was living in an apartment with my buddy. Maybe this was actually at this point probably 10 or 15 years ago. 15 years ago. And we were thinking if we could each make $10,000 a month, then we made it. I mean, that's just a high quality of life. That was my FU. It was $10,000 a month. $120,000 a year, $10,000 a month. We decided that that was F you. I'm good. I'm living a very good quality of life at $10,000 a month. So, I mean, I passed my F you money quite a while ago. And you never changed it? No, no. I'm not a financially goal-erranted person. I want to just live a high quality of life, take care of my friends, take care of my family, and do what I want to do. I don't really have particular financial goals. Never had, really. Except for that one. Honestly, the only financial goal I think that I can remember having is the $10,000 a month. And so everything else has been icing ever since. Can we play our game called Secure the Bag? Sure. You have to teach me how to play it. You have to. It's a light bag. Get in there. Pick a paper. Have you ever been ghosted by someone who owes you money? Have you ever lent somebody money? Oh, yeah. I've lent dozens of people money. There are people when you lend them money that you think you may or may not get it back. I would never lend money to anyone if I wasn't okay not getting it back. In 90% of cases, I get it back because there's a reason why I'm lending it. I'm more than happy to do it, and it's fine. There are instances where I lent money to people that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get it back, and that's happened. And that's never bothered me at all. So I wouldn't say ghosted. I wouldn't say ghosted because I wouldn't – I'm not going to chase someone down. If they can't pay me back, then I'm just going to take the L. And I should have known that going in. Yeah. So I wouldn't say they ghost me. I don't even – Maybe this is actually a good opportunity to educate about how bonds work because the riskier the person or the country or the company, the more interest rate you get back because there's more – Well, that's fair. Yeah, that's a good point. The more risk, the more reward. You wouldn't get it back. But you're not charging interest rates, obviously, to friends. 90% of the time, no. But if it's like a structured business thing, then yes. But no, my friends and family and shit like that, obviously no. I have in a couple cases recently, I won't be specific, but lent somebody to help them with a down payment. And so I'm charging a 5% interest on that. But yeah, 90% of the time. Which is less than the bank. Well, yeah. I'm not really doing it for the 5%, but it just that person you know I not giving away free money because people should be understanding the cost of capital But yeah I not trying to like you know squeeze an extra one or 2 out of it Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, the adage is like, you lend a friend money. I've lent clients money all the time. But I protect it with a, you know, with a note and it's never not worked out. In fact, I loan money to, I mean, I've loaned my clients probably dozens of times. We have a concierge service where we just front the money, interest free. I don't want to even deal with the interest. They have a house, a $4 million house. It needs $20,000 worth of work. I just pay for everything and then I get it back when it sells. I'm not going to bank Jason. I think that's a part of just being a luxury real estate agent. You can front the money and get the work done and then you get it back. Never been burnt. Not once. I've never met a real estate agent. Well, I think we're the only ones that do that. Who wants to give me money? Okay. Yeah. Well, it's just, what am I going to charge you? No, it doesn't make sense. I just offer it to every single client. Now, if a client has a $2 million house and wants to do $150,000 remodel, no. And I'm not interested in that. But if it's 20, I mean, we just finished a house up in the Hollywood Hills here where it was even a wealthy guy. But I'm like, let me just, I'll do it all. And then we do the just probably 20, 30 grand staging, cleaning it up, fixing the pool. landscaping, painting, whatever. It's like an investment. Yeah. I don't know why. I'm going to get it back. I'm going to sell the house. If anything, it's more likely I sell the house. So it's kind of an investment in my own success. All right. So I'll hit you up. If you want to sell your house, you can gladly hit me up. I will fix your house up for you. Thank you so much. Because then you'll clean the poop. We have a dog. I prefer not to clean the poop. But if I'm about to show it and there's poop, I will clean the poop. Have you ever felt guilty for making more money than someone you love? No. Plus, I'm extremely generous with the people I love. So they love that I do well. And by the way, there's nothing more enjoyable with money than spending it on the people that you love. I get no more happiness. I don't think I have. Well, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I enjoy it very much. What a cheap habit you'll never give up, no matter how wealthy you are. Oh, my ex-girlfriend now, but she still does this for me, cooks me slops, which is my favorite meal. It's just a plate of rice with marinara sauce and then ground up meat, like ground up beef. And I go over there like once a week. We watch a show together and she cooks me slops. i if i got poor again i'm not that mad at it because i would just eat slops like five nights that's like your ramen slops is so much better try it and you put some crushed red pepper on it oh my god it's good she is almost annoyed at how often i ask for it because that's all i want it's all i want when i go over there and she's a good cook but i just want her to cook slops every time i go over there my cheap habit i have so many i'll order postmates or doordash a lot but like i love a bogo what's a bogo a buy one get one i love a bogo deal oh wow if i saw a bogo it would be a red flag for me that it's not good interesting yeah you don't get quality in a bogo i'm a quality guy i'll pay okay mr slops guy oh fair that's fair actually but i do like if i'm gonna get a steak i'll you know i'm not gonna get one buy one steak get one sure i don't know i had delicious bogo banana bread so can i just digress here and i was just gonna say the great white banana bread it's the best banana bread i've ever had in my life it was the bogo oh come on it was the bogo well now i'm eating my words how did you get a free banana bread on the app oh wow there's a special a bogo can we just tell the audience that that there's no better banana bed on planet earth probably even in the solar system or galaxy whipped honey butter with it yes i know i go like probably twice a week to get it well if you go on an app you'll get a bogo ask for it to be extra well i'm gonna push back on getting it to go because the best part about it is when it comes up warm and crispy it's warm because we live near a great white so you can't No, you need to go to Great White and you need to get it fresh with the butter literally that whipped melting onto it and the crispy edges that are still. My brother and I literally fight to rip off the edges and eat the crispy edges. Edges are delicious. And all we see is like a center of the sitting here. That's how it comes to my house with an extra one. I don't believe that it's like Din Tai Fung. You've got to go to Din Tai Fung. You can't get that dumpling that's not perfectly hot at your, although I did have Din Tai Fung last night from Postmates. But no, don't ruin the banana bread experience. go get it in person when it comes out hot and crispy. I'm adamant about this. You can't do that. I think you lost this argument. I did lose the argument. Have you ever Googled your net worth? Yeah. Yeah, of course. I don't think there's a wealthy... What does it say? 50 million. Is that accurate-ish? I guess so. I guess it's reasonably accurate. Although the interesting thing is it's been at 50 million for like 10 years. I'm like, do these people not think that I've ever made a dollar in the last 10 years? It's really weird. Right? Inflation? Just put it. Look at his treasury. At least bacon inflation into my network. Honestly, it's weird. You? No, never. Should we do it right now? Can you do your network? Yeah, never. I don't think anyone cares. Oh, I've Googled myself a lot. I Google myself to see what articles are out there or if I get caught by TMZ or something. I'll go out the next day. Oh, I Google myself quite often just to kind of see what articles are out. It's kind of fun. Does it upset you? I don't get upset by much. Like do you read comments? No, I don't read comments. That would probably upset me. I just don't read comments. You never have? Or you've had to? Pretty much. I mean, in the last 10 years, there have been millions of comments probably, I imagine, about me or the show or whatever. No, maybe a couple dozen. I mean, maybe one time I got bored and I just looked real quick. But generally, no. Do you have Google Alerts set up? No. I have them and then I put them in a separate folder. Yes, I do have a Google Alert. I get an email. Yes, I do. I'm sorry. I do. That's efficient. I'm going to guess. So Morgan's Googling my net worth right now. but I'm going to guess that it's not out there because nobody cares. Well, no, they'll all make it up probably. I guess it's going to say like $2 million. And yours is $50,000 okay? No, I'm just saying. Is that going to be easy, right? That's exactly what it is. Did you Google my net worth before you came? No, I didn't Google your net worth, but I Googled people's net worth. It's just like the million. If you're successful, they're going to just throw $2 million at you. Yeah, it's not that accurate, but I do all the time. I want to know, especially clients. I'm like, oh, this football player. Let's see. What's his net worth? I mean, listen, it's usually off. Slightly suspicious that you guessed exactly what mine was. Oh, no. It's just because I've Googled a lot of people's net worth. It's always $2 million. Okay, you're done with the game. No, I like this game. Do you negotiate or do you get awkward and just pay? That's interesting. Like with contractors? Yeah. 90% of the time, I'm happy to pay full price because I think that that person is going to appreciate the difference more than me. That's kind of like a utilitarian approach. but if it's something meaningful like if it's if i'm buying the rolls royce you know and i want to try to negotiate fifteen thousand dollars yes i'm going to negotiate the larger items i don't negotiate you know smaller things you can negotiate a rolls royce if you're buying it at a dealer yeah you're buying it yeah you can negotiate everything really yeah when you buy a new car you can negotiate it yeah but i thought that the sort of quota cars like the ferraris of the world are not negotiable because i think rolls royce was one year old and i bought it at the beverly hills dealership and i and i looked online for a while and compared pricing and and also my insurance is going to try to pay me out and i'm going to negotiate that i'm going to ask for more i mean on macro items yeah it's worth my time but if somebody is asking me for i'm going to you know whatever i'm at at some store and they want like 100 150 bucks i'm not going to negotiate that i want them to have their small business i never negotiate small stuff but and it's also depending on the business. If it's a small business, I'm never going to negotiate. If it's a valet, you don't negotiate valet. Well, yeah, you do. Sometimes I pull up in front and they're like, oh, 50 bucks to park up here. I'm like, okay. I'm not going to say, oh, 40 bucks. But he'll use that money better than I will. But larger things with larger corporations, 100%. Wealthy people and corporations, I'm going to negotiate against them for sure. They don't need the money any more than I do. Do you feel like it's sport to win? No. I just want to feel like I'm getting a fair prize. It's not a sport for me. I feel like it's a sport for me. It's the only cardio I get. I don't get off on it. I just want to be treated fairly. What's the most expensive mistake? I haven't made that many mistakes. You don't make mistakes. You don't make mistakes. I don't really make mistakes that often. No. What? I don't really make mistakes that often. I can't think of a big mistake that I've made, socially or professionally or financially. Really? I mean, maybe I've made a couple small. But whatever, nothing like that pops up. like an investment a relationship no i've never regretted a relationship i mean of course you can say you've regretted some investments and some not but i mean yeah what's the overall i've been a huge winner in investment so i'm not like i've been very happy with my investment strategy but i'm risky so because some some don't do well i think i shorted gold oh most of you know what it is sometimes i wish i'd held investments so when netflix and facebook dropped to like nothing like through a few years ago. I bought like a million dollars of each and they would be like four million dollars each right now. But I was a little bitch and I sold. I got like nervous and I sold. You didn't lose money though. No, I didn't lose money but I could have made millions. I lost potential. You're mourning your paper gains. I'm mourning my paper gains. Those are just as real as a loss. That's illegal at Money Reef. We're not allowed to do that. That's just as... That's silly. Why is that any sillier than losing money? The lost opportunity is just as valuable as lost money. I mean, it's all the same. So you made money. intellectually. A lot of money. I left millions of dollars on the table. That's no different than losing millions of dollars. Yeah, but how do you predict when the high is going to be? I know. I know. I'm not mad at my – I mean, it just is what it is. Yeah. I don't stress out over investments. I'm not ever going to invest in anything that's going to stress me out. I'm not going to take those kind of risks. Has money ever ruined one of your relationships? No, it's only helped. I don't think any girl has ever been like, oh, my God, you're doing too many nice things for me. Come on. I'm going to rewrite these. Okay. What would you say a question should be? No. What's the most important financial question? What's the question I should have asked you but didn't? I think that people think that a certain amount of money is going to make them happy. I think what is more enjoyable is the slow struggle towards success. That is way more enjoyable. Even arguably more enjoyable than being successful. I think the most fun aspect of success is the slow climb. every year the grinding and moving towards a goal and seeing yourself become more successful and you're bringing up your friends with you and employees and that kind of joint struggle towards success is so enjoyable it's so rewarding I think that is way more fun than just being successful that's why probably a lot of trust fund kids probably are a lot less happy than the people that are a lot less wealthy but are grinding towards success I mean, the process is, you have to enjoy the process. And I think that that's the most fun. Yeah, because there's a goal fallacy once you hit one goal. Absolutely. That's why I don't do goals. That's why I don't do goals. Now you're just opt out of. Well, because it's the process that's the fun part. It's definitely the process. And the enjoyment of the success. I don't know why people just throw a bunch of money. I guess if you have kids, you want to leave a legacy. But come on. Your kids don't need $50 million. I mean, if you have some money, you should just be spending the shit out of it. And do it on your kids too. I mean, and your friends. I mean, why not? You should be, I don't know. I really, really think that, especially now with AI creating, things are going to be so cheap in the future. Spend your money now. Why wouldn't you spend it when it was cheaper? Well, I mean, just start enjoying it because you're not going to be needing it much in the future. I really don't think you're going to need it. You're still going to need first class flights and things like that. You're still going to have to spend money. Travel will still be expensive. Although it'll all be – I mean we won't have human pilots and stewardesses probably in 15 years. So that will be a lot cheaper. Or stewards or whatever you call them. Stewards. Come on, Jason. Fire up your chopper to Orange County. No. No, after cooking. Choppers, I don't like choppers. I just sweat the whole time. Not a chopper guy. Are you scared of flying? I don't love being in a chopper. Or a private jet? Yeah, I don't love being in a private jet either. I prefer a larger. It has to be a really large private jet, or I'll prefer commercial. I don't like the rocky, you know. Although I do fly JSX, which is pretty small. Although I've had some pretty rough experiences in JSX. So yeah, I don't like small. And I don't like choppers. I'll do a chopper if it saves me a ton of time. But I just I swear I just I'm stressed out the whole time. Well, I'm sure you're into like the tunnels that Elon's building that will get us a boring company. I don't know. I think I'll just wait. I just I'm really looking forward to autonomous vehicles. I want my autonomous sprinter van. What do you mean? I have an autonomous Tesla. Yeah, but you have to be there. I want to be able to relax, watch TV, chill out and have no risk of an accident and just have my little cold soda right here. and my big ass TV and my massaging chair. And there's one other chair next to me and it just drives me perfectly smoothly. No slamming on the brakes, no risk of an accident. That, I'm looking forward to that. We're just a few years away from that. Utopia, here we come. By the way, we're also going to all have our own drivers. We're all going to have our own chauffeurs in five years. We're going to need drivers. That's my point. My daughter's one year old. She's never going to learn how to drive. That's my point. I'm just talking about the quality of life for people is going to go up so much. We're not just going to have Michelin star chess. We're going to have all have our own autonomous chauffeurs. It's good life coming up.