Rory O'Neill with an economic roundup

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some economic news going in here for you. Row Neil,
our correspondent joining us now to talk about the housing market.
Apparently you're kind of stuck right now, and how many
mom and pop stores are out there being stuck with
all the affordability crisis happening right now. I mean, things
are costly, it seems. Ro O'Neil is here with the
latest on this. What are you finding?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, well, let's start with the housing market. As you said,
the folks over at Redfin have the October numbers and
say that, yeah, things are just pretty much stuck right now,
especially with those mortgage rates hovering around six and a
quarter percent. They say the housing market sales and new
listings were sort of just flat for the month of October.
With the median sales price these days, that means half

(00:38):
the houses sold above this half below that median price
four hundred and forty thousand dollars for a house.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
No wonder young people are struggling to get out there
and get their first home, you know. I mean it's tough,
It is really tough. And what about how much is
going to be spent during the holidays here? I would
imagine what the price is high. I saw one study
it says it's really going to be cutting back, and
I I saw another you know Paul, that said, oh no,
with Gangbusters, we may get to a trillion dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, the folks over at the National Retail Federation predict
our first trillion dollar holiday shopping season, and they only
measure two months, so it's only November December. But you
and I know we talked about it before a lot
of people were starting back during Amazon Prime Days in October, right,
so you know, there's some questions about that definition. We
probably already topped a trillion. But here's the folks over

(01:27):
at wallet hub with a wreck. It's really a recommendation
for your budget. So they take a look at an
individual city and they say, okay, what's the average income,
how old is the population, what's their debt and they
have a lot of credit card debt, mortgage debt, what's
the debt to income ratio? They run all these numbers
through and say what should your holiday budget be? And

(01:47):
for folks in Birmingham it's right around just under one
thousand dollars it's the household budget for the holidays, And
they ranked about five hundred and fifty eight different cities.
This number comes in near the bottom. But look, you
go to places like Silicon Valley in San Jose, California,
it's like four thousand dollars for a holiday budget.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Unreal. I mean the cost of you know, in California,
especially the cost of everything is just through the roof
right there. I mean you look at gasoline, I think
it's what's five six dollars in gallon right.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
The other issue to is that there's a lot more
big salaries out there, so again they're basing this off
the income. So when you pick a Silicon Valley town
like San Jose and Glenndew than everyone there is making
a quarter million dollars a year to start, Okay, that's
going to throw everything off. Whereas you know, Birmingham is
much more realistic.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Absolutely, And I saw a recent survey too that says,
you know, my hometown Pittsburgh is one of the most
affordable housing house house markets out there, which I thought, well,
that's that's kind of cool there. Do you do do
you travel during the holidays, because you know that thousand
dollars budgets just for stay and put where you are
and doing everything you do around your house you add
it in travel for you know, single people and let

(02:58):
alone families. I mean you can go head double in
trouble that in amount of money.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh well, look when it's two hundred dollars a day
to get into Disney World over Christmas, you know, and
then a lot. So think of so many families that
are doing that for their Christmas vacations, going to the
theme parks. All the theme parks are about two hundred
bucks a day per person. So a family of four,
that's eight hundred bucks just to walk in. And you
haven't even gotten mouse ears and a turkey leg.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
A turkey leg and mouse you're right about that. It's
like a summer vacation, you know, four to five grand
to rent a house for you know, four bedrooms all one.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Day, eight hundred bucks one day. And then you're in
the it's the most crowded, and you're miserable, and you're
standing in line for three hours for everything.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Oh you want to speed pass, that'll be another four
hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Wha tell me about yep? Oh those sons of guns.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
All right, mouse that mouset set your mouse trap, roy easy.
Now take a deep breath