Wall Street Panics Over NYC Mayor, Layoffs at Bumble & BNPL Debt Hits Your Credit Score

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Welcome to Property Markets.

I'm Ed Elson.

It is June 26th.

Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals.

The major indices ended the day mixed as President Trump declared the Israel-Iran conflict, quote, over for now.

The S ⁇ P neared its all-time high, but ended the day just below it.

The Nasdaq rose 0.3%, driven by a 4% jump in NVIDIA.

That rally pushed the chipmaker to a record close.

And the Dow fell slightly.

BP's shares rose 10% after the Wall Street Journal reported that Shell was in early talks to acquire it, a claim that Shell later denied.

BP paired its gains on that news, but it still ended the day up more than 1.5%.

And meanwhile, the dollar fell to a fresh three-year low as investors turned their attention back to the Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision.

Okay, what else is happening?

In a stunning victory, 33-year-old socialist Zoran Mamdani is set to be the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York.

Mr.

Mamdani was running against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the election late on Tuesday night.

And if he wins the mayoral election in November, he will be New York's first Muslim and South Asian mayor.

We did see some reactions from the markets.

Shares in New York City office REITs like Vornedo and SL Green fell 7% and 6% respectively on the news as investors react to the prospect of a socialist mayor in New York.

Meanwhile, leaders on Wall Street are very worried, with some executives saying they're considering moving their businesses and their families out of New York.

As for Mamdani's platform, the agenda includes higher taxes on the wealthy, rent freezes, subsidized housing, free bus service, and government-operated grocery stores.

So just an incredible victory for Zoran Mamdani and a potentially dramatic change for a city that has long been known as the citadel of capitalism.

I mean, this is the home of Wall Street.

This is also the home of some of the wealthiest people in the world.

I think if you told anyone just a couple of years ago that a socialist would be the mayor of New York City, they would not believe you.

But it appears that that will be the case next year and it could have potentially big impacts on the economy of the wealthiest city in America.

I think there are a lot of questions to think about.

I think the big one that I'd like to address is how did we get here?

How did this young socialist rise to prominence?

And we'll get Scott's views in a moment, but I want to briefly share some of mine.

Beyond the politics, I think the first thing we need to understand about this guy is that he is one of the most social media savvy politicians we have ever seen.

I mean, he's built a huge presence on TikTok and on Instagram.

He is a master of short form content.

He's gone on countless podcasts.

He's created several videos that have gone viral online.

He is, in my view, one of the very few politicians who's taking social media, specifically short-form social media, very seriously.

He recognized the trend that TikTok is becoming the new TV and he ran away with it.

Every politician says New York is the greatest city on the globe.

But what good is that if no one can afford to live here?

City Hall is engulfed.

And I think that tells us something about the direction of media and how it's impacting both business and politics.

Whether you're running a political campaign or just a regular company, if you're not investing heavily into short-form social media, you're going to lose.

And by the way, this would also explain why young voters showed up to this primary in record numbers.

Now, the other side of this is his message, which was all about affordability.

And I think that's important because it highlights how how young people see their economic situation right now.

As we've discussed before, young people are uniquely screwed in this economy because of student debt, because of a lack of income mobility, because of record high prices, both in the stock market and in the housing market.

And many of those issues are especially pronounced in New York.

Take housing, for example.

In the past year, The monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York has climbed more than 17%

to an average of more than $5,500.

That's the average.

Meanwhile, vacancy rates just dropped to a record low.

So this is a full-on housing crisis.

And then a socialist comes along and says, hey, the system isn't working.

I understand the issues.

Prices are crazy.

So I'm going to do everything I can to bring down prices.

And we'll start with rent.

What am I going to do?

I'm going to freeze rent.

And in that context, I think it starts to make sense why young people in New York are attracted to him.

He hits on many of the economic issues that we've discussed on this podcast.

But does that say anything about the validity of his policies?

No, it doesn't.

And in my view, yes, he is incredibly talented as a communicator, as a campaigner, and just overall as a politician.

I think he's pretty remarkable.

But I also think his policies are extremely misguided.

And we can go through them.

But the two big errors for me are one, the rent freeze, which will ultimately just disincentivize construction and raise rents.

And this has been proven in the past.

And two, those government-run grocery stores.

And that is sort of the classic socialist mistake, where you reject the reality of markets.

And instead of regulating prices down, you just force them down, which will put many smaller grocers out of business.

It will likely lead to monopolies, which would again lead to higher prices.

So I respect his abilities as a politician.

And I think he has energized young people in a way that is really incredible.

But I'm just not a fan of his policies, specifically the economics of his policies.

But that's just my two cents.

Let's hear from Scott because I'm sure he has a lot to say on this as well.

Hey, Scott.

Hey, Ed, how are you?

I'm doing well.

Where on earth are you?

You look like you're in a haunted house or maybe the circus.

What on earth is going on there?

It's actually a pretty good description.

I'm at the Tate.

Oh, nice.

I'm at this big gala in London.

And my advice to you as a young single man or

before you get...

Anyways,

until you have kids, you're single as far as I'm concerned.

But don't partner with someone who's into culture because you end up at shit like this where you can't find a beer and everyone's talking about art until they're blue in the face.

So let's get right into it.

What do you make of Zoran Mamdani's win?

And what do you think it means for New York City?

Well, there's no doubt about it.

It's a tectonic shift or it's sort of a, I mean, this is a sonic boom in the political landscape.

What's interesting is he had more in common with Trump than people want to admit.

This was about affordability, complaining about high prices and an embrace of new media and tactics.

He ran an

outstanding campaign capturing a lot of social, whereas Cuomo was running TV ads.

In In terms of the economics, I think generally speaking, people are in favor of lower costs and more housing.

The issue is what's the best way to get there?

And sort of universal childcare or, you know, I think that is a solid idea.

It's been shown to have benefits.

In New York, I benefited from state-sponsored child development.

When my son was speech delayed, we had occupational therapists sponsored by the state of New York come and help my son when he was three years old.

And I still feel very loyal to New York and feel better about paying those 13% incremental taxes.

So I think that's a solid idea.

Freezing rent does not work.

Rent control ends up suppressing new housing and discouraging development, which creates a lack of supply.

The most ridiculous is state-run grocery stores.

So customer service from the DMV and fresh produce merchandised by the IRS.

That's just a ridiculously stupid idea.

If there's one business you want the private sector to run, it's grocery.

It's a very low margin business to begin with.

And if you just scratch the surface, the majority of local grocery stores are run by immigrants, have very low margin.

So, you know,

some of these ideas go from bad to worse.

But

Ned, Ed, I think this is sort of your generation.

basically making a statement that they're fed up with the status quo.

Yes.

And that something needs needs to change.

And this felt like the beginning of a small revolution where young people have said, look, whatever you're doing is not working and you can empathize with them.

He put on a masterclass in terms of the campaign.

You know,

good luck with some of these policies.

I don't think they're going to get very far, but there's no doubt about it.

This is a huge shift.

This is an earthquake in the political landscape.

What about the reactions that we've seen from some of the business leaders, people on Wall Street?

A lot of people are saying, we have a socialist mayor now.

We don't like that.

And a lot of people think that maybe the very wealthy are going to flee New York, especially if he starts targeting them with an increase in income tax, if you're making more than a million a year.

What do you think of that?

Is that feasible?

Do you think we could see an actual exodus of rich people and also businesses out of New York City?

You know, it's really hard to tell.

I mean, the the two biggest REITs that have the most corporate office space in New York were down 9% and 10% today because of the fear that corporations are going to move because of a business unfriendly mayor.

Having said that, I think what we've seen from the Trump administration is the government has less impact on the private sector than maybe we would think.

And also, I mean, here in London, you have seen over 10,000 people leave or decide to leave 10,000 millionaires because of the non-DOM tax proposals, which are going to substantially increase taxes on

quite a few wealthy people here.

And they are, in fact, leaving.

I'm a little less scared of that because at the end of the day, New York has the highest taxes with the exception of California.

And the reason why is because it's worth it.

I do think Manhattan is singular.

I think a lot of its policies will likely be tempered.

And while I can understand billionaires leaving Illinois and Chicago for Florida, Manhattan still has so much going on.

It still attracts a ton of human capital.

It's still singular.

It's easily the best city in the world in terms of a crush of opportunity.

So unless he does a series of really stupid things, I think their fears are probably overblown.

I just think that New York is going to continue to attract the best human capital in the world and millionaires threatening to leave, whether they threaten to leave San Francisco.

whether they threaten to leave New York.

I don't know.

I think it's sometimes there's a little bit more bark than bite around, oh, I'm moving.

I still think New York is going to remain singular.

So

I guess I'm a little skeptical that all of a sudden there's going to be an exodus.

New York still has the best food, the best nightlife, and I don't see any one mayor changing that.

Yeah.

I think the big question is, are you coming back to New York?

I'm coming back to the U.S.

And

I love New York.

And, you know, a socialist mayor and state-owned grocery stores would never discourage me from coming back.

It won't scare you off.

Okay.

As long as there's more options to go out and get fucked up at 3 a.m.

than any place in the world, daddy's in New York.

Okay.

That's good to hear.

Well, enjoy the rest of your night.

Enjoy the circus or the haunted house or the tate or whatever's going on over there.

It actually looks quite fun.

I know you're not having a great time, but it looks fun to me.

Well, it looks can be deceiving.

Trust me, Ed.

If your girlfriend is into culture, break up now.

Just trust me on this.

Just break up now.

Find someone who's into edibles and streaming media.

All right, brother.

I'm out.

Okay.

Take care.

After the break, how Bumblestock reacted to major layoffs.

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Shares in Bumble surged 26% yesterday after the dating app announced a major cost-cutting plan.

They are going to lay off nearly a third of the workforce.

The move is expected to save the company roughly $40 million.

The company also said that the decision was not made lightly, but that it will, quote, realign its operating structure to optimize execution.

So mass layoffs at Bumble.

The stock is up, but this is coming at a pretty difficult time for the company.

Ever since they went public back in 2021, the stock has fallen 92%.

And that's not just investors going sour.

That's the business itself too.

Last quarter, Bumble lost more than 100,000 users and revenue fell 8% year over year.

Meanwhile, monthly churn has increased to more than 20%, meaning that one in five bumble users are not sticking around on the platform.

And this all might sound like a bumble problem, and it is, but it's also a dating app problem in general.

In that same timeframe, Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, has lost roughly 80% of its value.

It was worth nearly 50 billion in 2021.

Now it's less than 8 billion.

And again, the business is also in decline.

Last quarter, revenue fell 4% year over year.

So the question is: why is this happening?

Why are dating apps struggling to grow right now?

And so, to answer that question, our producer Claire spoke with Anna Ivini, the associate editor of features at Mashable.

I do think it is multifaceted and there are different things going on.

Certainly, consumer behavior is a big part of it, I think.

Bumble started in 2014.

So it's been 11 years since it came on the market.

And

Tinder was two years prior in 2012.

And from what I'm hearing from daters, but also experts like matchmakers, I spoke to matchmakers last week about the movie Materialist, since that is about matchmaking.

And everyone from users to experts is saying that people are sick of dating apps.

They don't meet quality people or they don't have quality matches.

It's very gamified.

It is very superficial.

Before dating apps, people didn't care if a match was six feet or over.

And now a lot of people are getting screwed in that respect.

So that is a huge part of it.

I do think a big part of it is also that these companies, mainly Bumble and the rival Match Group, are public companies.

So they are beholden to their stockholders and to just make money, make more money each quarter.

And thus, what a lot of users have noticed is that a lot of good features that were free when the app started or maybe even five years ago, now they're behind a paywall.

And that is a big issue that I'm hearing about as well.

And ultimately, I think daters are sick of using their phones a lot.

They might not know how to interact with new people without their phones, but there is a huge appetite to meet potential suitors in person again.

Yeah, that last thing you said there is really interesting about like not really knowing how to interact with people without their phones.

So I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how are you, Gen Z?

I'm a cusp.

I'm 94.

So I think

by most definitions, that makes me like a tail end of millennial.

Right.

I was just going to say, because I'm 98.

So I'm technically early Gen Z.

So for our sort of generation that has kind of grown up online, how did the like the first chronically online generation grow to reject these dating apps, do you think?

I think a lot of it had to do with Gen Z, like you said, growing up with this technology, not developing the social skills.

And I think dating apps do seem really convenient.

You can swipe anywhere on your couch, on the toilet, and a lot of people do.

And there's also the COVID element of this all.

A lot of Gen Z came of age during the pandemic and did not have that opportunity to say, meet in person, go out to bars, go out on dates.

So I think this kind of attributed to the social atrophy that people are experiencing.

But at this point, we're five years away from 2020 and Gen Z is a little bit older.

And we've seen the consequences of being too online.

It's very clear in our politics in the way that social media is just a bummer to be on now for the most part.

And I think dating apps, it's the same story.

I think when you're swiping, when you're...

when the dating, when dating has become this

very impersonal, superficial thing, I think people are sick of it.

And I think meeting in person at like speed dating events or, or bars or clubs, I think it's almost become vintage.

And just like how like Y2K was a recent trend again, only 20 years after it happened, I think people do have that desire to go back to

how should I say this.

So return to human roots.

Yeah, they want to return to human roots.

Like you said, they want to return to the social norms of 30 years ago, even if they did, obviously, like Gen Z did not experience that as sentient humans.

And I think there is like a nostalgia for what they didn't experience.

Right.

And you mentioned you're talking to matchmakers.

What are you learning there?

Is that really on the rise?

I don't have any statistics on whether matchmaking is on the rise.

And it's difficult when matchmaking is so expensive.

I spoke to one matchmaker and their base package starts at $5,900.

So that is,

yes, and that's for three months of matchmaking.

So that is pretty inaccessible for the majority of people.

But I do think there is this desire to have some help beyond an app.

An app's not really helping people.

So

there is this desire for an expert.

And each matchmaker I spoke to, they describe themselves as community builders.

So I think there is this yearning for community, but also there is a barrier to entry in the U.S.

because you need to pay so much money.

So it feels like we're seeing just a growing divide in the quality of dating that people have access to based on their level of wealth.

Oh, absolutely.

I hear that the free versions of dating apps are so bad now because there's so many ads.

There are features that they could have used, that they did use five years ago that now they have to pay for.

And the prices are just going up and up and up.

And of course, it's a subscription model.

Everything's a subscription now.

So it's like you have to take out, you know, you have a monthly expense for dating amongst everything else.

Well, I think the takeaway from Anna's comments there is pretty clear.

Dating apps are just becoming a hellscape.

And that's why they're in decline.

That's why people are not using them anymore.

And we're even seeing it in the data.

Among Gen Z, the youngest generation who are using these apps, eight in 10 say they're experiencing dating app burnout.

And that is quite different from the other generations.

Among the overall population, 50% are meeting their partner online.

And obviously, that is a staggering number.

But new surveys are showing that among Gen Z, that number is only 23%.

So slowly but surely, I think the young generation is waking up to the fact that these dating apps, quite frankly, suck.

And it's a bad way to meet people.

And Scott's been talking about this for a long time.

I tend to agree with him.

But I think what we're seeing right now is the market is beginning to reflect that.

And so we're seeing these declines and these issues at these dating app companies, at companies like Bumble and Match Group.

And they reflect the reality of dating life today, which is it is not great.

It's official.

Buy now pay later payments will now be included in your FICO score.

This is a new announcement from FICO, the largest consumer credit scorer in the country.

It's also a seismic shift for the BNPL industry, which has operated for the most part independently from these credit agencies.

Prior to this, many BNPL offerings, such as the Pay In For product, did not factor into FICO's calculations, but now they do.

So if you defaulted on your BNPL-financed Coachella tickets, that will now be reflected in your FICO credit rating.

Your FICO score will go down.

So this is kind of a big deal.

And I think a question I'm asking is, why is this happening now?

Why didn't this happen earlier?

Well, according to FICO, BNPL is at this point simply too big to not cover it.

87 million Americans used Buy Now Pay Later last year, and Buy Now Pay Later payment volume increased 20%.

It's also especially popular among Gen Z, 54% of whom say they used it over the holidays last year to buy gifts.

So FICO's view is, you know, this is so systemic now, everyone's using it that we have to keep track of it.

And I think that's fair.

But I also think it's important to note what a blow this could be to the BNPL industry, because as you might remember, One of BNPL's biggest promises when it first came onto the scene just a few years ago was that it wouldn't affect your credit score.

Because for whatever reason, BNPL wasn't credit.

It was something different, something closer to, say, debit.

Or at least that is what the BNPL companies told us.

As Klarna's CEO put it in the company's F1 filing, Klarner is, quote, the choice of a new generation, one smart enough to avoid credit cards and banks.

And as Afterpays founder put it on the Prof GPod, young people don't like credit.

They want something else.

We're moving from a credit economy to a debit economy.

You know, 90% of Afterbase customers use a debit card, not a credit card.

If you look at Visa's latest numbers in May,

credit card spend was down negative 21% year-on-year growth, but debit card spend was up positive 12% year-on-year growth.

This is a systemic change now beyond the millennial and Gen Z cohort, moving from a credit economy to a debit economy.

And to be able to build a brand that can,

as a result of the core product you offer, say to that consumer, that next generation consumer, like, I get you.

I understand your preferences and I'm always there to be a win-win for you and to be in your favor.

Gosh.

So the messaging from Buy Now, Pay Later, and particularly from Afterpay was clear, which is that the credit card companies are bad and we're going to offer you something new.

So instead of using credit to buy those Coachella tickets, why not just buy them now and pay for them later?

And that all sounded great and BNPL exploded.

But then you think about it for a second and you realize, hold on, that is literally the definition of credit.

I mean, credit lets you buy it now alone, and then you pay for it later.

It's the exact same thing.

And this has been my big issue with the buy now, pay later industry, because it was marketed to us and to young people in particular as an alternative to credit.

But what became obvious very quickly is that there is no difference between them.

It is credit but repackaged and rebranded as something else.

And what was so problematic is that many young people didn't realize that.

And so these services emboldened them to spend money they didn't have.

Nearly two-thirds of BNPL loans went to borrowers with either subprime credit or deep subprime credit.

And as we saw in Klarner's most recent earnings, losses more than doubled this year due to a surge in defaults.

And so now FICO is coming out and saying, hey, remember all those buy now, pay later payments that you made kind of recklessly because you didn't really think it was credit or you thought it was something different or maybe you thought it wasn't going to affect your credit score.

Well, we've looked at it.

We've assessed it.

It is credit.

and it will affect your credit score.

And for those of us who understood what BNPL really was, this was obviously going to happen.

But the trouble is for the people who didn't.

And it's not their fault because a lot of these companies were very slippery about what it was they were actually selling.

And as a result, I think we can expect that the credit scores of millions of young people around the country are about to drop even further because suddenly all of those BNPL defaults, which they thought were going to be inconsequential, suddenly they're about to come due.

So I hope that this can be the conclusion to the BNPL credit conversation.

FICO has confirmed for us, yes, buy now, pay later does affect your credit score.

And if that is the case, then I hope that we can all agree, despite everything these companies have told us, that yes, buy now, pay later is credit.

So if you're worried about debt, if you're worried about loans, if you're worried about defaults, all the things that come with the word credit, then let's be clear, buy now, pay later should probably worry you too.

Okay,

that's it for today.

Thanks for listening to Property Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Ed Elson.

Join us tomorrow for our conversation with Maya McGinnis.

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