Business News: The Real Opportunity w/ AI - Creating Leverage - Real Estate Market Softening

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month,

taking the BS out of business for over six years in over 400 episodes.

You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks?

Well, it starts right about now.

What's up, guys?

Welcome to Right About Now.

It's our weekly business news, our first news of May 2025 here on the second it will be may the 4th on sunday may the 4th be with you chris what's up

i'm sitting here just thinking april flowers may showers i don't know why

april showers bring may flowers it's been rainy here so uh hopefully that's the case it's been rainy and warm which is nice not here sunny and breezy it's been beautiful Yes, it's been good.

Our weekly business news, we're going to hit all the headlines.

Try not to talk too much about tariffs.

I never, Chris, I never imagined that I would have a moment in my life where I use the word tariff like in a sentence as often as I have or

read it.

Definitely not weekly.

I know.

I don't know if it's a sign of my age, a sign of the times, a sign of the way news is.

Which one?

Is it all of the above?

I don't, maybe lack of all of the above.

Yeah.

So, uh, I'd rather talk about a lot of other things, that's for sure.

I know.

So, we're gonna, we're gonna attempt to do that.

Some of the market data is not wonderful, but I think you know, we're it's early in the season.

I think, uh,

I think there's some cooling going on of all the banter a bit.

I mean, I think the reality is we live in a world where you're never going to get

the straight talk.

It's always going to have the spin of one side or another,

you know,

kind of compounding whatever that news might be,

one direction or the other.

You know what I mean, Chris?

Yeah.

I mean,

everyone will never always think alike.

Yes.

And everyone has a voice now with social media.

And hey, we got our own voice here on our platform, but

it's like everything gets.

I just got to tune it out.

I do think, and we've talked about it we want to i think we got to tamper down the negativity and the the all-out war on you know some of our allies i think you're seeing softening of that language and you know it's brought some people to the table i think uh sometimes the uh we've talked about this the the means

might be

correct,

but the way that things are happening might be the way that you get them done.

But I think sometimes you can go a little further than intended with impacting overall sentiment.

And

I think you're feeling that a little bit with kind of like people feeling a little uneasy.

And I think hopefully we can start to get on the other side of that and focus on the data because the numbers are still like

it's all relative, right?

It's like, it is not like we suddenly stopped commerce completely it's just we were in this really weird funk where this has caused just enough of a stir combined with the real real estate market and interest rates yeah and battling inflation so it's like maybe we chose the wrong time to sort of stoke this

yeah i don't i thought i was wondering if you'd ever hear that behind the scenes I don't know.

It's interesting seeing the impact of it.

I mean,

I've seen some really creative advertising related to it i've seen one company they do jewelry and they're like literally the ad was like tariffs suck but our jewelry doesn't and i'm like all right they're making the best of it obviously their stuff is made overseas even me myself like you know i do the lab grown diamond jewelry my supplier messaged me this week about uh tariff changes you know

so yeah

And then I've seen on some clothing brands that I'm familiar with, like

they basically, they sell wholesale direct from China, right?

So, and I saw they posted just

the tariff tax was the same price as the order of the clothing.

So

it's giving people the ability to learn how to pivot.

I think it's going to teach a lot of lessons right now.

But as far as real estate goes, I have noticed a lot of price reductions in the real estate market down here.

Yeah.

I'm getting a lot of Zillow alerts of

a lot of price price on

family real estate, like single family homes.

It's going to be interesting in a market like Greenville,

where we're at.

We're here at the lovely Greenville, South Carolina, where we've seemed to have been Teflon to almost everything because it's an attractive market to move to for families leaving larger states with higher costs and just more stuff.

So you've got a lot going for the city.

It's going to be interesting where all this nets out for a city like ours.

If we stay Teflon through it all, like, you know, like and not have declines.

Because the biggest thing here has just been inventory availability, which still hasn't improved, even with the interest rates.

And so it has changed.

And

you see

what I worry about, like being here, and you know, we talk about a lot more national topics, but like as it relates to small town America a little bit,

the changing dynamic when housing brings in people from other markets because it's more affordable but not necessarily affordable more affordable to them because they were used to paying 800 to a 1.5 million for a three-bedroom house where in south carolina that's been a you know 200 to 400 000 cost you know i'm not talking about like high end i'm just about like middle of the road and people come here and they're like hey we're used to paying this rate we'll take that and they get a little more square footage.

So, what happens, though, is

what happens to market like ours when you get an influx of different personalities, beliefs, et cetera.

And I'm not saying we're all so different, but it can change the

makeup.

Yeah.

I mean, the makeup and the fabric of the city.

And not because,

you know,

everything was right about old school Greenville.

I mean, you know, like,

no,

we needed some growing up.

But

what is the true impact of that, both socially, economically, et cetera?

Right.

I think we're in a time, I would almost call it like a financial migration.

Yeah.

You know, it's crossing cultural boundaries.

And like you said, people aren't necessarily living where they want to live anymore.

People are living where they can afford to live.

Yep.

And I think you're right.

Even with COVID, for example, you know, that was a mass migration or maybe that was the beginning of a lot of financial difficulties.

I know it was for many small businesses, of course, like if you couldn't operate in certain states.

Because even down here in Florida, you know, all the towns I've lived in, you know, and growing up here, they've all

had a large change because there's way more out-of-state people migrating in.

Yeah, exactly.

And so we'll see how that goes.

I was going to be interesting if Greenville, as an as sort of a proxy for other cities this size,

you know, I'd throw in like

little towns in Arkansas that are kind of, you know, seeing their heyday from some social media and some of the shows that have been on, Bentonville and like places like that.

And even, I mean, Austin's a is a different place altogether and larger tech scene.

But how all this,

the interest rates in the real estate market,

and I continue to beat this drum.

Just it drives money in the market when you've got a good amount of real estate turning and refinancing and all that stuff.

And so that's why we need these inflation numbers to go down.

And that's where I choose to believe.

And I've been, Chris and I have both been pretty transparent.

You know, like

where, I mean, I claim myself to be an independent.

I think you do as well, Chris, for the most part.

We don't necessarily wear a color on our sleeves, but we voted a certain direction.

And I choose to believe that

there's a game of chess being played and a game of checkers being played.

And I think there's some chess going on

overall that I think is going to net out where we like it, but it's going to continue to be a little rocky.

And I said this on a post that you'll see later today, where

it's uncomfortable to get

the change that you need.

It's not always comfortable.

And we've been conditioned to be very comfortable.

And, you know, COVID in a strange way and I, and, you know, heart.

putting aside the the major impact medically, I'm not saying like, but it made us comfortable, those of us that were not impacted by it directly, with the money in the market, everything's good.

And then we had an administration where it was just kind of like they, they lull you to sleep with everything's fine, but

we got to suffer a little discomfort to get to the change that's needed.

And I can't stress that enough.

And I don't say that lightly because I feel some of the discomfort,

you know, but I think it's necessary, Chris.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think this is a ship that's been going the wrong way for a long time.

I'm talking like 40 years.

Like

these multinational corporations outsourced all of our middle class, chasing profit over ultimately patriotism.

Our own people sold us out to make cheaper goods with cheap labor outside of America.

And before our eyes, all of us have been lulled for longer than I would say COVID.

I mean, essentially, it's been slipped out the last 20, 30 years.

We've outsourced everything.

Yep.

So we have now an entire population of the middle class with no jobs and no money.

And that's why ultimately, unless you open your eyes, we are completely screwed unless we turn this around.

There is, unless we get all agree that we're going to give a universal basic income because AI is going to be doing so many jobs.

and everyone's just going to get paid to live.

Exactly.

You know, like, and unfortunately, that, that has never worked that does not and i mean you can say this as a business owner ryan just who we are as people

no one is living a good life not chasing anything right no like you're not happy and it's like you know and not to get into the health impact but you're not talk about it on vibe science like i mean and talk about mental decline that that would be it i think that's where you're going right yeah i mean we've been in decline for a long time and i'll tell you we've been very comfortable and complacent And this is the result of that, unfortunately, you know, and I hate it because if you look at historical timelines, like we're over the hump of the greatness of this empire, and that's just history.

And I think we're trying to save it, but it's not going to be an easy turnaround.

And the wealth may be too consolidated at this point.

But the reality is, is.

These fuckers that have been buying yachts and mansions for the last 30 years, it's because they started producing these goods elsewhere to get higher profit margins i mean that's it

bingo

and so you're gonna have a little pain to get the other side of it to bring some of those jobs back i just saw where

four trillion dollars in investments come back in in the last hundred days so it should motivate you yeah like you know figure some out use the internet youtube get

yeah man that's what i talked about last week or the week before like yeah all these things are there like you can run leaner than you ever had to.

Like, your in your barrier to entry as a solopreneur has never been lower.

And I say that not because everybody's meant to be a solopreneur, but if you can't find work or can't find something else, or you're struggling with, you know, where you're going to find the job and do all that, then

you've got an option to turn to.

Tools are there,

but you gotta,

you gotta, you gotta have that want to, Chris.

You know,

uh, it's in short supply these days, that want to.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I used to think everybody had the same amount.

I don't think that anymore, yeah, no, and I mean, every sort of like

drip,

reasonably driven human being, I thought it kind of had average.

I'm not talking about everybody has their ups and downs, you have people on substance, and you like throw out the kind of health and anomalies.

I thought everybody kind kind of in the middle had the sort of all the same.

Nope, nope.

That was a biggest, like my biggest learning lesson in the last 10 years.

Some people are hanging out.

Yeah, they're just hanging out.

It's okay.

But you're always just going to be hanging out.

You know, it's like, I'm okay if you're okay with that.

I really am.

What I don't have, what I have a problem with, Chris, is the ones that

want

what comes with the want to and the not hanging out

and you just want to hang out that that just don't fly doesn't work doesn't work

so

it's an interesting time but there's never there's not a better place on the face of the earth than to be within the walls of this country and don't ever forget it Don't let the news or the negativity or your neighbor or your mom or your sister convince you otherwise because when you start start drinking that rat poison,

you're going down a real slippery slope.

And they've been dishing that.

There's been a lot of

like people haven't been proud to be an American, it feels right.

There's been a degradation of our morals and values as a country and what we stand for.

And it feels very victimy nowadays.

Instead of,

like you said, this is the greatest country on the planet.

to come and make something with yourself.

You have more opportunity here than anywhere else.

Yep.

And that hadn't changed.

Yeah.

The

amplification

of political warfare in news and headlines doesn't change that fact.

And,

you know,

economic data,

everybody's in the short term, man.

Every person is in the short term.

I got

a fun fact, too.

What's that?

I got a fun fact also.

Yeah, but it's like everybody's in the short term.

Is everybody like, okay, the news today and the impact of that today?

No, it's this is a long game, man.

It's like stock market, in a way,

with your life, with your financial goals, and all these things.

They're all, you know, it's not, and it's not because you don't have to make bills today or this week.

I get it.

I wrote those checks all morning.

I know the pain of that, but

we can't like continue to x-ray everything down to the micro moment.

Yes.

And I'm going to jump on that with something I read yesterday.

We weren't programmed as humans to care about everything going on in the world.

We don't have that capacity.

Our brains were basically built to care and have an impact around the 150 people closest to us, our community.

We're doing a disservice and it's good to care, right?

But to turn on the news and you're getting all this influx, you got war going all over the world, financial hardships.

How much of worrying about that can you actually control?

What is worrying, you worrying about what's going on the other side of the world do?

And that's part of our problem is it's great to care,

but we weren't built to fix everyone's problems everywhere.

No.

And

I will even say that may be part of America's problem, right?

We wanted to go fix everyone else and them to do it our way.

And obviously, a lot of it was financially motivated, right?

For other resources or cheap labor.

But we got to worry about ourselves.

You got to worry about what you can control, your family, your community,

and tune it out because it's just stealing from you.

Yeah, stealing your joy.

Your joy, your energy, your focus.

Yeah, your presence with the people you're actually around.

You know, it's like life isn't that bad when you turn off all the negativity coming through the media.

Focus on the day and focus on you.

What can you control?

Exactly.

That's it.

And look, we're going to give you some tips right here.

Free AI tools.

Facebook parent Meta launches AI assistant app, further competing with OpenAI and Google, and it's free.

I was just playing with it for 30 seconds before we got on here.

I'm a chat

GPT guy.

I've said that.

I'll go ahead and just say that, but it's pretty slick.

I like the calming voice that came on and told me things, Chris.

She was very pleasant, very just calming is what I would say.

But look,

you got to use these tools, especially when they're free.

It shortcuts research, shortcuts information.

It can process things way faster than you can looking things up.

And when you're working on any project of any type, you should be leveraging these tools.

It's going to be interesting how

it also like being Facebook, it integrates with like your Facebook account so it's it's pulling in knowledge already about you and before everybody gets like the conspiracy theory gets scared we already just told you what to worry about what not worry about use this for your advantage

don't don't worry about it if you're worried about pulling something from your Facebook you shouldn't have posted it to Facebook to begin with

you're in too deep already

exactly

so I wanted to pull all my stuff I don't have any I had there been a post or two occasionally where I'm like I didn't you know I should have got in in that conference, sure.

But

99.9, I don't care.

Like, use it, help me.

May you learn more about me so you can help me do my job better, learn better, be a better parent, be a better husband.

I mean, there's knowledge

and calculating all that stuff, but it's got it, it's a dedicated app, Chris.

I went and found it, Meta AI.

Go look it up.

It's powered by Llama 4.

These names.

Llama just doesn't make me feel powerful.

I know.

The almighty Llama 4.

I'm sure it stands for something.

Yeah, language learning.

I wish I had a different name.

Language integrated.

You know.

Ask me.

Ask language.

Ask me anything.

Language learning.

Ask me anything.

There it is.

Meta's latest.

It's a large language model.

That's probably what the large language asks me anything.

We're going to start making up acronyms.

It boasts enhanced reasoning, multilingual capabilities, and better efficiency.

And

wife, pleasing recommendations.

I made that one.

You can use it for that too.

Exactly.

If you were me.

Look, I'm going to give you a prompt.

A free prompt.

Free prompts.

People pay for prompts, Chris.

You know?

Pretend that I'm a husband.

And this is, you're talking to your GPT here.

Pretend I'm a husband that's fucked up a few times with my wife.

Nothing salacious, but just like, hey, it's been a bad month.

Made some bad decisions.

Wife's not happy at me.

And you were trying to find innovative ways to make her feel better about you.

And you have kids, so you have to keep that in mind.

You have a busy schedule.

How would you handle this situation?

Could you give me five suggestions for a man in that situation?

Just ask it and the answers will be yours.

Yep.

There you go.

There's your husband.

Luckily, as a perfect husband, I've never had to ask that, but you can.

You've thought about it, though.

Yeah.

Tongue firmly in cheek.

As said.

But you can add, but that's the crazy thing.

Like, it could be your assistant for all kinds of things.

And

it's fun.

The app will offer personalized responses using context from a user's Facebook and Instagram accounts.

We talked about that.

That's good.

Integrate with Meta AI's glasses and merge with its existing companion app.

Have you ever used, have you seen Meta glasses?

Like, no.

is this for real?

Annoyed David.

We've talked about these things.

Yeah, it's like stopping.

I wonder that we had to come back to the metaverse, right?

It's like, no one cares, guys.

Let it go.

A page description for advanced chatbot features will begin testing in Q2.

The revenue impact may not be seen until next year.

Llama Con is the AI developer event.

Of course, it is.

Meta is hosting Llama Con, its first AI developer event, focused on showcasing its llama AI models.

It really could have gone just

a strong llama.

That could have at least been a donkey, you know, donkey AI or something.

Or some lion or something.

Apple has like lion,

snow leopard.

I mean, that's cool shit.

You know, I want a snow leopard, you know, AI

reasoning engine.

I want a Mayan,

you know, but I'm a llama.

Donkey AI.

It's,

it is what it is.

We don't take ourselves too seriously around here.

Anyway, I do, but everything we're saying about AI, you need to listen to.

We will pan it a little bit, though, because you do wonder what happens behind these boardrooms.

You can tell it's tech people, name, and shit.

You know, you need to get some marketers in there.

Like,

need some like fierce AI, fierce,

the fierce model learning llama engine,

fierce llama.

At least put it like a you know, something on top of it.

Like, how about

loyal llama?

Hey, the loyal llama.

Okay.

All right.

Makes it sound better.

Oh, it's all horrible.

You can't make llama sound cool.

Yeah, it's true.

It's true, Chris.

Not even me.

No, not even with that voice tone.

Yeah.

Oh,

U.S.

sports merchandising group, Fanatics, plots Global Trading Card Expansion.

We've been telling you folks, and that trading card series is starting in about two weeks.

It's a fun series, but it's an eye-opener on the data and the numbers around this shit.

It's crazy.

Fanatics Global Trading Card Ambitions.

Founder and CEO Michael Rubin projects $3 billion in trading trading card and collectibles revenue for the company by 2026,

expanding aggressively in international markets.

Banax acquired tops trading cards for $500 million in 2022.

Collectibles revenue hit $1.6 billion in 2024, expected to top $2 billion this year

and $3 billion the next year.

That sounds like pretty damn good growth, but just adding B's right after another billion, billion, billion.

he said uh

Rubin attribute attributes the boom to increased disposable income and boredom I'm like really that's their market analysis yeah I was expecting something a little more interesting than that finax opened the first trading course store in London on Regent Street Purpose is marketing and a model for entrepreneurs.

It's all about showing people what the store should look like and how it should work.

So they're essentially showing Europe how trading card stores should operate.

So then you get spin-offs from that.

Fnatics overall revenue expected to hit 9 billion this year and 11 billion in 26.

Fnatics will gain exclusive rights to the English Premier League trading cards and stickers in June 2025.

Taking over from Panini.

Panini and Topps are just like battling back and forth.

They needed to figure out a merger.

I don't know why they did.

It's not good for the business.

It's like, it's the stupidest shit.

But now that that I'm in it and I'm seeing all of it and I see, you know, Chris, this is what happened.

This year, like for NFL, Panini's had the exclusive rights to the NFL.

So what that means is tops cards this year doesn't have any logos on it.

So you'll get like,

you know, Josh Allen, but it has no Buffalo Bills logo.

It says Buffalo and it says Bills, but there's no logos.

on their helmets or their jerseys.

It's odd.

And it's like unnecessary.

I'm like, like, why can't you sell more than one license to both companies?

If they both want to make cards, then double it up here.

But starting next year, Topps is going to have a Panini want, then their cards won't have Logan.

It's just dumb.

It's dumb.

It's not good for the, you know.

It's not good for the culture.

No.

It's like,

I don't, and it keeps me from buying certain cards.

I'm like, that looks stupid.

Yeah, well, if you want it, probably not worth as much, too.

Well, the Tops is Topps.

See, that's the thing.

They go to these other measures to make it.

They do,

get the autographs agreements with some of the hottest players.

So then, if you want that player's card as a rookie with an autograph, you have to buy the tops first, and he has no logo on his helmet

because Panini doesn't have his autograph.

It's like, huh?

You can't get the best of all worlds.

I want the logo and the autograph.

Exactly.

That's what it does to the collectors.

It's making it harder for collectors.

Yep.

So

there it is.

More Americans are financing groceries with buy now pay later loans.

It's hard for me to know if there's a reflection definitively of

the exact economics of terrorist right now, or if this is just a proliferation of the buy now, pay layer expanding into more things.

Yeah.

Like it's a little bit of both.

I mean.

I wanted that steak last night.

I didn't quite have enough money, but I wanted it, so I'm going to finance this baby over 30 days.

Interest-free.

What a world.

I mean, what?

Coachella,

you know more about this story than me.

I mean, we're not

a big story.

Same concept.

It was something like, actually, Avin says in this article, a recent surge in buy now, pay later use even includes Coachella ticket purchases.

And it was something like 70% or 80% of the attendees of Coachella had all used buy now pay later options.

Oh, my God.

Which Coachella is a very bougie, you know, big music festival in the desert, very expensive.

It's the place to be, right?

So

that kind of even shows you even in that world,

people are

stretching, stretching their cash.

Yeah.

The

I just think

back to kind of like the topic we talked about, you know, people kind of want the spoils without the work.

It's like, oh, I'm going to keep this lifestyle up, but I don't want to go work for it.

I mean, that's kind of where my head goes.

The Coachella, not talking about the groceries.

Yeah.

And people are fed up, honestly.

I've been seeing a lot of people like

just talking about their credit scores in general.

They're like, just, I don't care anymore.

Like,

and I don't know if that's a good thing, right?

It's almost like people are just getting pounded down so hard

that they're

becoming indifferent.

Well, I think it goes back to their playing, everybody's playing the day game and not the long game.

How great can I make today without working hard for?

Yeah,

and I think just we're under extremely shitty financial conditions for the average 18 to 25-year-old, you know.

Yeah, it's harder to get like great jobs, but at the same time, it's still back to the internet and AI and all these things.

There's lots of ways to kind of put it together if you want to piece it together.

But

there's becoming fewer of

is the handout of

easy to get this job that is pretty decent.

Those are becoming harder to get.

It's easier for those that have the want to,

you know, to get in on it and probably make more than they ever would have from the, you know, sort of the easy handout job.

And now

they're having to sort of,

I don't know, work for it a little harder.

Well, and I think we got people that aren't just, they don't built for that, you know, like our engineers and these other types of people that AI is probably taking their jobs that like they're not entrepreneur type people, you know.

Like,

not everyone is going to be successful on internet money and YouTube, you know.

But

I think people's expectations are definitely out of reach.

And a lot of it's because the internet, and a lot of it, we know it's bullshit, right?

I mean, exactly a million dollars last month, I can teach you all that bullshit

exactly.

Not a lot of major headlines

this week, keeping it more about the sentiment overall.

Any final thoughts, articles, et cetera, Chris?

Hot topics?

Crypto's looking a little better than it was.

Bitcoin's around 94,000 today.

So it was, you know, touched down to like 76,000 within the last month.

So it's looking brighter than it was.

How's that Trump coin doing?

I have some.

I don't know.

I haven't looked at it.

Yeah.

I hope it's not.

XRP is doing is coming back around to where it was, you know, maybe 60, 90 days ago.

Still way up from the last six or seven months.

That's where you got to play the long game.

I'm not even looking at it.

I stopped looking at it.

I used to look at it every day.

I don't even look at it.

I look at it like once a week.

Like, okay, let's just see what's happening.

I'd probably get a notification if it either tanked or went up majorly.

And I'm not getting any news.

So

it's doing this

pretty much.

So, you know, I'm waiting for that big pop, though.

I think we're going to get it here in the next few months, maybe towards the end of the year.

But, hey, a little discomfort to get to the better places.

Still the best place on earth to live.

Don't forget that.

And don't forget to leave us a review.

If you like the show, we appreciate it.

Leave a review.

That helps.

All the feedback helps.

Tell us you want to hear Chris Broby Hanson on Instagram.

I'm at Ryan Alford too.

So you can hit us up there.

Give us a shout out anytime.

Chris, appreciate you, brother.

Likewise, my man.

Hey, RyanisRight.com.

Find the highlight clips, the full episode.

All our sponsors, go support them as well.

If they support us,

and we support you.

We'll see you next time or right about now.

This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Thanks for listening.