United States of America eSeries: Good luck, millennials 🏡

Good luck, millennials 🏡

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Tonight: Just when you thought the housing market couldn't get more ridiculous, Wall Street shows up. Plus: a cat named Indiana Bones (just because it's Monday and we need it.) Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

🏡 GOUGING MILLENNIALS

Welcome to yet another edition of "Millennials Will Be Renting Forever, Thanks Boomers."

We've been exhaustively following the overheated housing market, in which demand far outstrips supply, leading to bidding wars that end in all-cash deals at thousands or even millions of dollars over asking, yada yada yada.

That environment was already pushing younger and less affluent homebuyers out of the market completely. But here's another log for that dumpster fire: Wall Street's getting into the landlord business.

As my colleague Hanna Ziady reports, a bunch of pension funds, investment firms and banks are snapping up family homes — betting that demand for suburban houses will hold steady as work-from-home becomes more permanent.

Here's why:

Institutional investors aren't getting much of a return on government bonds at the moment, so they're turning to mostly-millennial renters to "diversify their income streams," in the parlance of people whose 20s weren't defined by a global financial hellscape.
Single-family rental values in the United States are 15% above their pre-Covid level. Renting out those homes is expected to deliver annual returns of 6.8% to private investors in the next three years, according to real estate analytics firm Green Street. That's pretty solid.
Meanwhile, incomes have not kept pace with rising home values, a trend made worse by the pandemic. Average house prices in both the US and the UK are now at record highs.

In short: Despite record-low mortgage rates in America, housing affordability is worsening. But for established investors, rental income is a perpetual gold mine. That's because the people who are renting houses are largely in their 30s, making enough money to rent a house but nowhere near enough to buy a place of their own. And many never will, because they're in the rent cycle that's feeding someone else's retirement.

And if you thought it was tough getting Louie the super in 3C to make repairs, just wait till you try calling a corporate landlord with thousands of homes in its portfolio to tell them the radiator's on the fritz.

💰 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$29 billion

Square is spending $29 billion to acquire the "buy now, pay later" service Afterpay, the largest-ever acquisition of an Australian company. Afterpay and other services that allow customers to pay in installments without having to undergo a credit check have become big businesses in the era of online shopping, though critics say they also push people into making ill-advised financial decisions. Like, buying a $400 dress during a pandemic when you have no events to go to... Or so I'm told.

👀 APPLE-TESLA LORE

Picture this: It's 2016. Drake's "One Dance" is on the radio. The news is all about the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And somewhere in the world, a historic $60 billion deal is getting torpedoed over an insane demand.

At the time, Tesla was in serious financial trouble and CEO Elon Musk was considering selling his company to Apple. Obviously, that deal never got done, and there are conflicting reports about the reasons why. But a Los Angeles Times review of a forthcoming book about Tesla offers an irresistibly audacious anecdote of the conversation that sank the deal.

As the book by WSJ reporter Tim Higgins tells it:

Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook are on the phone, and Musk is interested in selling, but on one condition: "I'm CEO."

Sure, says Cook. (After all, when Apple bought Beats in 2014, it kept on the founders)

No, Musk says. Apple. Apple CEO.

"F— you" Cook says, and hangs up.

For their part, Musk and Cook have denied ever speaking to each other. But the Muski-an audacity sure rings true, no?

💸 FIE ON FEES

Two major lenders have eliminated bank overdraft fees. One more and we've got ourselves a trend...

On Monday, Alliant became the largest credit union and second-largest financial institution to say goodbye to the fees that consumer advocates criticize as unfairly punishing society's most vulnerable. It's eliminating both overdraft and non-sufficient fund fees, my colleague Matt Egan reports.

In June, Ally Bank also scrapped overdraft charges, which average around $35 and are a huge source of revenue for banks. These fees brought in $12.4 billion in 2020 alone, according to data analytics company FinHealth.

WHY IT'S A BIG DEAL

Lenders are being forced to rethink overdraft fees because the big banks are no longer the only game in town. Digital startup lenders are gaining an edge with young customers who don't care about branch locations or face-to-face customer service. Not to mention the growing chorus of consumers and lawmakers who recognize that charging a fee to someone struggling to get by is objectively immoral.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

🚀 Boeing on Tuesday is slated to launch its Starliner spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station, a follow-up to its botched first attempt 18 months ago.

💉 Equinox became the latest business to require not only its staff but also its customers to provide proof of vaccination against Covid-19.

☀️ Reese Witherspoon's media company, Hello Sunshine, is being sold to a new company backed by private equity firm Blackstone and led by former Disney executives.