The 85-year-old lifestyle mogul has since deleted the post and apologized…twice.
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Montreal looks to streamline approvals using standardized housing plans
The city is working with its boroughs to adapt federal catalogue designs to local rules, although projects would still require site-specific review and approval.
The Best Dividend Stocks to Buy With $5,000 in November
Over the past year, many dividend stocks lost their luster for two reasons. First, higher-growth AI stocks continuously pulled investors away from conservative income stocks. Second, the Fed’s rate hike in September — its first in three years — drove up the yields of safer fixed-income investments and made them more attractive than blue chip dividend stocks.
That pressure might persist through the end of the year, but it’s creating attractive buying opportunities for income investors who plan to hold their dividend stocks for the long term. Let’s look at three dividend stocks that are worth buying with $5,000 (or more) in November: AbbVie (ABBV -2.10%), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -1.51%), and Medtronic (MDT +1.93%).
Image source: Getty Images.
AbbVie
AbbVie, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, has raised its dividend annually for 53 consecutive years. That makes it a Dividend King, or a company that has continuously raised its payout for at least 50 consecutive years.
AbbVie’s forward yield of 2.4% might seem low compared to the 10-Year Treasury’s 4.9% yield. However, it still has ample room for future hikes, since it spent only two-thirds of its free cash flow (FCF) on dividends over the past 12 months. It’s also generated a total return of 199% over the past five years, easily beating the S&P 500‘s (^GSPC +0.54%) total return of 77%.
ABBV AbbVie
$288.70-$6.19 (-2.10%)
NYSE · As of 12:17 PM ET 11/02/26
Past performance never guarantees future gains, but AbbVie’s future still looks bright. Over the past few years, it has offset the loss of U.S. exclusivity for Humira, its blockbuster autoimmune drug, by acquiring companies (including Allergan, ImmunoGen, and Cerevel) and ramping up sales of two new immunology drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq.
From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect AbbVie’s adjusted EPS to grow at a 22% CAGR. Those are impressive growth rates for a stock that trades at 18 times next year’s earnings.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson is another Dividend King that has raised its payout for 64 consecutive years. It pays only a 2% forward yield, but it spent just 64% of its FCF on dividends over the past 12 months. It also delivered a total return of 89% over the past five years.
Over the past several years, J&J streamlined its massive business by divesting its slower-growth divisions. Today, it operates two main businesses: Innovative Medicine, which sells pharmaceutical products; and MedTech, which sells medical devices.
JNJ Johnson & Johnson
$269.09-$4.12 (-1.51%)
NYSE · As of 12:19 PM ET 11/02/26
The Innovative Medicine segment drives most of its growth, and it’s been ramping up its production of new drugs — including Tremfya for autoimmune disorders and Icotye for psoriasis — to offset its loss of U.S. patent exclusivity for Stelara, its blockbuster psoriasis drug. It also owns a diverse portfolio of patent-protected cancer, autoimmune, and cardiopulmonary drugs.
From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect J&J’s adjusted EPS to grow at a 9% CAGR. It’s still reasonably valued at 25 times next year’s earnings, and should remain a popular defensive stock to hold if the broader market pulls back.
Medtronic
Medtronic, one of the world’s top medical device makers, has raised its dividend for 49 consecutive years and is on track to become a Dividend King next year. It pays a forward yield of 3%, and its dividends only consumed 60% of its FCF over the past 12 months.
MDT Medtronic
$98.40+$1.86 (+1.93%)
NYSE · As of 12:16 PM ET 11/02/26
But over the past five years, Medtronic delivered a negative total return of 5%. Without reinvested dividends, its stock price fell 19%. It struggled with supply chain constraints, inflation, forex headwinds, an uneven recovery in elective procedures post-pandemic, and regulatory challenges in its diabetes unit. It also grappled with quality-control issues and the growing use of GLP-1 drugs, which could throttle demand for certain medical procedures.
However, Medtronic’s future looks a lot brighter. Over the past two fiscal years (which ended in April), its earnings grew again as its component costs normalized, it expanded its higher-growth cardiovascular businesses, and it spun off its diabetes unit as MiniMed (MMED +2.82%).
From fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2029, analysts expect its adjusted EPS to grow at an 8% CAGR. Its stock still looks like a bargain at 15 times next year’s earnings, and it should attract more attention once more investors realize it’s overcoming its previous challenges.
Successful but Unfulfilled: What Physicians Should Ask Before Taking the Next Promotion
Years ago, I had what I thought was my dream job. I loved the people I worked with. I loved what I was doing.
But if I’m honest with you, that by itself wasn’t enough.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because I keep hearing a version of it from other physicians. Department chairs. Section chiefs. People who, from the outside, have everything they worked for.
Some of them have the next job on the table. A bigger title at another institution, which means uprooting themselves and their family and moving to a new city. The question they ask me isn’t whether they can get it. They know they can. The question is whether it would be worth it. Whether they’d actually be any happier.
If you’re successful but unfulfilled, you’re not ungrateful, and you’re not the only one. Below is why it happens, what the research says actually makes people happy, and the questions I’d ask before taking the next step up.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Any investment involves risk, and you should consult your financial advisor, attorney, or CPA before making any investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The author and associated entities disclaim any liability for loss incurred as a result of the use of this material or its content.
Why do successful physicians feel unfulfilled?
Most successful physicians who feel unfulfilled aren’t burned out. They finished the climb they were trained for, and nothing took its place.
Think about how we got here. Somebody handed us a path. Get the grades. Get into med school, then residency, then fellowship. Become an attending. Make partner or get promoted. Run the section. Run the department.
Every rung had a next rung, clearly labeled. Nobody along the way stopped and asked, and then what?
So we climbed, and we got very good at it. That’s what the system selects for: people who can keep their head down and keep moving toward the next thing for twenty years. Somewhere in there, climbing stops being something you do and becomes who you are.
Then one day the ladder ends. You’re the chair. You’re the chief. There’s no obvious next rung, or the next one looks a lot like the one you’re standing on. And it gets quiet.
That flatness is not a character flaw, and it’s not ingratitude. You can be deeply grateful for your life and still feel it. It’s what happens when the goal was the climb itself.
I’ve written before about the arrival fallacy, the belief that I’ll be happy when I get there. This is the next chapter of that. It isn’t “I’ll be happy when.” It’s “I’m here. Now what?”
Is this a midlife crisis?
Partly, yes. And that isn’t an insult.
We turned the midlife crisis into a punchline. The guy who buys the sports car. The one who blows up his marriage. So nobody wants to admit they might be in one. But the pattern underneath it is real, and it isn’t just men. Women go through it too.
The research is surprisingly consistent. Economist David Blanchflower looked at well-being data from 132 countries and found the same U-shaped curve almost everywhere. Life satisfaction drifts down through early adulthood, bottoms out in midlife, and comes back up. In advanced economies, the low point averaged about age 47 (Blanchflower, NBER 2020).
So if you’re in it, you’re not broken. You’re roughly on schedule.
A few things tend to land at once in your forties and fifties. The career goals you set in your twenties are either done or clearly not going to happen. Your kids need you differently, or they’re about to leave. Your parents need you more. And your own body starts reminding you that you won’t be here forever.
For physicians, it can hit harder. We spent our twenties and a good part of our thirties in training. We told ourselves we’d live later. Then we look up, later is now, and we’re not sure we know how.
The sports car isn’t the crisis. It’s a bad answer to a real question: is this the life I want to spend the rest of my time on?
Will a bigger job make you happier?
Probably not for long, and the research on that is pretty clear.
Psychologists call it hedonic adaptation. We get used to almost every positive change. The raise. The new title. There’s a bump, and within months it becomes your new normal, with a bigger baseline to protect.
The classic example is lottery winners. In one well-known study, people who had won between $50,000 and $1 million were no happier than a comparison group just one to 18 months after winning. Job changes follow the same pattern. Managers who switched jobs got a rise in job satisfaction right after the move, and it faded within about a year. Researchers call those the honeymoon and the hangover (Fritz, Walsh, and Lyubomirsky, 2017).
The chairs and chiefs I talk with have already been through that cycle several times. Each promotion was a bump that faded. There’s no reason to expect the next one to work differently.
And look honestly at what the bigger job usually is. It’s the same job description with more of it. More meetings, more politics, more nights answering email. Less time with patients, which for a lot of these physicians was the part they actually loved. Then there’s the cost to the family: a new school for the kids, a new city for your spouse, and leaving the people who’d show up if something went wrong.
None of this is an argument against ambition. Some people should take the job. They should take it because it serves the life they want, not because it’s the next rung and climbing is the only move anyone ever taught them.
What actually makes people happy?
The best long-term evidence points to one thing above the rest: the quality of your relationships.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development began in 1938 and has followed its participants, and now their children, for more than eight decades. Robert Waldinger, the psychiatrist who directs it, says the strongest predictors of who stayed happy and healthy over a lifetime were the warmth and quality of their relationships (KUNC/NPR interview, 2023). Not how many people they knew. Whether they had people they could call in the middle of the night.
That’s uncomfortable for physicians. Relationships are usually the first thing we cut when work gets busy. We miss the dinner. We miss the game. We tell ourselves we’ll make it up later.
When I put that next to my conversations with these chairs, it clicked. What was missing for them wasn’t competence. These are some of the most capable people I know. What was missing was control over their own time and closeness to the people who matter most. Both had slipped, mostly without them noticing.
A bigger job, at a new institution, in a new city, takes more of both.
Questions to ask before your next career move
In those conversations, we talked about titles, institutions, and comp. We never got to the question that mattered most: what do you actually want your life to look like? Not your career. Your life.
These are the questions I’d ask now. Take your time with them, and write the answers down.
- What three or four things matter most to you? Not what should matter. Not what your parents or your program director thought should matter. What actually does.
- How much of a normal week goes to those things? Not vacation. A Tuesday. Pick a real Tuesday from last month and look at where the hours went.
- How much time do you realistically have left with the people you care about? If your parents are in their seventies and you see them twice a year, that’s not a big number. If your kids are twelve and fifteen, the same math applies.
- What would you do with the next five years if the title didn’t matter to anyone? If nobody was keeping score.
If your honest answers point toward the new job, take it, and take it with clear eyes. If they don’t, you have your answer too.
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Money is a tool, not the scoreboard
Most of us treat money like the scoreboard without realizing it. It’s a tool for the life you want.
What changed my thinking on this is that the window to actually use it is narrower than we assume. There’s a stretch when you have the health, the energy, the money, and the people, all at the same time. For most physicians, that window is open right now, in their forties and fifties. It closes on a schedule nobody controls.
Bill Perkins makes this case in Die With Zero. The idea that stuck with me is that experiences have a shelf life. The trip you take with your kids at 45 is not the same trip at 75. Your parents may not be around for the second one. Your knees may not be either.
So every year spent climbing toward a rung you’re not sure you want is a year out of that window. That’s the real cost. Not the money. The year.
This isn’t about quitting and going to travel. It’s about deciding on purpose. Take the job if it serves the life. Turn it down if it doesn’t. Just know which one you’re doing.
The best season of my father’s life
My dad was a surgeon. He came to this country after medical school, barely spoke English when he started residency, and built a private practice from nothing. After he retired, he did mission work. By any measure, a full career.
I asked him once when the best time of his life was.
He didn’t have to think about it. He said, “When you kids were still at home.”
He didn’t name the year he built the practice. He didn’t mention a title. It was the stretch when the people he loved were under the same roof, and he was mostly too busy to notice.
I think about that answer a lot, especially when I’m tempted to take on one more thing.
So here’s a question to sit with. If you had to name the best season of your life so far, what was actually in it? Who was there? And is what you’re building right now going to give you more of that, or less?
I talk through this in more depth on episode #340 of the Passive Income MD Podcast. If you’d like more of these conversations, you can join the PIMD newsletter.
Were these helpful in any way? Make sure to sign up for the newsletter and join the Passive Income Docs Facebook Group for more physician-tailored content.
Peter Kim, MD is the founder of Passive Income MD, the creator of Passive Real Estate Academy, and offers weekly education through his Monday podcast, the Passive Income MD Podcast. Join our community at the Passive Income Doc Facebook Group.
Disclaimer: I am not a CPA, attorney, or financial advisor. The information in this post is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as tax, legal, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation before making any decisions.
Further Reading
Mercury Business Checking Account Review (2026.11 Update: $500 Offer)
[2026.11 Update] The new account opening bonus is $500. You only need to deposit $5,000, with no direct deposit (DD) requirement or need to tie up your money for months. A generous offer! Deadline: November 30, 2026.
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Bonus Requirements
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Summary
With just a $5,000 deposit, no need to tie up your money for months, and no annoying DD requirement, this $500 bonus is quite attractive! Readers who already have a registered company may want to consider it. For ongoing use, the main benefits are no monthly fee and free USD wires.
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S&P’s negative outlook on Meta underscores the risks of the AI spending boom
Good morning. Following the recent third-quarter tech earnings reports, Wall Street is increasingly questioning the sustainability of the AI spending boom.
Late Friday, S&P Global revised its outlook on Meta to “negative” from “stable,” citing negative cash flow and uncertainty around its capital expenditure plans, Fortune’s Jason Ma reports. The agency affirmed Meta’s AA- credit rating but warned that the company’s leverage could exceed 1.0x as early as 2027.
That’s the threshold for Meta’s current rating. Leverage is up from about 0.1x in 2025, largely because of Meta’s strategy of leasing data-center capacity, rather than relying solely on traditional debt financing.
S&P projects Meta’s capex will reach $140 billion this year, exceed $225 billion in 2027 and hit $252 billion in 2028 before flattening out. It expects free operating cash flow to remain negative: -$22 billion this year, -$71 billion in 2027 and -$39 billion in 2028.
Other hyperscalers are also running cash deficits. According to S&P, Meta is taking a different approach to monetizing its AI investments than its rivals. While competitors can lease compute capacity to frontier model labs and enterprise customers, Meta is betting on improved advertising tools and new revenue streams from agentic apps like Muse. However, S&P said it is “unclear when these revenue streams will generate material contributions that exceed their rising costs.”
Meta disagrees. A spokesperson said in a statement to Fortune that its AI investments are already delivering stronger engagement and greater returns for businesses.
The broader backdrop is shifting, too. OpenAI reportedly cut its latest fundraising target to $20 billion from $30 billion. And Alphabet had its worst day on record after reporting negative free cash flow for a second consecutive quarter. Read more here.
For CFOs, the implications extend beyond Big Tech: lease commitments count toward leverage, and the market wants a credible timeline for turning AI spending into revenue. Not everyone sees a bust, though. Market veteran Ed Yardeni argues that constraints on capital, power and politics could actually make the boom last longer.
Sheryl Estrada
Sheryl.Estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Andrew Kang, CFO of Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), a Bitcoin-focused business intelligence company, will officially step down on Nov. 5 for personal reasons, not as a result of any operational or policy disagreements, according to the company. Kang will continue serving Strategy in an advisory capacity through Dec. 31. Reza Virasteh, currently EVP of operations, will assume the CFO role on Jan. 1. Strategy President and CEO Phong Le will temporarily oversee the finance organization and manage the transition beginning Nov. 6.
Darby Kopp was promoted to CFO of EBSCO Information Services. Kopp brings more than 25 years of experience across finance, operations, and corporate development. Since joining EBSCO in 2015, he has been a key member of the company’s leadership team. Most recently, he served as EVP of corporate strategy and development. Before joining, Kopp held roles spanning venture capital investing, mergers and acquisitions, and financial leadership in the technology and healthcare industries.
Big Deal
Bank of America Institute’s latest Business Checkpoint highlights resilience among small and mid-sized businesses, with positive third-quarter profitability growth increasingly challenged by logistics costs and supply-chain pressures.
Nearly half of estimated tariff payments had been refunded by September, providing some relief, although refunds as a share of revenue had peaked. Logistics spending growth per client was four times higher for small businesses than for mid-sized firms, suggesting smaller companies face more pronounced cost pressures.
Meanwhile, constrained driver availability and tighter trucking capacity are pushing freight rates higher ahead of the holiday season and driving strong transportation-sector payroll growth, particularly among mid-sized businesses. Overall, the report depicts businesses on relatively solid financial footing but facing growing operational headwinds as shipping and distribution pressures intensify.
Going deeper
In the latest episode of McKinsey Talks Talent podcast, Stanford research psychologist Jamil Zaki talks about the effects of AI on employees and what empathic leaders do differently to strengthen workplace connections and realize growth. Managing change with empathy helps leaders build trust, strengthen relationships, and get the most out of their AI investments, according to Zaki.
“When people feel connected, they do a lot better at work,” he said. “Disengagement costs the global economy about $10 trillion a year, so anything we can do to make people feel more connected to their work is economically powerful.”
Overheard
“We board planes without understanding how they fly because industry and regulators answer for our safety. We need a similar framework for AI assistants. If companies want our inboxes, accounts and errands, they must earn our trust by clarifying what we’re authorizing, how to regain control, and answer for mistakes their assistants make in our name.”
—Miriam Vogel, president and CEO of EqualAI, writes in a Fortune opinion piece. Vogel is the former chair of the National AI Advisory Committee and a former associate deputy attorney general of the U.S.
ASX rises despite Wall Street's tech and AI sell-off | Finance Report | ABC NEWS
The Australian share market ended its day slightly higher. That was despite a tech sell-off on Wall Street as investors are growing increasingly sceptical about the economics of the AI investment boom.
Shares of Cleanaway Waste Management jumped 20 per cent after it signed a $9.4 billion takeover deal with Swedish investment firm EQT. Challenger shares jumped 19 per cent after the investment manager received a buyout offer from a Japanese life insurer, valuing it at almost $8 billion.
Meanwhile, Ampol’s fuel refining margin has more than doubled, thanks to wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Presented by David Chau.
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How “Vibe” Investing Made Me $57,000 in Real Estate
When Obi Johns was a teenager, he saw his parents do something remarkable: they sold their home and made $150,000 from market appreciation alone. But then, months later, the investor who bought his childhood home sold it AGAIN for nearly $400,000 profit. Obi looked at his family and thought, “That should have been us.”
So, after graduating college with a degree he had little interest in, he quickly decided to get into the real estate game—but as an agent. As he grew, he saw his clients flipping houses and knew he wanted to do it, too, not just to make money, but to understand the buyer and seller in the transaction. Obi had zero experience, but he documented his first house flip on Instagram, which went viral overnight and led to 26 showings in a single day.
The best part? Obi didn’t use the copy-and-paste flipper finishes most buyers are tired of; he let his audience decide the design—and it worked. Obi walked away from that flip with a $40,000+ profit, and the next one was even bigger. Obi details his entire “vibe flipping” model to get over-asking offers in a matter of days, and how you can test as you invest in your first deals, too.
Henry:
When Obie Johns was a teenager, he saw his parents do something remarkable. They sold their home and made $150,000 just from appreciation. But then the same investor who bought his childhood home sold it again for nearly $400,000 more. Obi looked at his family and though, “That should have been us.” As soon as he graduated college, he knew what he wanted to do, real estate. And at just 21 years old, Obi became an agent. He bought his first duplex with 5% down and he house hacked it. But after that, he went in a very different direction. Obi saw his clients flipping and though, “I can do that too.” Zoe bought his first flip for $153,000 with zero experience, and he documented every step of the journey on his Instagram. And from that, he went viral and got 26 showings in a single day. And the best part, he let his followers decide the finishes and the design for the house.
He calls it vibe flipping. He made over $40,000 on his first vibe flip and even more on more recent ones. So how did someone starting at 21 with zero experience beat out all the experienced investors in the market? Today, Obi is showing you how.
What’s going on everybody? I’m Henry Washington. I am the co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast and my co-host Dave Meyer is here as well. And we’ve got an investor story today with Obie Johns from Columbus, Ohio. So let’s bring on Obi. Mr. Obi Johns, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I hear congratulations are in order, man.
Obi:
Congrats to you.
Dave:
Yeah. Expectant father.
Obi:
We are excited. Yeah, we’re about 12 weeks in.
Dave:
That’s awesome.
Obi:
So we should be finding out if it’s a boy or girl pretty soon. We’re pumped either way. I’m feeling like it’s a boy, so we’ll have to come back and see.
Henry:
All right. We got a couple girl dads here though.
Obi:
Okay. All right. I’ll be reaching out for some real estate advice and maybe some fathering advice.
Henry:
Awesome. Well, now we can get started. Why don’t you tell us about how you got into real estate and give us a little bit of your background.
Obi:
Yeah. My name’s Obi Johns. I am a realtor of five going on six years now. I went to Ohio State. I was majoring in political science and it took me about four years and a college degree to realize that I didn’t love politics and a little bit of money as well that I gave them to figure that out. And so I graduated into COVID, real estate was booming, 3% rates. Everyone’s talking about investment properties and I was looking at a career pivot. And so I figured, you know what? Now’s the time to figure out if this real estate thing works for me. I hear stuff about passive income, financial freedom from pages like BiggerPockets. So I started getting my real estate license. While I was getting licensed, I dabbled in a little bit of wholesaling, got licensed, bought my first rental property, did a house hack, dabbled in flipping.
I tried everything that I learned from podcasts and books. I wanted to make sure that I knew what the full extent of real estate investing looked like. And so I’ve basically tried every way to real estate invest. I’m actually sitting in what is going to be our first short-term rental. I think that was maybe the last box that I needed to check. And it’s been a good five years.
Henry:
And I’ve heard you say a few times that you knew you wanted to be an investor. I knew I wanted to be an investor. Where did that seed get planted? Because that sounds like more than just I watched a podcast.
Obi:
Yeah. Well, right before I went to college, my parents sold our childhood home. They bought it for $80,000 in the late ’90s. And we ended up selling it as a fixer-upper about 20 years later for, I want to say like $230,000. And to me, I just though that was crazy that we got to live in that house for 20 years and my dad got paid to live there. We didn’t really do a whole lot of improvements to it. It was just a good location that appreciated. But what surprised me even more and what got me really intrigued in real estate is when the investor who bought it from us put it back on the market three months later for $600,000 and he got it. He sold it pretty quickly.
Dave:
Wow.
Obi:
And I just couldn’t help but think, why couldn’t that have been us? Why couldn’t we have taken it to $80,000 purchase, $600,000 sale? Him doing it so quickly just made me think this is something I need to figure out.
Dave:
So you were an agent before you did your first deal?
Obi:
That’s correct. My first deal was helping someone sell their first house actually. I did retail and investor business for about a year or two until I bought my first property, which is a duplex. Everyone’s saying house hacking, great way to get into real estate. I was able to buy a house and spend half what other people are spending to live in a home. And I got to ride appreciation on a property that someone else is paying half the payment for.
Dave:
You’re an agent, so did you just find this deal on the MLS? What was your buy box like when you went out to buy this house hack?
Obi:
So I actually found it, I want to say somewhat off market. I was going to real estate meetups in my city and I met an investor who flips 50, 60 houses a year. He keeps a lot his rentals. So we met, I followed him on social media and I see on his story one day that he is taking a video of a duplex that he’s almost done renovating and he was going to rent it out. And it was at a very small buy box when I was looking for our first house. I was actually looking in my childhood neighborhood that we sold our first home. And so there’s not a lot of inventory. There’s probably 100 duplexes in the entire area that I was looking. Most are rented out. They’ve been rented for 15 years and they don’t hit the market very often. So I saw his story.
I asked him where that duplex was. He gave me the address. It was three blocks from my childhood home.
Henry:
That’s crazy.
Dave:
Awesome.
Obi:
Perfect. And I said, “Can I please come see it? I will be there in 20 minutes.” And so I went over, I looked at it. It was 90% done. He was just doing the finishing touches. I loved it right away. My wife and I, we had been renting a one bedroom apartment and we had been thinking about –
Henry:
Oh, you would’ve loved anything you saw then is what I meant.
Obi:
Well, yeah. So we just needed space. We needed out of the bedroom/office that we were working out of.
Dave:
This is exactly how you convince people to house hack. Henry and I talk about this all the time. Everyone’s like, “Oh, house hacking, it’s so inconvenient.” But if you’re coming from a studio apartment that you’re sharing –
Obi:
Yeah, you’re in a one bedroom, anything is more convenient.
Henry:
It’s a Taj Mahal.
Dave:
Everything’s better.
Obi:
So we toured the house. I needed to get my wife on board. She lived in newer homes mostly growing up. And in Columbus, our zoning code is a bit strict. So most of the duplexes are going to be a hundred years old because in the 50s, 60s, I kind of stopped zoning for multifamily. So a hundred-year-old duplex was our only option. And this one was fully renovated. It had an open layout kitchen, everything that my wife was expecting in her first home. And so we ended up making our compromises. I don’t think that she thought our first home would also inherit renters or we would rent out half of it. And I didn’t necessarily need to have the flashy open layout and everything.
Dave:
So
Obi:
It
Dave:
Just
Obi:
Really worked out for us.
Dave:
That’s perfect. And how’d you finance this deal?
Obi:
We went conventional. I want to say it was a low down payment, maybe 5% down just with a lender that I worked with a lot on referring to my clients as a realtor. So it was pretty smooth.
Dave:
Were you able to cash flow right away?
Obi:
So I want to say that we were probably about breaking even when we first moved in. It was a lot cheaper than other rentals would be. I think we were looking at 2,200 for a two bedroom apartment at the time.
Dave:
Oh, Columbus got expensive,
Henry:
Right?
Obi:
Columbus got pretty pricey and post – COVID, and we’re not far from OSU campus. There’s just a lot of people moving here for college, and so there’s a lot of demand. I’d say between 2000 and 2200 would get you an updated two bedroom apartment. Our mortgage on the duplex was about 3,400 and we rented one side out for 18, so that left us with maybe 1,600 that we were paying ourselves. So we looked at it as a win that we were getting an extra bedroom for $600 less than the market would’ve allowed us.
Dave:
Huge win.
Obi:
And once we move out of here and get both sides rented, we should cash flow, I want to say about $500.
Henry:
We’ve got to take a pause, but we’ll be right back with more from agent and investor Obi John’s right after the break.
Dave:
Before we go to break, if you’re someone who’s bought a couple of deals and you’re looking to scale up your portfolio into something bigger, I have a really exciting announcement for you. BiggerPockets is hosting its first ever conference focused just on scaling up. It’s this December, it’s coming up soon, this December, 5th through 7th in Phoenix, Arizona. We’re going to have a full day of programming with speakers like myself, James Daynard, Kathy Fecke, and Devon Kinard talking about how to scale up and build a sustainable business. Tickets are on sale now, but there are only 100 tickets. So go to biggerpockets.com/conferences now and get your ticket today.
Henry:
What’s going on everybody? We are back on the BiggerPockets podcast. We’re talking with agent and investor Obi Johns. Let’s dive back in. You did a house hack and you were like, “This is pretty cool.” Then you said you were looking at doing a flip. So I’m very curious, were you trying to do a flip in that same childhood neighborhood too, like you were trying to get back what you lost on the first house?
Obi:
Somewhat. So I worked with a lot of flippers and I knew the process from underwriting the deals to what people want in a finished product when it’s time to sell the house. I knew the full beginning and I knew the full ending, and I wanted to know everything that my clients go through when they’re flipping a house, like working with contractors and financing the project. And so I figured this would be great experience to flip a house that way when I speak, it’s from personal experience and not just I’ve seen this work, this is what worked for me. And I think it made me a lot more confident as an agent because there just wasn’t any question anymore on what you had to do to successfully flip a house. So I decided I’m going to give this a shot. Part of the inspiration was when we bought this duplex, and we loved the house, we’re so happy how it worked out, but a couple months into closing, our sewer line collapsed.
Henry:
Been there, buddy.
Obi:
And so you know what that situation looks like and smells like. It’s not a pleasant position to be in. And it cost us about $7,000 to get it excavated.
Henry:
Oh, you got off light.
Obi:
We’re right next to the city line, so they didn’t have to dig very far and they didn’t have to put in a whole lot more. But seven grand was a lot for us when we just put down our down payment and we’re furnishing two extra bedrooms that we didn’t have. And we had, I want to say a month or two of vacancy just as we did all the final touches to the property. So it definitely hurt a little bit. And so I said, “You know what? I’m going all in on real estate. I’m not going to let this deter me.” And so I wanted to buy another property and I figured if I make a profit on this flip, I can pay myself back for what we just had to spend on our sewer line, all that money we just buried in the ground and I would get my confidence back to keep pushing in real estate.
We actually found it off market for, I want to say $153,000. It was about 10 minutes away from where we lived, so not quite the same neighborhood, but I was familiar with the area. It didn’t need a whole lot of work. It was mostly cosmetics. We finished the basement, painted, did some roof work, gutters, not a whole lot. It was a pretty simple project. We put in, let’s say around $40,000. I documented the whole flip day by day on Instagram. This is actually how I kind of started doing social media a bit more. I made a series about flipping my first house. Episode one, I went in there and they left a bunch of stuff behind. They weren’t supposed to leave it, and so we had to clear out the house.
Dave:
In there, yeah.
Obi:
And then we find things that we didn’t see on our initial walkthrough. And so it was just day by day, problem by problem, ended up going very viral on social media. I want to say the series got over seven million views. Whoa. A lot of offers from the videos that I was posting because we started posting it on the day that we started. That’s great. And so I was getting comments halfway through of people saying, “Where’s this house? It looks like it’s something that my clients are into.” And so when we listed it, we actually set a record in the zip code for most single day showings. What? We had, I want to say 26 showings in that first day, which this is 2024. This isn’t COVID like 2020. It was the most in the whole zip code. We ended up getting 10 offers on the first day.
I want to say three or four came from agents who either their clients were following the series online or they were following it and they recommended it to their clients. We ended up going 25,000 over the list price and ended up making 44 grand on that first flip.
Dave:
Unbelievable. That’s amazing. Congratulations.
Henry:
That’s awesome.
Dave:
And so why aren’t you doing it again?
Obi:
I mean, it was stressful. It was awesome and it was a great experience, but I’ve learned to tolerate the stress of being an agent and flipping a house is just a different kind of stress. Once you go through it, you kind of figure it out, but it just wasn’t the stress that I chose. I didn’t feel the reward. I mean, it was very profitable and I loved that about it, but it wasn’t as rewarding as helping my clients get their wins or helping people into their first homes. And so it didn’t feel like the stress was outweighed by all the benefit of the project.
Dave:
Obi, I am so glad you just said that. I think this is the most overlooked part of being a real estate investor because there’s so many things that you can do, but the only way you make money in real estate is if you could stay in it for the long game. That’s how you do it. And if you don’t like doing something, it doesn’t matter how profitable it is. You’re going to burn out at some point. That’s why I don’t flip. I’ve passively invested in flips, made some good money, but it’s just not for me. And I think the way you described it is perfect because every job has stress, everything has stress, but you can tolerate the stress of being an agent. It’s such a perfect way to say it. That’s something you can live with and that you feel like that stress is balanced with the reward that you personally feel from helping people get into a home or to sell their home.
And that just the flipping doesn’t do it for you. Henry, you’re probably just the opposite, right? You’ve never wanted to be an agent and you love flipping homes.
Henry:
Absolutely.
Dave:
And that’s why you’ve been able to sustain your business for 10 years.
Henry:
Wholeheartedly agree with you. I loved everything about that answer and the previous answer in saying, “Hey, I had to make a choice. Do I want to flip houses or do I want to be a good agent?” Because when people ask me, should I get my license, my response to them is, “I don’t know. Do you want to be a really good real estate agent and help people buy and sell homes?” And if the answer’s yeah, then heck yeah, go get your license. But if it’s not, then I would probably wait, do a couple of deals and then figure out if your license makes sense for the kind of investor you want to be. Dave, you’re absolutely right. Being an agent sounds like my nightmare. I don’t want anything to do with that at all, but I understand the warm fuzzies of helping someone. I get mine a different way.
I get mine through flipping houses and providing good rental properties and teaching people how to do this business. But it’s all hard, y’all. It’s all hard. Yeah, exactly. Not doing real estate and just working a day job until you retire is hard too. You got to pick the hard that makes sense for you and it’s going to be different for each person. What a great answer.
Dave:
So Obi, I wanted to ask you, you brought up social media because you have a great social media account. Did you expect your series to catch on in the way it did?
Obi:
I thought it was interesting. I would’ve been interested in following it. The quantity of views and interactions and everything surprised me. I didn’t know that it would be that crazy, but I did know that it was a cool story. I framed it as me buying my first house and us running into a huge repair that made me wonder if real estate was even the right thing to do. And flipping this house was supposed to be the hero story of like, yeah, we made it back. We got a big win. But the scary part was I started filming and posting before I had sold the flip. We were still working on it. And I sat down with my wife after the first video went viral, millions of views. I got a hundred thousand followers in a span of maybe a few days. And I told her, “What happens if we don’t profit?
What happens if we lose it on this house too? And what happens as my reputation as an agent if I just put myself out there and it doesn’t work?” And we talked about it and the conclusion we came to was I think that people will feel inspired that you tried and this isn’t going to be your last try. You’re not going to stop if this doesn’t work out well. And so I started off a little bit nervous and then I just felt really comforted by the support that I was getting online. People saying, “I don’t know you. I just met you, but I believe in you. You got this.” And I needed that. It was good to hear at the moment. So it did a lot for my career. It did a lot for my confidence as well.
Henry:
This is really cool, man. There’s tons of people who want to share their story on social media. What advice do you have to those people and what experience? We talked a little bit about the positives, how it’s impacted you. Has there been any downside to you having a social media presence in your business or personal life?
Obi:
For me, coming from the angle of I’m just going to give things a go and document it, I think that’s what works really well right now on social media. There’s a lot of people who have all the answers, but –
Henry:
They think they do.
Obi:
A lot of people who say that they’ve got all the answers and there’s less people who admit that they don’t and are willing to be vulnerable and take you through the experience with you.
Dave:
That’s what people resonate with is it’s hard to connect with someone who pretends they know all the answers. No one does. And so you’re actually connecting with how other people really feel.
Obi:
I agree with that. You asked have there been any downsides? It takes a lot of time to do social media. And right now I’m a one-man team. Hopefully by the time this airs, I’ve got some assistance because it’s something that I’ve been looking to do, but I love making the videos. I love telling the stories, and so it’s been hard for me to hand some of that over. And I would say it took about a few years before I really started getting a great return on that time spent. This year, about 80% of my business came from social media, and I’m probably three years into doing social media. Even when I did that series and I got a bunch of followers, it didn’t immediately turn into a bunch of deals. It turned into a lot of support and it turned into my name being out there.
But then people are like, “Hey, you’re the guy who flipped your first house. My cousin wants to do their first flip.” And it just kind of started to… We pushed the snowball and it took a little while before things really picked up, but now I’m spending less time in content and getting more results from social media than I was a couple years ago.
Henry:
All right. We’ve got to take a quick break, but we’ll be right back right after the break. All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets podcast. Let’s jump back in. So what happened? Did you do more flips? Have you pivoted into rentals?What came next and how would you define yourself as an investor?
Obi:
Yeah, so after that first flip, I took a pause on buying properties for a little bit. Part of me almost thought maybe I got lucky with how everything turned out, and I didn’t want to prove to myself that maybe it was luck. So I just focused on helping other people buy their properties and I got a little antsy. I did purchase another property. I got into partnering with some other investors. Don’t know if I’m the one to coin this term, but I got into what I like to call vibe flipping. Have you heard of vibe coding?
Dave:
Yes.
Obi:
So I think that a lot of flippers, they have a list of all the finishes that they’ll do. They’ll do Greek villa or agreeable gray on all the walls, and you’ve got the same white shaker cabinets. And through my first flip, I actually put a lot of the design choices on my Instagram as polls and let people pick what we should do. And it turned into a really unique product on the market that stood out from other properties. And if I’m posting an option that gets 80% of the vote, I’m going to assume that buyers will also agree that 80% of buyers would prefer that over something else. And so it actually was a weight lifted off of me having to figure out what design choices I had to make, and I let my audience do that, and it turned out really well. We had a unique property that we put on the market, unique colors that we put in different rooms.
We flipped the mid-century modern house earlier this year.
Dave:
They’re the best.
Obi:
And that one was really fun to design. We left a lot of the design up to our audience, and we ended up getting a buyer from Oregon who found it on Zillow, and they just though it was the coolest house that they’ve ever seen and they wanted to move to Ohio. And so maybe my advice to people who want to get into flipping is use your own creative taste on your project because I think that your product will stand out. And across the flips that we’ve done, I’ve averaged five days on market when Columbus’s average days on market is maybe 30 or 40.
Dave:
Wow. Dude, it’s so good because so much of the advice about real estate investing is build a system. And you do need some systems, but taste and design is hard to systematize when you’re trying to apply them to homes that are inherently different. And if you took those gray colors you named and the luxury vinyl plank and put that in a mid-century home, that’s a travesty. You shouldn’t do that. And everyone would hate it. And I look at Zillow, everyone knows when you walk into a flipped house, especially in your neighborhood or in your market, because they all copy each other too. And so you’re like, “Okay, I know these exact floors. I know these pendant lights, and I’m already skeptical of the quality of this home because it was probably someone who was mailing it in and didn’t spend the time to actually think about how to make this house great.” And I think a lot of that, just rinse and repeating, gives flipped homes a bad name and people don’t want to buy them.
And if you actually demonstrate that you care about the finished product and that the people are going to enjoy living there, lo and behold, you find people who actually want to live there. It makes so much sense to me.
Henry:
When I first got into flipping, our first few flips just sold so fast, and it was because we cared about the design and each one of them were different. And I wanted them to cater to who that buyer is in that specific neighborhood for that specific house. And that isn’t a copy paste on finishes per house. So I just love giving people something that they aren’t expecting in a home and that helps them to sell faster. Now, is that harder to systematize? Absolutely. But can you create systems around that? Yeah, you can do that as well. And especially now in a market where eyeballs are limited, the better your design, the more eyeballs you’re going to get. And in every single market, there’s a number of how many eyeballs it takes to get an offer. So the more eyeballs you can get into your property because your design is unique and amazing and shows you care, the more offers that you’re going to get.
So it’s vibe flipping, but it’s also profitable.
Obi:
Definitely. The most recent flip that I did, it made $57,000 and it followed that same process of how do I make this feel like it’s going to be someone’s home, not just how do I turn this from an ugly house into something that is inhabitable, but how do I make it feel cozy? Totally. And I think that’s what leads to properties increasing your margin on a flip is yes, someone can live here now, but why will someone want to live here?
Dave:
That makes you feel good when you sell a home too. It’s like it’s profitable, but because you created something of value, not just because you were able to pawn it off to the next person. I also just want to shout out and say, because Henry and I talk about this all the time, this also matters for rental property investing.
Henry:
Absolutely.
Dave:
People love to just turn their rental properties with the same crappy cabinets and countertops and luxury vinyl plank floors, and no one wants to live there or they will, but they’re going to leave at the soonest opportunity that they can because you don’t make it feel like a comfortable place to live. It’s not valuable. You’re not making something that is a great place for your tenants to live. It’s not a good customer experience. And so vibe flipping, Obi, you got to brand this one for us. I’m terrible at this, but something where you also create a vibe also applies for rental property investing as well.
Henry:
Well, this has been really cool, Obi. I appreciate you coming on the show, being super transparent about your journey. And I think it’s such a practical episode because of your age. There’s a lot of people who are your age who are right now trying to navigate all of these same decisions, and you kind of did it all. You became the agent, you listed houses, you house hagged, did some flips. You said you’re sitting in a short-term rental right now. And so for the investors who are listening, who are curious and cautiously considering jumping in right now, given the state of the market, what path would you recommend somebody in a very similar position take?
Obi:
For me, at the end of the day, I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, and so I didn’t want to leave any options on the table. I wanted to experiment with each of these different ways to invest in real estate to see what really felt good because if you don’t like it, you’re not going to want to wake up and do it first thing in the morning. And so I think it’s obviously in real estate there’s risk, but if you’re an intelligent person, you can navigate that risk and you can attempt any of these approaches relatively new without much experience. My most recent flip, it was 100% financed. I didn’t use any of my own money to flip that house that we made $57,000 on. You don’t need to use your own money. There’s first time home buyer loans, like our duplex, we only had to put 5% down.
There’s a lot of ways to get started. I think you just have to give it a go and don’t convince yourself that you’ve got to get it right the first time when you pick maybe the first way that you want to get into real estate. It’s the experience that you’ll get from that can transfer into other forms of real estate investing. And so that’s something I learned pretty early on when I dabbled in wholesaling and then I got my license and became a realtor. I was having the same conversations on the phone with sellers who needed to put their house on the market. I was just able to offer them different ways to get the job done. So I would say there’s really no barrier. All the information is online. It’s on podcasts like this. There’s so many resources out there and money is not a barrier.
You don’t need a lot of money to get started and you don’t have to pick the best way to start. You just have to give it a go. And from there, the momentum will take you into wherever you really want to end up being.
Henry:
I like that because if you’re going to start with a single family home, the risk is a whole lot lower, right? A house very rarely goes from worth something to worth nothing. So even if you’re not as profitable as you want to be, or maybe you don’t even make a profit on your first deal, if you start with the smaller single family home, what you’re doing is exactly what you said. You were like, “I am learning what I want to be as an investor. I don’t know yet.” And I think a lot of people want to decide what kind of investor they want to be before they’ve ever done a deal, and you will learn so much through your first real estate You’re going to learn what you want to do again. You’re going to absolutely learn what you never want to do again. You might learn you never even want to do real estate again.
Dave:
Also fine, if you’ve tried it.
Henry:
Yes, if you’ve tried it. There’s a difference between getting the bug and then actually defining yourself as a real estate investor, and it takes some experience before you can actually do that. And so I like the concept of let’s put some skin in the game, let’s get started with something lower risk, and let’s learn about who we want to be, what we want to buy, where we want to buy, how we want to buy. There’s too many things to learn on the front side and be able to apply without never having done it. Now, can you leave us just with a little bit on where are you now as an investor? And then knowing what you know now about the market, you just left BP Con, what are your future goals for real estate?
Obi:
So right now it’s still just the duplex that we house hacked. I mean, with rates being higher, I am seeing a lot of my clients pivot towards flipping homes and having a lot of success in flips. Properties that will cash flow a couple hundred dollars might make you 40,000 on a flip, 45,000 on a flip. In my market, Columbus, there’s still a lot of buyer demand even in other places in Ohio. I hear Cincinnati is a really great market. Even the smaller cities like Dayton are performing really well. So I am hoping to guide more clients through their flips, changing their life off of their first flip is something I did myself and it’s something that I think other people should do as well. I like being an investor friendly agent. I love also just helping people get into their first home. So I’d say from here, it’s spending 90% of my time being a realtor and helping people accomplish their real estate goals.
I might flip a house a year just to make sure I keep up with the trends and what the market looks like. I’ve already had my fun in it and now I like to share some of those good deals with the clients that reach out to me looking to get into flipping. So hopefully level up my transactions. We hit, I want to say top 5% and the brokerage last year. I don’t know how far I am from top 1%, but that’s something that I got to keep pushing until we see that number. So it’s just scaling my agent business, doing more transactions and helping people let real estate change their lives.
Henry:
This is cool. You’re wise beyond your years, my man. You’ve learned a lot of lessons that a lot of people in their 40s haven’t learned yet.
Dave:
That’s true. How old are you? Can I ask that?
Obi:
I’m 28. I’m 28.
Dave:
Oh, wow. Yeah, you are wise beyond your years. Well, congrats on all your success, Obi. It’s awesome to hear your story, to hear all the things you’re doing in real estate. Congrats on the social media and most importantly on your growing family. It’s super exciting.
Obi:
I appreciate it. Thanks, Dave. Thanks Henry for letting me share.
Henry:
Well, you can’t get out of here just yet. You got to let people know where they can find you or follow you or learn more about what you do.
Obi:
I’m probably the only guy named Obi that will come up when you do a Google search. So you can search me online, Obie Johns. I’m on Instagram @soldby. Obi, and I’m sure my email or something will be in the description. You can reach out to me directly if you’re looking to invest in Ohio, Central Ohio.
Henry:
Boom.
Dave:
Thanks again.
Henry:
All right everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. As always, we’ll see you on the next episode.
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The 2026 U.S. midterms are a referendum on trust
Good morning. The midterms are tomorrow, and the outcome will determine more than which party controls Congress. If Democrats win back the House, the Senate, or both, President Donald Trump will have a harder time securing the policies, people, and funding needed to carry out his agenda, and the right could push back. If the GOP retains control, there could be outrage on the left, some over the record $12 billion in projected campaign spending tracked by OpenSecrets, including almost half a billion by Elon Musk alone. Either way, the results will test public trust in three areas:
Trust in capitalism. Americans put up with a lot when they think they have a shot at the prize, but that sentiment is fading in this winner-take-all economy. This Fed chart shows how a rapidly increasing share of U.S. household wealth has gone to rich white Boomers since 1989. Gen Z in particular is seeing signs that the system is rigged: from record oil company profits amid rising energy prices to the unaffordability of housing, health care, and education. They’re worried AI will take their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters marched across Europe over the weekend. I hear a lot of concern about more unrest here.
Trust in politics. I’ve interviewed several hundred CEOs over the past year, on and off the record, across a range of platforms and settings. Publicly, many cheer the Republican agenda on taxes, deregulation, and putting American business first. Privately, far more tell me they’re rattled by the $40 trillion national debt, the government taking ownership in large companies, the vilification of allies and immigrant talent, the perceived need to show loyalty. And I’ve yet to meet one who’s not shocked at the alleged level of personal enrichment by the president and his family. As one CEO said at a recent dinner: “Everything good gets forgotten when there’s grift.” (A recent AP-NORC poll found 6 in 10 U.S. adults believe Trump is profiting off the presidency in unethical or illegal ways.)
Trust in business leaders. We know from the Edelman Trust Barometer that people trust their employer more than any other institution. But they don’t trust business leaders in general, especially when it comes to tech and AI. Shearwater Strategies gave me an exclusive look at their new survey on tech leadership and public trust, which polled a demographically representative sample of 1,563 Americans. When asked what they think tech leaders prioritize, 58% of participants chose “making money for themselves and shareholders.” A distant second was “creating exciting new products” at 34%. When asked what those leaders should prioritize, 58% said “protecting user safety and privacy,” while 12% cited making money. If people don’t trust that tech leaders care about safety and privacy, they’ll vote for politicians who promise to protect those interests instead.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
AI boom hits a wall on Wall Street
The seemingly endless gusher of capital that’s been showered on Silicon Valley during the AI boom may be coming to an end soon. Following a brutal selloff in tech stocks over the past week, OpenAI slashed the target on its latest fundraising round to $20 billion from $30 billion, sources told the Financial Times. That also cut its expected valuation to $1.25 trillion from $1.4 trillion. Meanwhile, S&P Global cut its credit outlook on Meta to “negative” from “stable” late Friday, citing negative cash flow and uncertainty around capital expenditure plans.
Why Wendy’s is losing the burger wars
Wendy’s fortunes have declined so much that it’s now the target of Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management, which is offering to take the restaurant private for $1.4 billion, a sum that’s not even 1% of McDonald’s market value. Wendy’s promotions have fallen flat, intense competition has stolen customers, and a revolving door in the corner office has deprived it of the focus needed to get out of its rut.
Closing America’s hypersonic missile gap
Despite years of research costing billions and some successful tests, the U.S. has yet to fully field a hypersonic missile of its own due to testing complications and production issues. The tech’s been around, but it’s been expensive and difficult to produce at scale. That’s the chasm that startup Castelion, valued at $13 billion, is betting it can close, even if the defense giants have so far fallen short.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.50% this morning. The last session closed down 1.82%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.05% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.11% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.33%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 2.24%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.79%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.42%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 1.21%. Bitcoin is up at $78k.
Around the watercooler
Hackers pushed freezers at hundreds of French supermarkets to 122 degrees. Now the Pentagon is asking whether the same thing hit U.S. military bases by Sasha Rogelberg
Welcome to the school where Gen Z learns philanthropy as billionaire wealth explodes—with a 100% job placement rate by Preston Fore and Sydney Lake
China sees the yuan vs. dollar rivalry like Pepsi vs. Coke, expert says — ‘never the market leader, but serviceable in a pinch’ by Jason Ma
While Americans turn against data centers, Brazil offers tax breaks and cheap power, representing a potential ‘release valve’ for U.S. constraints by Mia Osmonbekov
Meet a 38-year-old father rejecting a Trump account for his daughter: ‘I’ll put $1,000 of my own money in an account before I do that’ by Tatiana Sataua
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
Chase Offer 30% Transfer Bonus for Wyndham Rewards
Chase Transfer Bonus for Wyndham Rewards
Update:
Chase added Wyndham Rewards as a transfer partner just over a week ago. And now they are offering the first transfer bonus of 30%. The regular transfer rate is 1:1. So if you transfer 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points during this promotion period, you will receive a total of 1,300 Wyndham Rewards points (1,000 from the transfer, plus 300 Wyndham Rewards bonus points). Even with the added bonus, this is not a good use for Chase points. Check out the details below.
Offer Details
- Offer period: November 1, 2026 to December 3, 2026
- Bonus: 30% bonus Wyndham Rewards points on eligible transfers
- Minimum transfer: 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points
Important Terms
- Offer is valid for points transfers to Wyndham Rewards completed between 12:00 AM ET on March 5, 2026 and 11:59 PM ET on March 31, 2026.
- Wyndham Rewards bonus points will be deposited by Wyndham Rewards into your Wyndham Rewards member account within 7 days after the points transfer is completed, but the transfer is usually completed instantly.
- Full terms and conditions apply. Taxes, fees and carrier-imposed surcharges apply to reward flights and upgrades.
Guru’s Wrap-up
Transferring Chase points to Wyndham is not good value, even with this 30% bonus. After dropping the Vacasa partnership, Wyndham Rewards points are not as valuable as they used to be (although they now added their own vacation rentals). They are maybe valued now at 0.8 cents each on average and with this added bonus you get 1.04 cents per point. We value Chase points at 1.6 cents.
If you have any Wyndham stays in mind, then you can check the cash price and compare it to the amount of points you would need to book that same night. In some cases you might be able to extract more value.
Let us know what you think!
HT: Anki