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A $48T “Structural Shift” to the Housing Market is Only Just Beginning


Dave:
48 trillion dollars of real estate could be changing hands soon as baby boomers age and bring their massive inventory of property to the market. Some have called this impending demographic shift, the silver tsunami, and have claimed it will cause a crash in the housing market unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the past. But those same people have been saying this for 10 plus years and clearly it hasn’t happened, but the situation is changing. Boomers are now on average in their 70s and the generational shift of property and wealth is already starting to happen. We can see it in the data. So will that lead to this long predicted crash? Will the market shrug it off like it has for the last decade? Today and on the market, we’ll find out.
Hey everyone. Welcome to On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer, Chief Investment Officer at BiggerPockets. Today on the show, we’re addressing a demographic issue facing the housing market as baby boomers wants the biggest generation in the country age and give up the very substantial portion of the housing market that they own in the United States. Either because they’re choosing to rent, they go into assisted living or they pass away. And this shift, which I should say is completely inevitable given the demographics and the sad realities of mortality, this shift is going to hit the housing market in a way that aging and people getting older doesn’t normally hit the housing market. It doesn’t normally create these structural shifts, but this one probably will. And that is just because of the sheer quantity of housing stock that Boomers own. We’re going to get into the details of that a bit later, but for now you should just know it’s a ton.
They own way more real estate than you probably think they do. And the generational transfer of these properties, either by selling them or passing them along to their heirs is going to impact the housing market. But in what ways? Is it going to be a crash? Like all the people calling for this silver tsunami have been saying for more than a decade now. Does it mean we’re going to have faster sales? Does it mean we’ll have slower appreciation? What will this demographic shift actually do to the market? People obviously have very different takes on this. Some people sort of just blow it off and say that the market’s going to absorb it, nothing’s really going to happen. On the other end of the spectrum, people are calling for a crash saying that boomers are all going to sell in a relatively short time period that’s going to create a supply and an inventory spike and that’s going to push down prices.
But today on the market, we’re going to find out what is most likely to happen. We’re actually not just going to spew some hype or blow things off. We’re going to dig into the actual data and trends and uncover what this situation will likely bring to the housing market and what it means for investors. We’re going to start by laying the foundation. We’ll talk about demographic realities and how kind of in crazy, insanely concentrated housing is right now in the boomer generation. Next, we’re going to talk about the timeline, because people have been calling for this generational shift for more than 15 years, at least. I think the term actually started coming around in the 80s, but it started gained ground in 2008 to 2011 is when people really started talking about it. Clearly that crash hasn’t happened yet, but given the inevitability, when will this actually start?
Next, we’re going to talk about inheritances because even if boomers eventually leave their homes, which they will, will it all hit the market or are they just going to pass it down to younger generations desperate to get a deal on housing? And then lastly, we’ll game out what is actually going to happen or what is likely to happen. I’m going to pull it all together for you using historical precedents, examples from other countries. And we’re going to bring in the other dynamics of the housing market that we talk about a lot on this show to give you actionable information about this upcoming generational shift so that you can actually do something about it and make decisions about your own portfolio. With that, let’s get to it. So first up, let’s just talk about what’s going on with demographics. You probably know this, but Boomers, biggest generation in the US for a very long time.
This was after World War II. There’s just a massive spike in births, and this created the largest generation we had ever seen. Actually, as boomers have started to age and unfortunately start to die off, millennials are now the biggest generation, but boomers for a long time were so big that it sort of created this economic force that changed the entire landscape of our country as they reached different periods of their life. When they were reaching peak home buying age, when they were in their peak earning age, when they were starting to retire, has had huge impacts on our economy. And housing, especially of late, is no different. What the boomers do because there are just so many of them and they have so much wealth impacts all of us. Just to drill into the housing piece of this, as of now, boomers own 41% of all US property, which is a lot.
For the first time ever, Americans over 70 now own a larger shale of real estate wealth than middle-aged Americans, people from 40 to 54. That is not normal. Normally people who are mid-age, who are at the peak of their earnings, who have families, they have the highest concentration of wealth when it comes to real estate. That has shifted for the first time only recently. Now it’s people over 70 that is very unusual. And it’s not just mid-life, middle-aged people who are negatively impacted. Actually, if you want what I think is maybe a sadder comparison, if you look at people under 40 years old, they own just 12.6% of real estate wealth. That is one of the lowest it has ever been and it’s been completely unchanged for over a decade. So it’s not like millennials and Gen Z are catching up. If anything, the opposite is happening where more and more of the real estate wealth is concentrated in older generations.
So if we’re just tracking the accuracy of these claims about a silver tsunami that’s going to crash the market, which I have been consistently hearing for so long, that just hasn’t been true as of yet. Boomers have not been selling en masse and they have largely held on to their real estate. But why? Why are they behaving so differently from other generations? We have some information about this, both from surveys and just some demographic data. The first reason they are not selling and they still hold so much real estate is just lifestyle preferences. Actually, there’s a real estate survey from Clever Real Estate. This was just back in 2025. They found that 61% of boomers, so the majority of boomers say that they never plan to sell their home. That is up seven percentage points in just a single year. It went from 54 to 61 in just a single year.
And the reason for that, that the survey is really good. It dug further into that and asked, “Why do you plan to never sell your home?” And more than half of them said, “They just want to age in place. They don’t want to go into assisted living. They don’t want to downsize or find a new home. They just want to age in place. And that’s pretty different from other generations.” On top of that, 34% of the people who said that they never will sell their home is because they plan to leave it as an inheritance. And actually 30% of them worry that they can’t afford a new home. That’s the lock in effect, right? Just impacting everyone across the board. The boomer generation is no different for a lot of people who own their home for a long time. Perhaps they’ve paid off their mortgage or they have a two or 3% mortgage rate.
It is more expensive for them to downsize. This is something we talk about on the show all the time. This is holding up the housing market a lot right now, and the boomers are experiencing that the same as everyone else. So the point here is that one of the main reasons is people just want to age in place. You see at least a third of boomers saying that they will never sell their home because they are going to age in place. And that is significant impacts for what’s going to happen in this demographic shift. So that’s something we have to keep in mind. But the second reason we haven’t seen this flood of inventory on the market is really economic because as boomers started to age, starting to hit retirement age about 10, 12 years ago, rates for the 12 years they were in their age when they were going from working to retirement, we had this epic run of low mortgage rates and they were able to refinance into very affordable payments even without their salaries, right?
Even just using social security or pensions or pulling out money from their 401k because rates were so low when they had to make these decisions, they have affordable payments probably locked in, but that’s not all. Actually, less than half of Boomers even have a mortgage in the first place. 54% of them own their homes outright, meaning they are under very little pressure to sell and they have very low cost of living. So unless something forces them to sell, why would you? You’ve lived in your house probably for 30 years, you’ve paid off that mortgage, and if it’s more expensive to go somewhere else, why would you do that? And so they’re under very little pressure to sell. So when you look at these two things together, they don’t want to move for lifestyle decisions. And for the most part, they don’t have to move because they have the economic wherewithal to stay in place and not sell.
That means that this silver tsunami people have been saying is going to crash the market for 10 years has not materialized because boomers have largely held on to their property, but they’re aging. That still happens, right? They keep getting over. And so is the math going to change? And will we finally start to see the impact of this generational shift in the housing market? We’ll get to that right after this quick break. We’ll be right back.
Welcome back to On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer talking about the generational shift that we’re seeing in the housing market where boomers are aging and eventually, although it hasn’t happened yet and calls of a crash from a silver tsunami have been way overstated, this is going to happen at some point, right? There is a certain inevitability that boomers are going to die and they’re going to pass along their housing either by selling it or passing it down to their children, but that inventory will move in some way or another over the next decade or two because as of right now, the oldest baby boomers are starting to turn 80 in 2026. We are seeing that the average baby boomer is about 72 years old. The average lifespan in the United States is about 74. So we are in that time when I think this is probably going to accelerate.
And that means that this inventory may finally start to hit the market, right? If more boomers are dying each and every year, won’t we see all this inventory hitting the market? Well, it could be, but there’s also one way that it doesn’t actually hit the market. What if they don’t sell? What if they just pass along their homes to their children who, I should say, will probably be very grateful for a home with a low basis or potentially even one of those half of Boomer homes that actually don’t even have a mortgage at all. This trend of passing along properties to your children is increasing and will play a large role in how big of a quote unquote silver tsunami or generational shift actually hits the market. So let’s dig into this for a little bit. I said this at the top of the show and it is true that this transfer that we are seeing from boomers to millennials or to Gen X is already starting to happen and it is accelerating.
According to Cotality’s database, really good data source of property deeds, they showed that in 2025, a record 34,000 homes were transferred through inheritance in the 12 months prior to that. That is actually 7% of all transfers. So if you’re looking at all movement from one owner to another, 7% of it is now from inheritance, which may not sound like a lot, but that is the highest share ever recorded. So this is real and it is starting to accelerate. Now, of course we should mention that’s 340,000 properties that might otherwise have hit the market increasing inventory, but it didn’t happen. That’s kind of the point I’m trying to make here is that a sizable amount of inventory is never hitting the market because it’s being inherited and that is likely to continue. As of right now, 62% of younger Americans expect to inherit a property. And if you just presume that’s right, which I think some people are going to be very unpleasantly surprised to find out that they don’t actually inherit a property, but let’s just for now presume that about two thirds of all inventory boomers hold could never hit the market, just pass right on to their children.
That will definitely suppress the impact of this demographic shift because inventory may never truly spike. If only a third of Boomer owned properties hit the market and that drips out over the next 10 or 20 years, market probably going to absorb it just like it has for the last 10 years. But of course there are some caveats there, right? Like I said, I think 62% of people inheriting property, probably too high. I imagine that people will be disappointed to find out that even though their parents want to get out of their home, they still have costs like moving into assisted living or they have healthcare costs and they need to sell their home to actually finance those things. So I think it’s probably less than half, but I’ve looked at a bunch of different surveys. I think it’s probably going to be 30 to 50%, which is still a lot, right?
That’s still a ton of inventory that’s not going to hit a market unless, because there are a lot of caveats here. We talk about 30 to 50% of homes just being inherited and never hitting the market, that is a presumption that the people who inherit those properties don’t actually just turn around and sell, that they hold onto them. And that is another question that we should explore. I actually tried to find data about this and LegalZoom did a survey and found that 42% of young Americans don’t feel financially prepared to keep and maintain an inherited home. Just think about that for a second. We’re talking about what I think most people, at least on paper or in their heads, would dream of as a windfall, right? You’re getting a property either with partially paid off mortgage, maybe an entirely paid off home owned free and clear, but because property taxes and maintenance costs and insurance costs have gone up so much, 42% say they don’t feel prepared to inherit that home, that’s a lot.
We actually had a recent guest on Melody Wright who said that she saw that 70% will sell. I think that number is a little high. I wasn’t able to find great data on that, to be honest, but my guess is that even if the historical trend is 70%, like 70% of people sell when they inherit a home, that that’s going to shift. The housing market is just so unaffordable. I don’t think there has been ever a more attractive time to inherit a home versus going out and buying one for yourself. I think for most millennials, just speaking as a millennial and how expensive it is for my peers and colleagues and friends to afford homes, I think almost everyone I know would do whatever they can to keep the homes that their parents might pass down to them. Not everyone’s obviously getting that, but anyone who might get a home passed down to them, I think are going to try pretty darn hard to be able to hold onto that.
So even if it’s still a lot, I don’t think it’s going to be 70%, I’d say at least 50% hold onto them. So if we do all this together, and again, I am extrapolating a lot of data here. This is not precise, but I’m just saying maybe 50% of people pass their properties down onto their heirs and then 50% of them hold on. That means that 25% roughly of the inventory that boomers hold will never hit the market, but that means 75% will hit the market, and that is still a lot of property coming to market over the next couple of years. Now, that might sound like the silver tsunami that people have been predicting, but there are three important things to remember here. First, people aging and downsizing or dying or having someone inherit a home and sell it, that is not new. All the stuff we’re talking about are things that happen every day for years.
That is always happening. So it’s not like we’re like, “Oh, we have normal inventory now.” And then as boomers start to die, we’re going to have 75% of their inventory hit the market on top of what we already have. We are already starting to absorb some of this. And although I do think we will see an upward pressure on inventory because of this over the next couple of years, it is not additive. You’re not adding all this on top of existing inventory. It is part of existing inventory. The second thing is that in addition to this being an important part of inventory already, even though this new upward pressure on inventory is coming, it’s not like they’re going to list all their sales for once. That’s why I hate this term, the silver tsunami. It makes it sounds like it’s this wave that’s going to come through and crash everything, but really what’s going to happen is that health decisions or family decisions are going to play out over the next 10 or 20 years, and this will be a long and sustained upward pressure on inventory, but it’s not all going to come at once.
I just really don’t like this idea of a tsunami. I think it’s more like the tide, right? If you think about a tide going in or out, it happens slowly and it happens almost imperceptibly at any given time, but over the long run, the market will change. And I do think that we have this long-term upward pressure on inventory, which we’ll talk about more in a minute, but that means downward pressure on appreciation when there’s more inventory. But just remember, this isn’t going to be event. It is something that is going to happen over the course of a decade or more. It’s already been happening for several years and will probably happen for at least 10 more years according to the data and research I’ve done. So that’s number two thing to keep in mind here. Number three here is that, as I said at the beginning, even though boomers own a lot of property, they are no longer the biggest generation.
Millennials are the biggest generation, and millennials are at their peak home buying age. So even though we’re going to have this upward pressure on inventory, we also have a demographic tailwind that’s working with us. They’re sort of counteracting forces, right? The baby boomers were so big, but they’re selling, which means there’s going to be more supply, but the millennials are even bigger right now and they’re buying, which means that a lot of that inventory could get absorbed. Now, it’s going to be different in different kinds of markets. It’s going to be different for different asset classes, which we’re going to talk about in a minute, but those are sort of the big picture things I want everyone to remember here. Yes, more inventory probably will come to the market over the next five to 10 years, but there are many reasons to believe this isn’t going to be a one-time crash, and that’s because boomers have already been selling for several years and it hasn’t caused a crash.
They are not going to do it all at once. This is going to stretch out for a decade or more, and we have demographic tailwinds helping us because millennials are now the biggest generation in the US. So it’s not a tsunami. There’s no single event that’s going to come and rock the real estate and market, but what will happen? What does this mean for real estate investors? We’ll get to that after this quick break.
Welcome back to On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer, talking about the generational shift happening in the housing market. Before the break, I said I don’t think it’s going to be a tsunami. I have not liked that word for a long time. People have been calling for it for 10 years, at least hasn’t happened because as we’ve discussed, the transfer of boomer property to other generations is going to happen slowly, even though it will add upward pressure on inventory for I think at least the next five to 10 years, maybe even longer. But if it’s not a tsunami, what is it? How is this going to shape out? Of course, we don’t know exactly what will happen, but we can extrapolate. We know what’s happening in the housing market, how inventory and demographic and demand dynamics are shaping up. And we can also actually look at what’s happened in other countries.
And I want to dive into that just for a second here because there are other advanced economies that have similar demographic situations playing out a few years ahead of us. And so we can actually sort of look a little bit at specifically Japan and Germany. There’s a pretty good comps just demographically speaking as to what’s happening in the US. So let’s just look at Japan for a second because they also had a boomer equivalent after World War II. They also had an increase in births, but it actually happened a little bit earlier. And so almost a decade in advance, we might actually see what might happen in the United States. And what you see, if you look at property values in Japan, and they do have a lot of different rules, they have different tax incentive, different structures, all this stuff, you actually saw home prices go down.
It wasn’t a crash, but you did see home prices go down as their baby booner generation turned 75 plus. We are between 68 and 80 right now in the US who were right in that time. Now, there are some key differences between Japan and the United States. Japan has had a total declining population for a while now. The US still has a rising population for now, but if you listen to the episode I did on this a little while ago, it was a couple weeks ago, I did a whole thing on population decline. It is very likely as of right now that the US population is going to start to decline. So we could see some of the shifts that happened in Japan in the US as well. We also can look at Germany really quickly. Actually, we saw some research across the 22 OECD countries as some of the largest advanced economies in the world.
And basically what it showed was that aging will decrease real housing prices on average by around 80 basis points per year, so 0.8 per year. So that is pretty significant, right? That is a headwind to housing increases. Now, it’s important to remember that the US is starting from a structural supply deficit, right? So even though we might see more vacancy, we are starting from a negative, right? And so some of this might just get us back to a balanced market. But as we talk about on this show, all of these things, all these variables, none of them are a silver bullet. None of them are going to change the market unto themselves. What happens is some things put upward pressure on prices, some things put downward pressure on prices. And our demographics in the United States, which have been huge accelerants for housing prices over the last several decades and still are today, and I believe still will be for the next five years or so.
And starting the 2030s, maybe beyond that, it might become downward pressure on pricing. Doesn’t mean you can’t invest, doesn’t mean that housing prices are going to crash, but it’s sort of a flip. It’s a flip of a switch from a tailwind where it was helping appreciation to a headwind where it was going to hurt appreciation. That to me is sort of the big takeaway here is that it’s probably going to be a tailwind for appreciation, but let’s just game out a little bit what actually might happen here. As I do with housing predictions every year, I like to just offer different scenarios. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know exactly how this is all going to play out, but I’ve done a lot of research on this and I do think I can share what’s the most likely scenario, at least the way the data looks today.
Similar to where we are in the Great Stall, I think this is going to play out very slowly, sort of like a slow grind, right? It’s the wave, it’s not a tsunami, like I said, it’s this sort of rising tide of inventory. Boomers probably going to continue aging in place for as long as they can. They’re probably going to transfer property to their heirs gradually, and many of those heirs I think are going to choose to occupy or to rent out. Again, they don’t have to move into it. They can rent it out rather than sell. And I don’t think we’re going to see this massive tidal wave that everyone’s predicting. Not all of this inventory is going to hit the market. I think it’s probably closer to 50 to 75%. That is also going to happen over 10 to 20 years. And what I think that means is that over the next 10 to 20 years, we’re going to see more inventory and slower appreciation.
Now that is on a national basis. And as you all know, that is not really how things play out in real estate. It’s not really what matters to most of us as real estate investors. I actually think that we are going to see the biggest downward pressure on pricing in rural areas and in age dense suburbs. So if you look at places, I’m going to just call out Florida, right? They have a very old population. In those suburbs, they’re probably going to have the most downward pressure on pricing out of all of the markets. You also see that a lot of older folks live in more rural areas proportionately, or I should say rural areas are disproportionately made up of older people. So the pressure prices are going to face are probably going to be more in rural and suburban areas and much less in urban cities.
On top of Florida, also call out other places where retirees tend to move, places like Arizona or parts of California. You also see parts of the Midwest, even though they are not sunny, do have high concentrations of baby boomers. And so those are all places where I think you need to look at and rethink what appreciation in those markets might be. We might see flat markets there for a very long time. So I think we really need to consider that in those specific regions. I’m not saying that on a national basis, but just in these specific places. That’s what I think is the most likely scenario. Is there a scenario where it causes a crash? Yeah, I kind of just did a thougt exercise to try and think of like, can I think of a way where there is a big crash? And I think it has to be some sort of black swan event where all of a sudden, maybe there’s a massive stock market crash where boomers are losing some of their wealth and need to tap into their home equity to pay for day-to-day expenses and they sell their homes.
That’s something I can imagine happening. There could be some healthcare shocks, right? Boomers are in their 70s right now as they get into their 80s. We all know the price of healthcare keeps going up and up and up. And so maybe in five, 10 years, a lot of these boomers are in their 80s. They need money to pay for long-term care. They start to sell in mass in more of a concentrated fashion. Could those things happen? Yes, but I think that might probably be part of a bigger economic crisis. And so it’s not like the boomer situation alone would cause a housing market crash in that situation. It would probably add to it though, right? If we had a massive unemployment, massive stock market crash and boomers will be impacted that just like everyone else. So it’ll be another thing contributing to some challenges for the housing market.
But I don’t think. I have a hard time seeing this situation alone without some other external catalyst causing a full on real estate crash. I think the much more likely scenario is the more boring scenario where it puts downward pressure on pricing, modest downward pressure on pricing over the next five, 10, maybe even 20 years. So that’s not great news for appreciation, but again, gradual, not all at once. So with all that said, what does this mean for real estate investors? I’ll just recap this quickly, but basically what I said before, I think we’re going to see more inventory. We’ve been in a very low inventory for the last couple of years, and I do still think it’s going to take years to recover. I’m not saying this is going to happen in 2026 or 2027. I talked about this earlier. I think this is more in the 2030s, but we’re going to be moving towards there gradually.
Over the next couple of years, I think we’ll see more inventory recover. So that’s going to put some downward pressure on appreciation, but it also means more deals. I’ve said this for a while, but I think appreciation is going to be subdued for a while. It’s going to be slow. We might have flat prices for years to come. We may not see real home prices, inflation adjusted home prices for many years. I actually, we had Mike Simonson on the show from Altos Research knows a lot about this. He said he thinks it could be 10 years. And I know that seems frustrating and I know it can be scary, but it really just means you have to change your approach to investing. It means you have to change your approach to underwriting deals. I personally believe underwriting for very low or even no appreciation is smart.
I think I might even start doing that indefinitely. Actually, when I was writing my book, Real Estate by the Numbers, I wrote it with Jay Scott, great investor. He and I were sort of debating this because I underwrite for appreciation or have for the last 12 years, very modest, two, 3% appreciation for most deals, just because that’s what the long-term average is. But I actually think for the next five, 10 years, although it probably will still have some positive appreciation, as an investor, if you want to be conservative and protect yourself, I’d underwrite for little to no appreciation. That’s what Jay Scott does. He told me he’s never underwritten for appreciation. And that just means you’re going to have to look at a lot more deals. You’re going to have to be a lot more discerning. But if you do that and you can find those deals, which you can, it just takes patience and practice.
But when you find those deals, they are extremely low risk because you’re not counting on any appreciation. You’re counting on all those other benefits that real estate can bring to you. So that’s a takeaway number one, more inventory, lower appreciation, but we are going to get better deal flow. That is the trade off. That’s how it works. When appreciation is high, deals are hard to find. Then the pendulum swings back and deals are easy to find, but appreciation is low. And I think we’re sort of in the middle right now. I don’t think we’ve reached that sort of reality check time when sellers are lowering prices and rent to price to ratios start to improve, but I think we are heading in that direction. This is one of the reasons I am personally going to start focusing more on cashflow than I have in the recent years.
And that’s my plan indefinitely because as we all know, real estate makes you money in four or five different ways. We got cashflow, we got appreciation, taxes, value add, amortization, right? And because appreciation I think is no longer reliable, hopefully it comes. I could be wrong about that. Hopefully it comes, but I just don’t think it’s reliable. It is not obvious that it’s going to boost your returns. So that just means as an investor, what you need to do is just look at those other four things. How do you create a deal where some combination of tax benefits, value add investing, amortization and cash flow get you the return that you are looking for? I’ve been saying this for years, but I look at total return. I look at how my total return is among those five different ways you make money. And so if appreciation’s going to contribute less to my total return, that means those other things are going to have to work a little bit harder.
And for me, cashflow and value add are the things that you can really control. Tax benefits for some people, I’m not a real estate tax professional, so I have limited options on tax benefits. If you have those options, I would recommend getting creative there. But for someone like me or if you’re a W2 employee, cashflow and value add, those are the ways to make money in real estate right now. That’s how I plan to make money in real estate right now. It’s why I flipped the house last year, not because I want to be a flipper, because I want to get better at value add investing. And because I’m making that shift, it does mean it’s harder for me to find deals right now. I haven’t pulled the trigger on anything this year. I do want to try and buy some real estate this year, but I haven’t been able to find anything that has the right return for me.
But I will just say anecdotally and talking to friends that better and better deals are coming. I’m looking at more that are interesting and I firmly believe that more are coming. Like I said, that’s the trade off. The pendulum is swinging back in the right direction. This may sound like a bold claim, but I actually think over the next couple of years, cashflow will get easier to find. I think that prices are going to stagnate. I think they’re going to fall this year. I don’t think they’re going to grow a lot in the next couple of years. But if you look historically, rents typically don’t fall as much during these types of periods. They might even grow. And so what that means is rent to price ratios will actually get better, meaning that your prospect for cash flow is going to get better. I don’t think it’s going to get us back to where we saw rent to price ratios after the great financial crisis, but it will get closer.
And that means cashflow will get better in the coming years. And so that’s sort of the shift that I am making. Take what the market is giving you. It is going to give us less appreciation. It is probably going to give us more cash flow. Have we reached the part where cashflow is easy to find? No. And that’s frustrating. And that means you have to be extremely patient right now, which is what I am doing and what I recommend you do as well. That’s at least the way I’m approaching this, but I would love to hear your opinions on this and how you’re going to approach investing in light of this demographic shift that is going on. That’s what we got for you today for On The Market. I’m Dave Meyer. We’ll see you next time.

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Europe tells Trump to get lost on Iran, again



European leaders doubled down Thursday on refusing to join the United States and Israel military campaigns in the Middle East as they met in Brussels to grapple with rising oil and gas prices caused by the war.

European leaders have deflected entreaties from U.S. President Donald Trump to send military assets to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the global flow of oil, gas and fertilizer. However, rising energy prices because of the war and fears in Europe of a new refugee crisis have pushed leaders to make the Middle East a priority at the summit.

“We are very worried about the energy crisis,” said Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever ahead of the summit. He said that energy prices were too high before the war, but that the conflict “created another spike.”

“If that becomes structural, we’re in deep trouble,” he said.

The summit was initially expected to center on overcoming Hungary’s opposition to a massive loan for Ukraine, but the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon reset the agenda.

European leaders have no ‘appetite’ for joining the war

European leaders have been deeply critical of the Iranian government, but none have offered immediate help to the U.S. Britain is flat-out refusing to be drawn into the war. France says the fighting would have to die down first.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said that Europe “will not allow itself to be blackmailed” into joining the United States and Israel military campaign in the Middle East.

“Europe — and Austria as well — will not allow itself to be blackmailed,” he said ahead of the European Council summit of the leaders of the 27 EU nations. “Intervention in the Strait of Hormuz is not an option for Austria anyway.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said there was “no appetite” among leaders to expand a European naval force in the Red Sea to help secure the Strait of Hormuz or otherwise join the fray.

Looking ahead to the war’s end

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the war must end before his country can help with matters such as keeping shipping lanes clear.

“We can and will commit ourselves only when the weapons fall silent,” he said of potential German military support to secure shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. “We can then do a great deal, up to opening sea lanes and keeping them clear, but we’re not doing it during ongoing combat operations.”

He said that would require an international mandate, among other complicated steps, “before we can even consider such an issue.”

While the EU isn’t a party to the conflict, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said he understood the U.S. and Israeli reasons for launching the campaign against the “brutal” Iranian government. He called for the EU to increase both sanctions on Iran and support for Iranian opposition groups

But others blasted the war as “illegal” and destabilizing.

“We are against this war because it is illegal,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: “It’s causing a lot of damage to civilians, of course, refugees and the economic consequences that the whole world, especially the global south, is already suffering.”

Trump had mentioned NATO support for clearing the Strait of Hormuz but has not officially requested it, said Evika Silina, prime minister of Latvia, one of the 23 out of the 27 EU nations that are NATO members.

“When there will be some official requests, I think we always have to evaluate those requests.”

No single fix for the EU’s diverse energy markets

The European Commission has told leaders it has a mix of financial instruments that member nations could deploy to lower energy prices, which will be up for discussion. No single policy will likely work to blunt the economic shocks from the war across the bloc’s myriad markets from Romania to Ireland.

EU leaders are hoping their experience weaning off of Russian energy in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and of building up the bloc’s military spending towards self-sufficiency will enable to them to do the same for energy independence.

While some European capitals have called for the suspension or scrapping of climate policies to stave off the worst of the recent spike in energy prices because of the war, others have argued that the EU’s long-term energy strategy should be home-grown sustainable energy decoupled from vulnerable fossil fuel markets.

European Council President Antonio Costa said that “energy means security” and that the EU should “build our own capacity to produce our own energy, because it’s the only way to be secure.”

___

Associated Press writers Pietro De Cristofaro, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

The Pros and Cons of Buying New Construction


Are you having a rough time finding the exact home that meets your vision? Then building your dream home may be the right strategy for you. A custom home can take a few forms.

This label encompasses everything from buying a newly built home that allows for a few customized home plans to hiring a custom home builder who can tailor every plank, light switch, and master bedroom angle to your exact specifications.

Deezer posts first-ever annual profit – despite total subscriber base declining in 2025


Deezer posts first-ever annual profit – despite total subscriber base declining in 2025

Deezer has achieved profitability for the first time in its history, reporting net income of EUR €8.5 million for fiscal year 2025 — a sharp reversal from the €26 million loss it posted in 2024.

The Paris-headquartered streaming platform published its full-year results on Wednesday (March 18), calling the milestone the start of “a cycle of sustainable profitability“.

The result is all the more striking given that Deezer’s total subscriber count fell significantly over the course of the year.

Deezer reports its subscriber base in two categories: ‘Direct’ subscribers, who sign up and pay for the service themselves, and ‘Partnerships’ subscribers, who access Deezer through third-party bundles — typically with telcos such as Orange and Bouygues, or through commercial tie-ups like its deal with German broadcaster RTL+.

By the end of H1 2025, Deezer’s total paying subscribers had dropped to 9.2 million — down from 10 million a year earlier on a like-for-like basis. (Worth noting that Deezer originally reported its H1 2024 subscriber base at 10.5 million; this figure was subsequently restated downward to approximately 10 million after the company removed around 500,000 inactive family accounts from its count.)

The drop in overall subscribers was concentrated in Deezer’s partnerships segment, where subscribers contracted sharply as promotional cohorts from its Meli+ arrangement with Brazilian marketplace Mercado Libre were converted to premium offers or churned off the platform entirely.

Partnerships revenue fell -12.1% YoY for the full year to €147.8 million as a result. Excluding the Mercado Libre effect, the company said partnership revenue was broadly stable year-over-year.

Deezer’s direct subscriber base, however, grew in the opposite direction — and it is this higher-value segment that underpinned the path to profitability.

In France, the platform’s core market, direct subscribers rose +8.6% YoY to 3.8 million. The firm’s rest-of-world direct subscriber base also returned to growth at +7.7% YoY for the full year, after several quarters of decline.


Alongside the shift in subscriber mix, aggressive cost-cutting proved equally critical. Deezer reduced operating expenses by €12 million year-over-year across marketing, staffing, and general administrative costs, which the company described as a result of “disciplined cost management.”

Adjusted EBITDA reached €9.7 million for the full year — up from negative €4 million in 2024 — marking the first time the Euronext-listed company has delivered a positive annual figure on this measure. Free cash flow came in at €10 million, and Deezer closed the year with a cash position of €65 million and net cash of €57.4 million, up from €47.3 million at the end of 2024.

Consolidated revenue was €534 million, a marginal -1.4% YoY decline at current exchange rates but broadly flat at constant currency — in line with the company’s guidance. Adjusted gross profit rose slightly to €135.5 million, yielding a 25.4% margin.

Deezer’s ‘other’ revenue segment — encompassing advertising, ancillary income, and white-label solutions — was a notable contributor to the improved margin picture, climbing +17.9% YoY to €34.2 million.

The company attributed this largely to the performance of Sonos Radio and the expansion of its white-labeling business for hardware and media partners.

The platform renewed 10 major partnership agreements during the year, including with TIM and Sonos, and expanded into new verticals with clients such as Fitness Park, EDF, and Molotov TV.

Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer, said the results validated the company’s strategic direction. “For the first time in our history, we delivered positive net income, alongside sustained positive free cash flow and double-digit adjusted EBITDA,” stated Lanternier. “We met or exceeded all of our financial commitments.”


Deezer’s positioning on AI-generated content has become a defining feature of its brand.

In January 2026, the company disclosed that it was receiving approximately 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks per day — around 39% of all daily deliveries to the platform.



Up to 85% of streams on that AI-generated content were detected as fraudulent, demonetized and removed from the royalty pool. Deezer has begun commercially licensing its proprietary detection technology to partners, including French collecting society Sacem.

The company said 85% of its partners are now on its artist-centric payment system, which it pioneered with Universal Music Group in 2023 before expanding it through deals with Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Sacem.

For 2026, Deezer said it expects revenue in line with FY25 while maintaining positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. Strategic priorities include accelerating direct subscriber growth, scaling a new B2B offering called ‘Deezer for Professionals,’ and monetizing its AI detection capabilities through licensing. Q1 2026 revenue is due April 23.Music Business Worldwide

“We Are Balancing Two Goals.” US Federal Reserve Holds Rates Steady


The US Federal Reserve announced today that it had decided not to change benchmark rates. The Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.5% to 3.75%.

All members of the Committee voted for the decision, except for Stephen I. Miran, who sought a 25 bps reduction.

According to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement, economic uncertainty has been heightened by existing factors and the conflict in the Middle East.

The war with Iran has caused oil prices to rise considerably. It is difficult to know how long higher prices will remain.

The Committee said it is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate of full employment and inflation at 2%.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell noted that the labor market is not a source of inflation. The PPI was published today, showing a hotter-than-expected reading.

While the Fed believes holding rates is the correct move, the inflation data platform TruFlation continues to report that actual inflation is far lower than the numbers the Fed relies on. Chair Powell said they expect continued progress on housing services and on inflation in goods and services coming down.

 

Other comments of note from Chair Powell at the presser.

The Chairman said he has no intention of leaving the Fed until the investigation by the DOJ into his management of the Fed is over.

He also plans to remain as Chairman Pro-Tem until his replacement is approved.

After that, he said he has not decided whether he will remain on the Fed board, as his term is not yet over.

 

 



5 Stocks That Will Replace Your Job If You Invest NOW! @Courtney-Hale



Claim up to $1,000 in NVIDIA stock before the month ends:

What if I told you there were 5 specific stocks that could eventually generate enough income to replace your day job?

In this episode, my investment expert friend @Courtney-Hale breaks down the EXACT stocks and ETFs that could change your financial future – even if you’re starting with just $50-$500.

🔥 What You’ll Discover:
• The difference between “hoping” stocks go up vs. getting PAID every month to own them
• Why dividend stocks might NOT be the answer (this surprised me!)
• 5 growth stocks that could be life-changing investments
• 3 ETFs that trim the fat and focus on pure growth
• The #1 mistake beginners make when they first start investing
• Why Tesla isn’t just a car company (and why that matters for your money)

Whether you have $50 or $5,000 to invest, this episode gives you a clear roadmap to start building wealth that could eventually replace your income.

Don’t just hope your money grows – make it WORK for you.

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ABOUT ANTHONY ONEAL
Anthony Oneal is a nationally bestselling author, speaker, and host of The Table. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance & Banking and is a professor of Consumer Economics at Virginia Union University. Since 2014, he’s helped millions of people get out of debt, build wealth, and break generational poverty.

His mission is to help you maximize your income, eliminate debt, and create a life of freedom and legacy—without relying on credit cards or student loans.

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10 Flexible Part Time Jobs You Can Do From Anywhere


In an ideal world you’d be able to work full time, have a full class load, maintain some sort of social life and balance it all perfectly. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world.

Having a job while attending college is one of the keys to avoiding monstrous piles of student loan debt. But it can be hard to find a job that allows the flexibility you need. This is where a flexible part time job can come in handy.

There are hundreds of perfectly legit ways to earn a part time income on your own hours from the comfort of your home.

These ten flexible part time jobs are a great fit for college students. Note: these are all freelance jobs – which work great for side gigs.

1. Freelance Writer

Freelance writing is how I started my work from home journey and is one skill that is in huge demand. As more and more companies build their presences online the need for competent writers has grown as well.

The pay of a freelance writer can vary greatly. At the low end you can expect to get $20 per article and at the higher end you can earn $1,000 or more. The pay you earn depends upon your areas of expertise, your writing abilities and how well you’re able to market your services.

The beauty of freelance writing is that, while you’ll have deadlines to meet, you won’t have a set schedule. You can also scale up or down on work as your other commitments fluctuate.

Note: AI has made this more challenging to get into, but if you have true subject matter expertise, you can easily make money in this area. And AI can be a super-charging force, not a competitor. 

If you’re interested in earning money writing check out this post: 14 Ways to Get Paid to Write.

Or, jump into this course that will teach you how to become a freelance writer from someone who makes six figures a year freelancing. Check out: Earn More Writing.

2. Social Media Manager

Another higher paying freelance job is a social media manager.

The median pay rate for a social media manager is $14/hour, however, if you are effective at your job you can certainly earn a much higher hourly rate.

One of the more popular approaches is helping local small businesses run their social media accounts – something you could easily do on the side.

You can look for social media positions at sites like Upwork.com or Montser.com or you can pitch local businesses.

Again, this is another area where true expertise can shine – especially part time. So many local businesses could use video creators and other social media pros to help them.

3. ESL Teacher

If you like teaching and are looking for a way to earn doing it there are many places seeking ESL (English Second Language) teachers.

These positions require the ability to teach English to non-native English speakers. You generally do not need to know a second language.

If you’re interested in becoming an ESL teacher you can browse some opportunities in our full guide: How To Get Paid For Teaching English Online.

4. Online Tutor

Tutoring jobs have always been great options for college students but can be cumbersome if you’re working with a busy schedule.

Tutor.com will allow you to work as little as 5 hours per week and up to 29 hours per week. You’re able to schedule sessions ahead of time according to your schedule or you can pick up one of the available sessions at any time.

There are broad range of topics in need of new tutors. You can check out that list here.

5. Transcriptionist

Transcriptionists listen to audio and transcribe that content into text documents. There are a number of different transcriptionist opportunities – medical transcription, transcribing podcasts, transcribing speeches and more.

There are also many scams when it comes to transcription so you need to be wary when looking for these types of jobs. A general rule of thumb is to never pay to get a job.

The average pay for transcription sits right around $15 per hour.  However the pay will depend upon your speed and accuracy. Most companies will require you to pass a skills test if you’re a new transcriber.

Here are some places you can find legit transcription jobs:

  • Rev

6. Start a Blog/Website/Substack

Let me be clear – blogging is definitely not a get rich quick scheme or an easy way to earn money. (Despite what anyone tries to tell you.)  But if you have a lot of spare time, especially since we’re now on summer break, starting a blog and working on it can pay off over time (like, in a year or two.)

You can read here how Robert built a blog in his spare time and sold it for $11,000.

While this particular job isn’t going to earn you immediate income it could definitely pay off down the road if you’re willing to put in the effort.

Read our full guide on How To Start A Personal Blog or Website. Today, you can also start a Substack and start driving traffic and revenue as well. They key, again, is to have some unique expertise that you can highlight.

7. Driving and Delivery

On-demand services have exploded, and rideshare and delivery apps are always looking for people to do the work.

These are awesome side gigs because they are typically the most flexible – you can do them anytime, anywhere.

Here are some places you can sign up for this type of work:

  • Doordash
  • Uber

8. Website Tester

Companies always want to make sure their websites are user friendly and attractive. This is where website usability testers come in.

As a website tester you review a website and (normally) record a video of you using that website along with your audio commentary. If you have good communication skills this could be a perfect fit for you.

There are no set hours with this type of work. If you’re in interested in becoming a usability tester you can sign up with these companies:

  • UserTesting – Pays $10 per test.
  • UserFeel – Pays $10 per test.

(Tests normally take anywhere from 10-25 minutes to complete.)

9. Data Entry Specialist

Data Entry jobs are not the highest paying online jobs but can be a good fit for beginners looking for fairly simple work. As a data entry specialist you take a set of data and organize it or put in a specific program.

You can expect anywhere from $6-$12 per hour for this type of work.

Here are some places to check out:

  • Clickworker
  • UpWork.com

10. Freelance Researcher

Have you ever had a question that you needed an answer for but didn’t feel like researching yourself? There are now freelance research sites dedicated to answering those questions.

Toptal is one site I’m familiar with that hires freelance researchers to answer their customers’ questions. The pay varies depending on the complexity of the question being asked.

If you’re looking for more science focused work, check out Kolabtree.

Finding a Flexible Part Time Job that Fits You

There’s an abundance of flexible part time jobs online but it might take a little trial and error to find the one that best suits your skills, schedule and pay requirements.

As you’re looking for jobs be wary of scams. Never pay to get a job unless you’re purchasing required equipment and when in doubt check the company on the Better Business Bureau website.

We also have a list of 100 other flexible jobs here.

Are there any flexible part time jobs you’d add to the list?

Editor: Robert Farrington

Reviewed by: Clint Proctor

The post 10 Flexible Part Time Jobs You Can Do From Anywhere appeared first on The College Investor.

Crashing 51%, 3 Reasons to Buy This Netflix Rival in March and Hold for 5 Years


The monster success that Netflix has achieved makes it a company that’s deserving of all the attention it receives from investors. However, the streaming stock isn’t the most attractive opportunity, mainly since its valuation looks expensive right now at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 37.7.

There’s another media and entertainment stock that’s trading 51% below its all-time record from March 2021 (as of March 16). Despite the plummet, here are three reasons investors might want to buy this Netflix rival in March and hold for five years.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

This company’s streaming segment is exhibiting financial strength

The business that investors need to consider buying is Walt Disney (DIS 0.97%). The first reason why is the financial success being exhibited by its direct-to-consumer streaming segment, which includes Disney+ and Hulu (excluding Hulu Live TV). It registered operating income of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2025 (ended Sept. 27, 2025), up 828% from $143 million in the year before.

For fiscal 2026, the leadership team expects this segment to post a 10% operating margin. Assuming there’s 10% revenue growth this fiscal year, it implies $2.7 billion in operating income will be reported by the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services combined. Compared to the massive losses just a couple of years before, this development is welcomed by investors.

Experiences bring the magic of intellectual property to the physical world

Disney’s video entertainment gets a lot of buzz. However, the most critical segment comes from its experiences, such as its theme parks and cruises. Disney has parks and resorts around the world, and it plans to open one in Abu Dhabi next. It’s also significantly expanding its cruise fleet from eight ships now to a total of 13.

Management clearly sees a lot of potential for the experiences division. The financial performance is hard to ignore. It boasted a 33% operating margin in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended Dec. 27, 2025). And durable revenue growth has been achieved over the years.

It’s impossible for competitors to copy what Disney has built. The company owns so much valuable intellectual property that it will likely never run out of ideas to create new experiences.

Walt Disney Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.97%) $-0.97

Current Price

$99.33

The current valuation means now is the time to act

Maybe the most convincing reason to scoop up Disney shares in March comes down to the valuation. It’s extremely compelling. The stock can be bought right now at a P/E multiple of 14.5. This is a sizable 62% discount to where Netflix currently trades.

The market still appears to be cautious, which is understandable. Disney’s share price has lost half its value in the past five years, while Netflix is up 83%. But given the desirable qualities the House of Mouse possesses, Disney is poised to be a winning investment over the next five years.

Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Doctors Program (Physician Loan) – MortgageDepot


Exclusive Home Financing for Medical Professionals

MortgageDepot’s Doctors Program, also known as a Physician Loan, provides a path to homeownership with up to 100% financing and no private mortgage insurance (PMI). Medical professionals often face unique financial circumstances, including high student loan balances, delayed income growth during training, and the need to relocate for career opportunities. By eliminating PMI and allowing for high LTV financing, we empower medical professionals to purchase a primary residence without depleting their savings.

Eligible Medical Professionals

This program supports both early-career professionals and experienced practitioners, recognizing the strong earning potential and long-term financial stability associated with medical careers.

At least one borrower must hold one of the following medical designations:

  • Medical Doctor (MD)
  • Doctor of Osteopathy (DO)
  • Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS)
  • Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD)
  • Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD)
  • Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM / VMD)
  • Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM)
  • Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA)
  • Medical residents, fellows, and interns with qualifying medical degrees

Program Highlights and Benefits

MortgageDepot’s Medical Professional Loan Program offers premium financing advantages:

  • Financing available from 90.01% up to 100% LTV for qualified borrowers
  • No PMI required, even with high loan-to-value financing
  • Maximum loan amount up to $2,000,000
  • Maximum debt-to-income ratio up to 50%
  • Minimum credit score of 680
  • Fixed-rate mortgage options: 15, 20, 25, and 30-year terms
  • Adjustable-rate mortgage options: 5/6, 7/6, and 10/6 ARMs
  • Primary residence financing only
  • 1-unit properties eligible
  • Purchase and Rate-and-Term Refinance options available
  • Non-occupying co-borrowers permitted
  • Gift funds allowed for reserves

Our Doctors Program offers a financing solution tailored to your profession. Our team specializes in structuring mortgage solutions that align with your current income, future earning potential, and long-term financial goals.

If you are a medical professional seeking high-LTV mortgage financing with no PMI, our Doctors Program is for you. Contact our team to explore your options.

What It Takes to Execute a Successful Company Turnaround


ALISON BEARD: Welcome to HBR On Leadership. I’m HBR Executive Editor Alison Beard. On this show, we share case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. We carefully curate this feed from across the HBR portfolio, aiming to help you unlock your next level of leadership.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard. When a company division or product line has been struggling for some time, it can feel nearly impossible to get things back on track. When sales are down and margins are tight, there’s no money to invest in better marketing, new talent, or more R&D.

But big turnarounds are possible, provided you have a team willing to work hard, be creative, and embrace change. Take it from our guest today. You might think that the companies he’s helped lead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Black & Decker, Marvel Entertainment, don’t have much in common beyond being consumer-facing. But at each of them, he managed to transform weak, underperforming businesses into Blockbuster ones.

He’s here to share what he’s learned from these experiences and explain how you might apply those lessons to execute successful turnarounds in your own spheres of influence.

Peter Cuneo is the former president and CEO of Marvel, a former senior executive at several other companies, and currently the manager of principal of Cuneo & Company. Peter, nice to be talking to you today.

PETER CUNEO: Alison. It’s great to be here. Thank you.

ALISON BEARD: So we’re going to discuss your time in lots of different industries, but let’s start with this. When you see a business or product line or even a project flailing over a period of time, what is your first step in trying to diagnose whether or not it can be saved and whether it’s even worth saving?

PETER CUNEO: Well, I’ve been asked to get involved in a lot of companies that were having problems, and I probably only chose one out of five because it’s difficult. What I try to do is find people who know the company inside to talk to them about what’s going on. What are they hearing? I have found in my turnarounds actually that the most important thing and the thing that was wrong, that was, I like to say, bankrupt, even if they weren’t bankrupt financially, what was bankrupt was the culture of the company.

The value system was, in some cases, shockingly wrong. What the company, what the organization, what the employees thought was important to accomplish, and what really was important. And so, always try to kind of attack that first question. The second thing, of course, are the things you can do yourself. There’s looking at an industry, there’s looking at the opportunities for the company within that industry, or even what’s the life cycle of the whole industry.

You always assume when you’re going into turnarounds, you are going to make a lot of change. And I always tell people now, “No matter how much information you get being outside the company, when you get inside on a turnaround, if you know it’s a turnaround, you’re going to find out that it’s always much worse than you thought it was. So be prepared for lots of negative surprises, even on top of the ones you already knew about before you walked through the front door.”

ALISON BEARD: But in your evaluation, you have to see a path forward because of the product or the people or the company’s position in the market.

PETER CUNEO: Broadly speaking, you can see that, but in the end, it’s all about execution. It’s all about the people. It’s all about having employees, particularly in key positions, that can cope with a turnaround. My experience is that most human beings have a very hard time being inside a turnaround because it’s scary. You don’t know what the future is. And it takes a certain type of person that will be comfortable with that risk, usually because they see what the rewards could be, particularly financially. But it takes a unique kind of person with a unique view of the world and themselves to actually engage in a turnaround on purpose. I think you have to know yourself, be comfortable with that environment.

ALISON BEARD: So it seems like you’re saying personnel is a huge piece of executing the turnaround. You’ve managed comebacks for everything from personal care products at Clairol to security hardware at Black & Decker, to international divisions at Remington, to movies at Marvel. Are there universal sort of strategies that you pursue for all of those cases, or does each situation require its own specific solution?

PETER CUNEO: On my podcast, I feature something I call the 32 Essentials of Superhero Leadership, and these are one-liners about leadership, about philosophy, behavior, instinct, what have you, that I’ve learned in my career. Many of them, I have to say, the hard way. One of them I actually say is never think you’ve seen it all before because every situation is largely different. Sure, there are certain things you’re going to want to do naturally. For example, the first week I would be in a new turnaround, I would ask all of my direct reports to prepare a one-pager, if you will, on the following, what was wrong with the company, who made the mistakes, and what would they do going forward if they were me?

And the one about who was at fault, I put in specifically for a reason because I could pretty much tell right away who were the keepers and who wouldn’t work out long term. So if a person came in, and this would happen, saying, “Here are our problems, I could have done this better, and here’s where I think we can really go,” that was someone I was interested in working with.

If someone came in and said, “All the problems were someone else. My organization, I didn’t make any mistakes, etc.,” I pretty much thought they wouldn’t make the cut long. And that’s generally how it worked out. So right away, I am, if you will, designing who will be on the key team that’s going to run this turnaround and places where I’ll need to find other people from outside the company.

It’s usually a melding of both. You will find people inside an organization who are actually quite good and, for reasons of poor leadership in the past, basically were never allowed to flourish. And once they are allowed to flourish, they really show their stuff.  One of the great pleasures I’ve had, actually, I’ve done seven successful turnarounds, is seeing that happen.

ALISON BEARD: And what about financial leavers better managing resources versus strategic – heading in a different direction?

PETER CUNEO: Obviously, if you’re doing a turnaround, what the numbers are and so on are very important. And I always like to be initially very close to the numbers because if you’re going into an industry that you don’t really know, you can’t pretend to yourself that you’re an instant expert.

When I went to Marvel, I had no idea how to make a motion picture. I had no idea how to publish a comic book, so I needed to learn the key points of those as quickly as I can. And actually, Marvel is a New York Stock Exchange-listed company, obviously public, and the CFO of the company, when I came, really had his doubts that the company could make it. We’d just come out of bankruptcy. Stock price was super low, and he left the company, and I became the CFO as well as the CEO. Now, today, because of Sarbanes-Oxley, you could never get away with this on a public company, but back then played both roles for two years before I really felt the turnaround was well underway. That’s one of the reasons I learned to understand the makings of making comic books and motion pictures.

ALISON BEARD: As you’re thinking about new strategic directions that you want to take, a division or an international group or an entire organization, do you look closely at what successful competitors are doing?

PETER CUNEO: When I go to a turnaround, I have only the vaguest macro notion of what the strategic decisions or future directions could be. Again, I know that I’m going to discover things that I don’t know on the outside, and in fact, I might be pleasantly surprised or not. And so I don’t get too wedded to what I think what my vision might be for the company. I’m not pushing my vision very hard to start. I want to learn to make sure I know what I’m talking about, and that takes a little bit of time. And very often, I’ve adopted other people’s vision.

Here’s an example at Marvel again. At Marvel, actually, somebody else, a guy named Avi Arad, had really started the motion picture, if you will, strategic approach for the company’s characters. When I showed up the first month I was on the job, I went to the set of X-Men 1. It was already filming. It was the first film that launched Marvel all those years ago on all the success that Marvel has had with film and other businesses. And so I was on the set after two weeks on the job. I admit it. I had no idea, and I was not about to make changes in the script or anything else because I would be the essence of arrogance to say to myself, suddenly, I know how to make a good movie.

Pushing movies in our own studio rather than with big studio partners was not me. It’s a guy named David Maisel. And David had a vision, and the more I heard about it and the more I saw, the more I got excited about his vision. And so, eventually, we made history.

ALISON BEARD: And as you work with this team of people that have been there who have good ideas and are energized by the prospect of change and new people that you’ve brought in to think about strategic directions, do you think that turnaround efforts have more success when there is sort of close attention paid to the competition and how to do what competitors are doing better or differently or more efficiently? Or is it really more about thinking outside the box toward those kind of blue ocean opportunities?

PETER CUNEO: Well, actually you can do both. You certainly want to know a lot about your competition a lot. Understand their behavior, want to understand how they think, you want to understand their cultures as well. But you can do that and take advantage of that at the same time that you’re thinking about radical approaches to the industry or to the business. It’s not an either, or in this case. And I think they’re both extremely important. They’re required actually to affect a turnaround. I was typically on my turnarounds on the job for three years.

ALISON BEARD: Three years is a really quick turnaround time. So how do you manage to do it that quickly, given the hurdles that you outlined? Natural resistance to change, for example.

PETER CUNEO: One of the things that I think many poor leaders misunderstand is the value of communications. Now, we could say, “Oh, of course communications are important, right.” Everyone would say that, but it’s really the quality of the communications that matter. It’s the quality. It’s how often you communicate. It’s how consistently you communicate. It’s also communicating to big groups.

If you have a multinational business, you’re going to have to do some of that certainly. But it’s also walking the aisles, just talking to people about their… how the day is going and talk to them about the business. And believe me, anything you say to that one individual is going to get all around the company in an hour.

You have to be consistent, willing to talk. People would rather hear bad news than no news. That’s human nature, believe it or not. That’s what I have found. I had many different ways that I like to communicate, and you may laugh, but one of them was pizza parties. So I would have every week…

ALISON BEARD: I like pizza. I’m not going to laugh at that.

PETER CUNEO: Every week or every other week, I would have a pizza lunch for maybe 12 people from the company, and they were at all levels and in all functional areas. And one of the interesting things that I found very often is even though they’re in the same building, maybe even in the same floor when we went around the room introducing ourselves, a lot of the people didn’t know the other people in the room, which told me something again about culture right away.

And so this gave me the opportunity to talk about the business, of course, to be optimistic, and you always have to be. In turnarounds, your body language has to be optimistic, what you say has to be optimistic, and so on. And there’s no room for being down ever publicly. If things aren’t going well, you can go home and scream in a pillow. That’s cool. I won’t say that I haven’t done it, but you’re on stage. You’re literally on stage. And even in the case of bad news, you have to be projecting a positive image and optimism, and that you do… one of the ways you do it. Of course, it’s through effective communications.

ALISON BEARD: Is it possible for an existing leader of an underperforming team or product line or business to execute a turnaround also, or does it take an outsider?

PETER CUNEO: I think it depends on what kind of turnaround is required. If you’re talking about radical turnarounds, I think it’s very hard for existing leadership to achieve it because they’re wedded to the past. And radical turns, all mine have been radical, I would say. I think you’re going to have to have a different leadership team.

One of the turnarounds I did I always think about this, I came in, and usually, the people I’m replacing are no longer with the company. They’re not physically there. But in this particular case, the individual was still there, and he was actually very cordial. He’d been with the company for 30 years, and he had been the CEO for like 15 years. A long time. And he said to me, “Peter, I’m glad you’re here.” And, of course, I was thinking, there’s no way that he’s happy that I’m here.

And he said, “You’ll make the changes I couldn’t.” And he said, “I couldn’t fire my friends.” It had all become a family to him with all the time he’d been there, and he couldn’t make the hard actions that he knew he had to make because change always upsets human beings. Even, quote, good change.

ALISON BEARD: And when you’re overseeing painful change like that, you’re shifting resources from one area to another, you’re perhaps laying off people, you’re cutting costs, how do you get buy-in? How do you keep people still feeling positive?

PETER CUNEO: So I’d love to tell you, I’m so wonderful, and I walk through the door, and two weeks later, every employee in a multinational company is on board. Of course, that’s ridiculous. You’re going to have people who challenge you, who don’t believe in your vision, for example, or won’t believe in all the changes that you’re making. And that’s okay.

Typically, I give people time, but after a couple of months, if they can’t make the trip with me, frankly, they have to go because they become cancers in the organization. And the organization has to have a single purpose, a single goal, if you will, in mind.

So there are times to be very, very tough, and you can’t be afraid to do that. Most human beings do not aspire to leadership simply because they know that they’re going to have to make difficult decisions and changes, and they’re going to be unpopular, and they just don’t want to ever be in a position to be unpopular to hurt other people. And that’s cool. I often say that I think that I’m the outlier. People like me we’re the outliers. I don’t say… I don’t mean that we’re insensitive. I think that we’re actually very sensitive, but we’re able, for whatever reason, to go ahead and make those changes and believe in them and give people hope.

It’s actually better for an organization. Everyone’s worried when you walk in the door, “Am I going to lose my job?” And that’s appropriate. It’s better to make those changes fast and then be able to say to the organization, in your communications, there will be no more personnel changes because then they can really start to think about, “Okay, am I on board or not now that I know I have a job?” Good leaders are, I think, excellent at feeling at the instincts of human behavior, human nature, and being able to cope with those and sometimes even use them. But it’s very important. You have to get the company to a point where everyone’s going to roll the boat in unison.

ALISON BEARD: So you’re obviously most well-known for the Marvel turnaround, and I’d love to talk about one big decision that helped pave the way for that. You, along with the Marvel board, agreed to green light Robert Downey Jr. to play Iron Man at a time when his public perception really wasn’t the best. Why was that move so important? How did you know that was the right thing to do?

PETER CUNEO: So I mentioned starting Marvel Studios, and the… I’m now vice chairman of the board. We had, by the way, a very strong board at Marvel. And this is something, again, you’re at a public company or a private turnaround, you want to make sure you have a great board. The board members there deserve a lot of credit for the success because they were believers in radical change, and they could see it and they could support it. Most boards, they don’t want to do anything radical.

And so we had started Marvel Studios, and the first film we were going to make is Iron Man 1. And this is going to be very important because we have borrowed $525 million to start this studio. And this first film obviously needs to be a hit. And, of course, the big decision who’s going to play the lead character? Tony Stark.

And we’re having a board meeting in New York, and the people running Marvel Studios come in, and they say, “Well, we have someone we really want to cast. We’ve worked a lot with him, and we think he’s ideally the best male actor in Hollywood. We want to cast Robert Downey Jr.”

And there’s this silence in the room since his mugshot had been all over everywhere two or three months earlier. And Robert clearly had some personal issues, that’s for sure. And so, to the credit of the people running Marvel Studios, they had gotten him to screen test, and they said, “We knew you would react this way,” he’d said to the board. “And understandable. But we want to show you his screen test.”

So the screen test was the first, I think, eight or 10 minutes of the actual movie. He’s in the Humvee with a female Army driver. He’s smoking a cigarette. He’s drinking a cocktail in the backseat like nothing’s going on. And, of course, they get hit, and that’s how he gets a new heart, and he’s captured and whatever. But first eight minutes are just in the vehicle, and he’s on script for the first three or four minutes.

And then Robert, as only Robert can do, I have to say, looking back, goes off, and he becomes Tony Stark just in front of us.

That film came out in 2007. So we are now 17 years later, the culture of Marvel had become, and I started it, but a lot of other people jumped on board, we’re going to change the rules of the game. We’re not going to make movies the way other people do. We’re not going to do comic books the way other people do. That was the culture. If you want to wrap it up in one line, change the rules of the game. And this was a good example of changing the rules of the game, casting Robert and he was brilliant in the movie.

ALISON BEARD: Over the course of your career, why do you think that you gravitated toward these challenges/opportunities, especially when companies were near bankruptcy or in bankruptcy like Remington or Marvel when you know you’re going to have to make really difficult changes? Why is that all of that appealing?

PETER CUNEO: That’s a great question, which I’ve asked myself many times over the years. I think it starts with how I was raised. Three of my four grandparents were immigrants, so they were risk-takers in a sense.

We don’t really think about it anymore, but way back in the late 19th century, to leave your country and come to a completely different country, particularly when you didn’t speak the language, which was true in some cases, not all my grandparents, but in some cases, and make a life for yourself takes a lot of courage and it takes a willingness to put up change.

And my mother and my father were, I think, because they’re the spawn of my grandparents, were very similar. Real quickly, my father was Boy Scout of the year at age 13 in Manhattan; was a Navy officer in World War II in the South Pacific and also was pulled… called up from the reserves to be an officer on an aircraft carrier in the Korean War.

He was also a lieutenant in New York City Fire Department, running into buildings, fighting fires in some of the worst neighborhoods in New York. So my father was a doer. He could not handle a desk job for very long. He needed to get out there. And my mother was similar. My mother was an EMT for 30 years. And so I grew up with those as models for life. And so I was never afraid of the unknown. In fact, in a funny way, I gravitated. I used to tell people I had an adventurer gene.

And then, I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I did two tours as a Navy officer in Vietnam, another adventure. I was very naive. I wouldn’t call it an adventure anymore. But that started me on a leadership… on a pattern of leadership because the military gives young junior officers a tremendous amount of responsibility during wartimes.

And so I had to cope and live with that. I actually enjoyed it. And so that’s the start. And then, of course, when I got out of the Navy, I went to Harvard Business School.

Actually, I had no idea that I would be good in turnarounds and no clue at all. Never thought about turnarounds. I was doing a fairly big corporate financial type of professional career, and one day, I was in a division in consumer products. My boss said to me, “You’re taking over the international division.” I said, “What? Yeah, we’re getting on a plane. We’re flying to London to the headquarters tomorrow.”

So I was thrown into my first turnaround, and I didn’t move. I stayed in New York, but I was quite often in Europe. And the first six months, I was very down. I really didn’t think, “What do I know about turnarounds?” And then we started to get results, and then we got really good results. And then I started to think about, “Why is it? Why are we successful?”

And I realized it was leadership, not just mine, but other people that I had found or discovered in the organization or brought into the organization. And then I was off. And then the company I was with saw what I had done after two years and said, “Okay, here’s a bigger turnaround to do.” And we had a big success there too. And then I was addicted. I was actually, I have to say, addicted to doing turnarounds. I think I still am today.

The reality is I had a lot of help, and I made some mistakes, and there is stress. Nobody can… tells you that I did a successful turnaround. It’s going to tell you if they’re honest, that there wasn’t a lot of stress because there is. Particularly for me in the first six months when I was still making changes in learning mode and what have you. And if my wife was here, she would tell you that on most of them, there were times when I came back home in the first six months and said, “I think I made a major career blunder.” It wasn’t instant. And in some cases, if anything, they were even worse for a while. So there is that too. Another reason that I don’t recommend turnarounds for everyone.

ALISON BEARD: So let’s talk about when you feel like your mission has been accomplished and it’s time to move on. I know you’ve sold a couple companies. Remington to a leveraged buyout firm. Marvel to Disney in 2009. How do you make those decisions? When do you know it’s time to step away?

PETER CUNEO: Well, as I said, most of the time, I’m in the job three years. At Marvel, it was closer to four years as CEO, and I didn’t make the decision to sell the business six years later. That was obviously a board decision. Also, the owners of Remington, when we sold the business, that was… certainly, they were a big part of that.

But as far as me being done, actually, there’s a very simple test. I start to get bored. Things seem to be running well. We’re getting good results. People seem to be happy. There aren’t the big challenges that there were when I first came, and that’s when I know it’s probably time to move on.

ALISON BEARD: What’s your advice to leaders out there who feel like the businesses that they’re managing might be in trouble?

PETER CUNEO: Well, when you say might be in trouble, I think it’s rarely a question.

ALISON BEARD: So if you think it might be, it probably is.

PETER CUNEO: Yeah, it’s probably, I would say. And so, again, leadership, great leadership takes courage. It takes being honest with yourself and with others and courage to make change and upset others. I would say to most people to determine whether you’re the person who can do it. Do you have the personality, the emotional makeup, to actually carry it off? Because if you’re honest and you’re not, then get somebody else who will.

And you’ll still get the credit for the turnaround because you brought in the person who was successful. In some cases, maybe you don’t have that option. It’s time for to look for another job. But human beings want to procrastinate. My biggest plus and my biggest minus is I’m too impatient as a personality. But tor turnarounds, you got to get… you got to move. You got to get help.

And if you’re in a situation where you’re involved in an area you just know nothing about, like I knew nothing about comics or movies, but maybe it could be today – AI. Everybody’s going to be engaged with AI in some way. If you don’t understand AI, get someone to help you understand it. And that’s not hard. It’s not hard. But if your competition is into AI already and you’re not, you have a problem. And it’s an obvious one, but don’t be afraid to get help.

ALISON BEARD: HBR On Leadership will be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation from Harvard Business Review. If this episode helped you, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. While you’re there, consider leaving us a review.

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This episode was produced by Mary Dooe and me, Amanda Kersey. On Leadership’s team includes Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, and Anne Bartholomew. Music by Coma Media.