Today’s track: Mess Around — John Mayall
Saw a chart this week that broke down KFC’s markets by share of sales.
China is 26%. Europe is 13%. The United States is 12%. Asia is also 12% and growing faster than we are, so we’re probably fourth by the end of the year.
Third place in the country that invented it.
Harland Sanders started that company at a service station in Corbin, Kentucky. We put the name on the arena downtown. And now America is the third-biggest market for it.
I don’t think that’s a sad story. A guy from Corbin built something that feeds Jakarta. That’s a hell of a run.
But it costs us a little. KFC moved its U.S. offices to Plano last year — about 100 corporate jobs out of Louisville and another 90 remote roles. Yum is still here and still committed, 550 people headed into the PNC Tower at Fifth and Main on a ten-year lease, and they gave the old Gardiner Lane campus to JCPS. So it’s not a disaster.
It’s just that a headquarters is more than payroll. It’s the sponsorship somebody signs, the charity table somebody buys, the agency across the street that gets the work. And when the U.S. becomes your fourth-best market, decisions about the U.S. get made by people thinking about somewhere else.
That’s the thing I keep chewing on. It’s possible to build something great and have it stop being about the place that made it.
Which is more or less what a lot of people feel about their own jobs right now.
Here’s the number that’s been in my head all week.
More than half of Americans don’t believe a regular full-time job will get them to their financial goals.
More than half. Not “I want a raise.” They’ve decided the thing they do forty-plus hours a week isn’t going to produce the outcome it’s supposed to produce.
And I don’t think they’re wrong.
Inflation came in at 3.5% in June, down from 4.2%. That’s good. Real cooling. I’ll take it. But cooling isn’t the same as going back. Groceries didn’t go back to 2020. Insurance didn’t. Neither did any house you’ve looked at lately. Your pay went up 3% and somebody called it a raise.
Nobody got poorer, exactly. The finish line just moved.
Now put that next to another number from this week. The median rent-to-income ratio for people signing new leases in market-rate apartments dropped to 21.7%. That’s the lowest since before the pandemic. It was 23.8% at the end of 2021.
So renters have more room every month than they’ve had in five years, and at the same time half the country doesn’t believe their job is going to get them there.
Both of those are true. Read them together and you get something useful: the month is manageable, the destination isn’t. People aren’t drowning. They just don’t see how they get to the end.
And that extra room in the budget is the only thing that lets you build anything. Most people are going to spend it on nothing in particular.
I want to be careful here, because the internet’s answer to that stat is to yell “quit your job,” and that’s advice from people who’ve never made your mortgage payment.
Almost nobody I talk to hates their job. They like their job. They’ve just stopped believing it’s the whole plan.
So the question isn’t how to get out. It’s what’s the second thing.
And the better question — what’s a second thing you’d actually like doing?
Because if you pick something you hate, you’ll do it for six weeks and quit and feel worse than when you started. That’s most of what people call a side hustle. That’s why the phrase makes everybody tired.
If you like working with your hands, a small rental you fix up yourself is a real second thing. If you’re good with people, there’s somebody out there with money and no time who’d go in on a property with you. If you know a trade cold, teaching it pays. If you’d rather do the deal than the drywall, you don’t have to own anything at all — you find the property, you put it under contract, you hand it to somebody who wants it.
I don’t know which one is yours. I do know the one that works is the one you’d do on a Saturday even if it didn’t pay yet.
Which is why I’m bringing this up today.
It’s going to rain all weekend. Formula One is on break. Football isn’t back. There’s nothing to watch and nowhere to be.
That never happens. Take two hours and a legal pad.
What’s the second thing. What’s the smallest version of it you could start — not the big version, the Tuesday night version. And who do you already know who’s doing something like it.
That last one is the one that matters. Everybody wants a plan. What you need is a phone call.
We’re at 4,010 active listings right now, if you’re watching the market. A lot of those expire with the month, so that number’s going to move around a bit these next few days.
Something’s changed in the people around me lately. Friends who never talked about money are asking real questions. Guys who were coasting are building something on the side. There’s more ambition in the room than there was two years ago, and people are less embarrassed about it.
I like it. I want to be around more of it.
If you want to talk through your version — no pitch, no listing presentation, just a conversation — get on my calendar. That’s what it’s there for.
Enjoy the rain. Mess around a little.
Warmly,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
PS: Open House Sunday! This like-new 2024 build at 3503 Linnert Way in New Albany’s sought-after Grove neighborhood just moved to $425,000. Inside, an open-concept floor plan features a coffered living room ceiling and oversized windows, plus a chef’s kitchen with a waterfall quartz island and stainless appliances. The primary suite offers a spacious walk-in closet, and the wooded, cul-de-sac lot includes covered front and side porches — perfect for relaxing or entertaining. Brand-new roof and an EV charger included. 3 bed, 2 bath, 1,527 sq ft of low-maintenance, move-in-ready living.
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3503 Linnert Way, New Albany, IN 47150 | Lisa Tucker, Winner Realty | 502-876-2145
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