Learning Amazingly Is Not Difficult At All! You Just Need A Great Teacher!: Should You Buy or Rent a Home?

Should You Buy or Rent a Home?

Zillow's economic research director Skylar Olsen joins our hosts Sandy Block and Ryan Ermey to discuss what factors to consider when deciding to buy or rent a home. Also, the pair offers money-smart travel tips to help you save.

Episode Length: 00:29:56 | Links and resources mentioned in this episode

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Ryan Ermey: When it comes to homes, is it better to rent or buy? People get pretty dogmatic about this, but the truth is it depends on a number of factors. Zillow's economic research director Skylar Olsen breaks it all down in our main segment.

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Ryan Ermey: On today's show Sandy and I give you money-smart vacation ideas for the year ahead. And Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson makes an appearance in a new edition of Wild Pitches.

Ryan Ermey: That's all ahead on this episode of Your Money's Worth. Stick around.

Ryan Ermey: Welcome to Your Money's Worth. I'm Kiplinger's associate editor Ryan Ermey joined as always by senior editor Sandy Block. Sandy, how are you?

Sandy Block: I'm good. Ready for a get away, Ryan!

Ryan Ermey: Yeah, me too and I think it could be because the weather here in Washington D.C., this past week, we had like two or three days of unseasonably warm...

Sandy Block: T-shirt weather, yeah.

Ryan Ermey: ... and lovely weather in the middle of what has otherwise been a pretty dreary winter. Which just, makes you itch to...

Sandy Block: Get out! Get out!

Ryan Ermey: ... get out of here. And it just so happens that we have a piece right in front of the book in the February issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance on great travel deals that have been arising and that look to hold in 2020.

Ryan Ermey: One of the things that our colleague Kaitlin Pitsker mentions in the piece is that prices on flights to Europe are coming down thanks to competition among carriers and carriers additional routes. The example that she sites in the piece is that flights to Rome from Boston, New York, San Francisco are all trending around $300 to $350, and that's something we expect to continue throughout the year.

Sandy Block: The other thing that Kaitlin mentions is that the dollar has been strong to a lot of other currencies, particularly the pound thanks to Brexit -- and maybe Meg-xit. I don't know if that's a currency for sure or not. Who knows?

Ryan Ermey: That would actually pump up the value of Canadian currency.

Sandy Block: Yeah, but it's not good Britain, sorry the UK. So that has made the UK a better deal. It's usually a pretty expensive destination. And one place that Kaitlin calls out in particular that you can get good packages is Scotland and I think that sounds really intriguing and interesting right now.

Ryan Ermey: Yeah, especially for those of us who like to golf. Have you been to the UK before? Have you traveled there before?

Sandy Block: I've been to Ireland.

SEE ALSO: 26 Secrets to Save Money on Travel

Ryan Ermey: But they're on the Euro.

Sandy Block: Right, they're on the Euro. Even a couple of years ago you could definitely benefit ... you could see the difference. You got a pump up from the dollar strength.

Ryan Ermey: I went to the UK in 2011, I went to London, and at this point it was like two to one, the pound to the dollar. It was like I was getting clobbered everywhere. You couldn't find a lunch for less than 11 pounds and you're just like, "Oh my God!"...

Sandy Block: That's like $20!

Ryan Ermey: ... I'm going to starve." I ended up eating French, pre-made mayonnaise sandwiches every day.

Sandy Block: It really does make a difference and it's worth checking out as you plan your trips. But we expect the dollar to remain pretty strong through 2020, so that's going to help you pretty much wherever you go.

Sandy Block: She mentioned some other places in Italy. Maybe a little off the radar places. Your cappuccinos, your paninis and things, they're not going to cost as much as they did when the dollar was weaker.

Ryan Ermey: Yeah. She recommends Sicily, which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful.

Ryan Ermey: One of the other interesting things, and this is something from back in my calendar days that I know as a trick, is that if you travel ... If it's an Olympic year, which 2020 is, it pays to travel to the Olympics destination after the games.

Sandy Block: After everybody's gone home. Yeah.

Ryan Ermey: A couple of weeks right after the games. So Tokyo, if you'd like to go in August, tons of new hotels have been built to house tourists for the games and they're going to be empty. So you can expect discounts of up to 50% after all of those athletes head home. And because there's going to be added routes to Tokyo, there should be reactively inexpensive airfare to get there as well.

Sandy Block: And finally, if you're looking for some warm weather, which I definitely am...

Ryan Ermey: Which we are right now.

Sandy Block: ... Yeah, we are right now 'cause the weather this weekend is supposed to be pretty crummy. Kaitlin has pointed out that Southwest has added some routes to Hawaii from the west coast. So you can get flights for $400 to $500. Now that's just from L.A. or San Francisco, but I know and probably you too Ryan, that if you plan it right, you can get flights from the east coast to L.A. or San Francisco for pretty...

Ryan Ermey: Relatively cheap, as well.

SEE ALSO: 34 Best Travel Websites to Save You Money

Sandy Block: ... reactively cheaply, too. So you put those two together, you get to Hawaii. Then once you get to Hawaii there's a lot of competition for the inter-island flights. You can hop from one island to another for $29 or something like that. So, Hawaii is not cheap and you're not getting any currency breaks because as some people seem to forget, it is still part of the U.S., but getting there is a lot less expensive. It is a wonderful place to visit. I've been there many times.

Ryan Ermey: So how do you find the flights? We've recommended using Google Flights and Google has actually just revamped their whole travel suite. We should actually ... We should find someone maybe to talk about the...

Sandy Block: That'd be good. Yeah.

Ryan Ermey: Maybe we'll just do it ourselves after we get a chance to test drive it a little bit. It's pretty new, like in the last week.

Ryan Ermey: In the meantime, there's plenty of services that offer awards, newsletters, when it comes to cheap flights as long as you're willing to be sort of flexible about when you want to travel. One is Scott's Cheap Flights and long-time listeners will remember that we talked to Scott. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and check it out. It's about strategies for finding cheap airfares. But if you don't want to do it yourself, Scott has an email newsletter, comes right to your inbox, alerts you to cheap flights. If you want to pay for the premium it tells you about cheap flights coming out of your home airports.

Ryan Ermey: Kaitlin also mentions Airfare Watchdog, Secret Flying which provides ... I mean, these are two different ... I made it sound like it's one thing. Airfare Watchdog sends out daily emails with lists of fares. Secret Flying provides instant alerts on flight deals that depart from cities across the U.S. for people who download it's app.

Ryan Ermey: So we will link this entire story in the show notes. We will also be having a story, Sandy, in...

Sandy Block: In March, we've got a whole package on travel tips. Or, travel secrets...

Ryan Ermey: Secrets.

Sandy Block: Excuse me. Yeah, travel secrets, which won't be secrets anymore after you get your March issue. Keep an eye out for that because that's got not just flying, but how to get deals on lodging, rail, even road trips. So kind of a birds eye view of all the different ways you can save money getting out of town.

Ryan Ermey: All right. Stay tuned folks.

Ryan Ermey: Coming up we talk to Skylar Olsen about renting versus buying, the 2020 housing outlook, millennial home buying and more. Don't go anywhere.

Ryan Ermey: We are back and we are here with Skylar Olsen, the director of economic research for Zillow, and today we're talking about a thing that really comes up frequently when it comes to personal finance discussions. And that is the dilemma between renting or buying.

Ryan Ermey: Skylar, thank you so much for coming on.

Skylar Olsen: Yeah, thank you for having me.

SEE ALSO: How Smart a Home Buyer Are You?

Ryan Ermey: So I guess I'll just start with sort of a broad question here and that is, what's the main thing that people should think about when deciding whether to rent or buy?

Skylar Olsen: Yeah I mean, what it really comes down to if you're thinking about renting or buying a home is ultimately how long you're going to be there. We all have pretty good intuition about if I'm only going to be there for six months, certainly just rent it because buying a home comes with a lot of up front costs. And if I'm going to be there for 10 years, obviously I would want to buy that home. It's in between where things get a little bit less clear.

Sandy Block: Skylar, we know that Zillow has a calculator that people can use, and we'll link to this in our show notes, and one of the things it does ask for is how long do you plan to be there. But what other kind of information do you need to have at hand to get the most out of this calculator and get kind of the most accurate results?

Skylar Olsen: Yeah, absolutely. So, first lets just talk in general what you're ultimately looking at here when you're looking at this kind of question. If you're thinking about ... You got to make it apples to apples, in other words.

Skylar Olsen: So when we're thinking about the rent versus buy question, what we're ultimately saying is, "I'm going to buy a house, I'm going to use it for my primary residence, and it's going to double up as an investment asset, right?" Part of that payment ... That monthly payment every month as well as, of course, that big chunk, that original down-payment, it's going to appreciate over time.

Skylar Olsen: So if I'm thinking about renting, I'm going to do the exact same thing. I'm going to consume my primary residence, I'm going to pay my rent over time, and I'm going to take whatever would've been my down payment, I'm going to put it in stocks and bonds, and I'm going to have an investment vehicle that way as well.

Skylar Olsen: That makes the two decisions match up, so when I go to a calculator what I want to be able to put in is what's really going to impact that timeline. So how long is it going to take for the costs of renting to finally accumulate enough, that rent paid every single month accumulates over time, and overcomes those up front costs of buying a home in the first place.

Skylar Olsen: So those big, big ... those things that will really change in that time horizon is going to be the price point of the home you're looking to buy relative to the price point you're renting at; what you're comfortable with.

Skylar Olsen: So that price point issue is really huge, but so is your mortgage rate right? 'Cause that's your advantage in leveraging this asset, it's a leveraged investment... I get, all this equity growth on my full value of my house, but I only have to kind of pay the interest rate in terms of the cost to me on a smaller amount. So I don't own the whole amount of the house at one time, but I get all of this equity growth.

Skylar Olsen: And then the other ... So the mortgage rate really, really, really, really matters to the investment vehicle aspect of it. That's going to depend on my credit score and things like that, so I might want to go check out a mortgage rate estimator first, so I can plug that in at that time.

Skylar Olsen: And then also what's going to be assumed in that rent versus buy calculator, and this is the part that's pretty ambiguous but pretty crucial, is what kind of rate you would earn on whatever you'd be investing in when you're renting your house. A lot of calculators will assume some sort of normal. And I guess I would recommend to people to choose something a little bit conservative, 7%/8%, but to choose something because if you're not doing anything as a renter, if you're just leaving it in your checking account that makes buying look a whole lot better for you because it's going to force you to invest over time.

Ryan Ermey: So is that calculus going to change? 'Cause I live in Washington, D.C., where rents are... if you live in a high cost area, does the calculation change at all in one direction or the other?

Skylar Olsen: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the ways to kind of think about this is, so you've really got to play... maybe the way to think about this truly is, you really have to play with these calculators and you've got to run your numbers for your personal situation.

Skylar Olsen: And the reason why I say that is, I can be in an area and I can know because it's the public discourse these days that rent is crazy expensive. It's really challenging affordability. Now I can be in that kind of situation and it could be, still, a good idea to rent because over the same period of time ... yes rent feels really expensive, it's grown over time. In some areas due to population growth driven by high earning fields, great job growth in urban areas, for sale prices might have grown even more. In many of the U.S.'s housing markets, those prices ... that big old chunk, is kind of as high as it's ever been right now. So that can also really, really change the picture for you.

Skylar Olsen: Now remember, it's not just this price to rent ratio, that will matter a lot to how long it'll take the costs of renting to finally overwhelm and accumulate above and beyond the cost of owning that home in the first place. That certainly matters, but it's also what we expect home values to do.

SEE ALSO: When Renting Is Smarter Than Buying

Skylar Olsen: In those same high cost places where maybe rent feels high, but home value growth has been significant over the past several years, those places are now starting to grow much more slowly. So if I'm in San Francisco, for example, or San Jose, I'm in a market that's ... Sure the rent feels very expensive, the down payments are also expensive though, and home values are not expected to grow very fast over the next year. We expect those expensive coastal markets to be moving a little bit more slowly.

Sandy Block: I noticed, Skylar, when I was playing around with the calculator that in places like the Bay Area, you need to live in the house a lot longer than you would maybe in Akron, Ohio for the buy to beat the rent.

Skylar Olsen: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Sandy Block: For the buy to overcome the rent. 'Cause you just have ... As you said, you need that much more time to overcome sort of your initial nut.

Skylar Olsen: Oh yeah. It could be over a decade in some really expensive places where those prices, that housing market, has been so starved of inventory, that it is just ... it is more expensive than it has ever been.

Skylar Olsen: By that I mean, beyond those pre recession housing bubbles. Remember when we talked about that?

Sandy Block: Mm-hmm.

Skylar Olsen: More expensive than that. So that's what we're talking about here in some places. Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan Ermey: So looking out into the year ahead, into 2020, what would you say is sort of the outlook if I'm someone who might be looking to buy a home? It sounds like there's going to be pockets where ... Some places are going to look different than others.

Skylar Olsen: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There are places in this country where we do expect home value growth, and sure things are slowing down than maybe the previous two years where we were really hitting some aggressive records in terms of how fast home values were moving.

Skylar Olsen: But there are places that still offer affordability. They are still offering that kind of growth. Those are places like your Charlotte, North Carolina's. Your Indianapolis, actually. These are all places where home value growth will help you build equity to overcome those upfront costs faster than otherwise. Whereas buying can be a little bit more of a no brainer.

Skylar Olsen: Hey, something before I forget that I kind of want to mention is, let's say you put all of your numbers into the calculator and you think, "Oh, I'm going to be here for four years." And what the calculator tells you is that buying your home is still going to cost you more after four years than having rented it?

Skylar Olsen: Depending on what you put in the calculator, let's say you put your current rent in your small apartment building and you were proposing that where you would buy would be a two bedroom home, right? You got to consider the fact that that place where you would be buying would probably provide you a different lifestyle, more amenities. It might be worth that cost.

Skylar Olsen: So what a lot of those calculators do is they turn it into a purely financial decision. You will buy for lots of different reasons, not just the dollars and cents of it. This is your primary residence, right?

Ryan Ermey: Yeah.

SEE ALSO: 10 Reasons You Will Regret Buying a Home With a Swimming Pool

Skylar Olsen: So it's also access to the schools you want. It's having control over your home. Having the ability to fix it up or change it. It's all of those things. So that's...

Ryan Ermey: It's not having roommates anymore.

Skylar Olsen: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sandy Block: Or a landlord.

Skylar Olsen: Yeah. Absolutely.

Sandy Block: So Skylar, there's been so much written about millennials being unable to buy a home because of student debt and rising housing prices and they're all renting and grumpy about it...

Ryan Ermey: We are.

Sandy Block: What's the outlook for it? Do you expect that situation to improve in 2020? Are you going to see more millennials becoming home buyers?

Skylar Olsen: Yeah, that's interesting. I think we absolutely will. And the reason why I think we will is that sentiments for strong buy are still very, very good. There is...

Skylar Olsen: Well let's put it this way. For the most part if you are going to live in a place for a significant period of time, the benefits of owning can be really, really big. Owning that home has ... If you are staying for a long period of time, has tax advantages. It's an investment that you don't really have to pay capital gains taxes on ... most people don't have to pay, when you sell it. And you also get other kinds of tax write offs. And people traditionally thought of in places where it's hard to build and job growth is strong, home values for many people feel safer than other kinds of investment products. So there are a lot of advantages to doing that.

Skylar Olsen: Plus for sale homes tend to be in the areas that are good for families, right? Higher quality schools, more space, safer, a little bit more environmentally friendly in terms of there's parks and trees and things like that. Millennials, as much as they've been known to be great renters, they're getting older and they're finally reaching the stages of life where they get married and they have kids and they start to actually care about those things over the craft cocktail bars and being close to your favorite coffee shop. Which can be really awesome until you have a three year old and a one year old...

Sandy Block: And a dog.

Skylar Olsen: That really is hell to bring to those places, right?

Skylar Olsen: So, yeah we absolutely expect them to buy homes more because it still is a pretty solid way that American's use to build wealth over time. And it's just the right life stage for them and they're still sentiment that that incorporates the American Dream still.

Skylar Olsen: Now whether or not they'll be able to because of all the costs that we talk about is for sure an issue. But I think there are all sorts of things that are changing, maybe to make it a little bit easier. Such as new up zoning measures. Maybe in the next few years we'll see more duplexes, triplexes being built that make it more possible to buy your starter home than maybe it is right now. Those are all exciting possibilities that could make home owning more feasible for a generation that will really struggle to achieve it otherwise.

SEE ALSO: How Smart a Homeowner Are You?

Ryan Ermey: Well listen, even if they are struggling to it, we do encourage everyone to go check out the calculator from Zillow to figure out the calculus behind renting or buying; which we'll have up in our show notes. And Skylar, thank you so, so much for coming on.

Skylar Olsen: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Ryan Ermey: After the break, learn how "The Rock" factors into a pitch about end of life plans. And no, it doesn't involve wrestling him.

Ryan Ermey: We are back and before we go, it's Sandy's and my favorite segment, Wild Pitches. Tales and lessons from our wackiest PR pitches.

Ryan Ermey: Sandy, what do you got for us?

Sandy Block: Well I got one from, I'm not going to name this company but it's a place that provides beautiful, sustainable alternative to cemeteries for families who choose cremation.

Ryan Ermey: All right.

Sandy Block: It actually is kind of interesting. I looked at ... This is the problem with this, these guys basically ... Their whole pitch is that nobody makes end of life plans and they don't care about.

Sandy Block: Well actually, I think this is kind of interesting. I think they could sell themselves on their own merits because it's an ecologically friendly way to put yourself in the ground.

Ryan Ermey: Well hopefully, and cheaper than buying a big expensive ornate box.

Sandy Block: Right, right. You help tress grow. So actually I thought the company itself was kind of interesting, but apparently they don't think so. Because they say... another survey, Ryan. You know how we love our surveys!

Ryan Ermey: Yes.

Sandy Block: But Americans are more likely to have watched a movie or TV starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson than have made any end-of-life plans. And if that isn't a non sequitur, I don't know ... I don't know what Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who I actually kind of like, has to...

Ryan Ermey: He is everywhere.

Sandy Block: He is everywhere, but not in your conversations about end-of-life plans.

SEE ALSO: Why You Should Have an Estate Plan

Sandy Block: They also found that one in 10 said they'd rather talk about their sex life. And one in five would rather talk about...

Ryan Ermey: With who?

Sandy Block: They just say talk. I don't know? On the metro or...

Ryan Ermey: With who?

Sandy Block: ... something. One in five would rather talk about the last time they were drunk than discuss their final wishes.

Ryan Ermey: Oh dear.

Sandy Block: It's important to have a will and make your final wishes known. But I'm really not surprised that people would rather talk about their drunken exploits than death. I don't know what "The Rock" has to do with this.

Sandy Block: It is important to make end of life plans. It is ... I actually think that, as I said, I think these folks are selling themselves short because I think these days people are interested in environmentally friendly ways to dispose of themselves when they're gone. So sell yourself, folks. Don't do anymore surveys.

Sandy Block: So what do you got, Ryan?

Ryan Ermey: I have one... and I'm not going to say whose mine's from either, because I'm not going to lie, I didn't write down who it was from when I wrote the script. But the...

Sandy Block: It made that kind of impression?

Ryan Ermey: The subject line for the email was something like, dealing with your spouse who's an over-spender. Is your spouse an over-spender?

Ryan Ermey: And it already has kind of like Leave It To Beaver kind of white picket fence vibes. Does your...

Sandy Block: June!

Ryan Ermey: ... wife spends on clothes and jewelry?

SEE ALSO: Your Money's Worth: Couples and Money

Sandy Block: June, how much did you spend on... yeah.

Ryan Ermey: But anyway, so the first piece of advice that this person has is create a game your partner can win that you are playing with him or her. All actions/interactions can be broken down into games and you can create a winnable game with your partner around your finances.

Ryan Ermey: Creating a winnable game together can make something like keeping a budget more fun and potentially even more passionate. For...

Sandy Block: No, it can't!

Ryan Ermey: For example, you and your partner can agree upon a Christmas budget of exactly $500. If both of you keep under $500 and win the game, you will treat yourselves to a romantic New Years Eve dinner at that restaurant you've both always wanted to try.

Ryan Ermey: In a place where previously there may have only been frustration, creating a game helps create the possibility, passion, and fun around your finances and ultimately your relationship.

Ryan Ermey: So I mean, it sounds ... It maybe would work in theory. And Sandy, you have a spouse and I do not, but it seems to me that this would be difficult to pitch without coming across as completely condescending.

Sandy Block: Well that's right. "Oh honey, you're over spending. Let's play a game." That's not really ... I mean, this is an issue and we've written a lot about this and you can talk to any couples, there's ... you do get different money styles.

Ryan Ermey: Yeah.

Sandy Block: And there's all kind of strategies that we've written about to deal with that. The most effective, I think, is for ... if you can afford it, is for both partners to have their own account that they can spend on things...

Ryan Ermey: Yes.

Sandy Block: That they want that... that works for a lot of people. And a joint account for everything else.

Ryan Ermey: A joint account for joint expenses. Separate accounts for whatever.

Sandy Block: For shoes and whatever. And that works pretty well. It seems, actually, a lot less complicated than playing a game where...

Ryan Ermey: Show me the receipts!

SEE ALSO: 8 Money Mistakes Couples Make -- and How to Avoid Them

Sandy Block: And even in this example it seems like... so great, you've kept your budget below $500 with this game and then you go out and spend $300 on a fancy meal.

Ryan Ermey: Also if you lose the game, what happens? "Honey, you went over $500. Looks like we're not going to that dinner!"

Sandy Block: Franks and beans, sweetheart.

Ryan Ermey: I mean, I don't... so to me, it makes... and once again with the caveat that I don't have a spouse, so maybe I'm coming out of left field on this one, but I think that you should probably sit down with your spouse and have a adult conversation about your joint finances and work together to create and stick to a budget.

Ryan Ermey: Because over spending wouldn't be an issue if... unless you're somehow dinging a cashflow that you want to be putting into something else. Like saving for retirement, or playing for your kids college, or whatever. Or, building an emergency fund. All of these things should be part of a budget and you should understand where your money is going.

Ryan Ermey: It's not about trying to fix your partner or gamify their spending. It's about being joint and jointly responsible and adhering to a budget. We have an episode, it just so happens, about creating a budget and sticking to it.

Ryan Ermey: We talked to our friend Pam Capalad of Brunch and Budget. Sticking to a budget, what she says is that you break things down... I'm not going to go through the whole thing. You can go back and listen. But, break down your spending into ... start with things that you absolutely have to have. Rent, utilities, whatever. Then get into things that are the things that make your life enjoyable. And you know what? If you... your partner...

Ryan Ermey: There's a lot of judgment baked into the term over spending anyway...

Sandy Block: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. Right, right.

Ryan Ermey: Well, it depends on what your partner is spending on. For some people having... say, for instance, I have a relatively expensive gym membership.

Sandy Block: But that pays off in good health and...

Ryan Ermey: It pays off...

Sandy Block: ... mental health.

Ryan Ermey: These are the things in our life that replenish our willpower and help us recharge. That's what Pam said and I think it's wise.

Ryan Ermey: So if someone has to have their latte everyday, or if someone likes to get their hair done once a month so that they feel powerful and attractive, it's therapeutic for them, then these are things that should be built into the budget.

How to pick a streaming service: A breakdown of Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, Hulu, Starz

This article originally published in January 2019.

Netflix announced a hike in prices this week. Is the world's most popular streaming service still worth the money? And what are some other (perhaps superior) services for movie lovers?

Certainly not on streaming. The five most popular streaming services (Netflix, Prime, Hulu, HBO Now and Starz) carry just a sliver of cinematic history, though some do better than others. (Data ahead! Charts and consumer tips!)

Movies are now easier and cheaper to watch than ever before, yet the catalogs of the most prominent streaming services remain limited. Film libraries are contracting, with older movies bearing the brunt of the shrinkage.

Many movies from cinema’s earliest eras are lost entirely. Many more still exist but remain unavailable digitally.

Of all the movies now available to stream (or rent digitally), only about a quarter are older than than 20 years. Streaming services, with some exceptions, are skewing newer and newer, with the goal of building libraries of their own in-house content — like dueling Fyre Fest documentaries! — instead of licensing the rights to older movies they don’t own.

Netflix offers a particularly conspicuous example of this. Though the world’s most popular streamer is churning out fresh content faster than anyone, it's also been steadily whittling down its movie library over the years. Netflix has shed nearly 3,000 movies since 2010, according to the third-party Netflix search engine Flixable.com.

Netflix’s dwindling collection of movies leans new, aggressively new. Of the near-3,900 movies in its catalog, just 285 (or 7 percent) came out before the year 2000; only 58 movies came out before 1980; just 19 before 1960.

“You can forget about Netflix for classic films because Netflix simply wants to push their own product,” said Wheeler Winston Dixon, an author, filmmaker and professor of film studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “They’re making things like the ‘Bird Box’ movie. And very successfully.”

The new Sandra Bullock thriller has been viewed by more than 45 million subscribers worldwide, Netflix claims. The endless-supply-of-new-content strategy appears to be working, but it's costly. And now Netflix is raising its fees.

The service announced this week that it will raise prices, from 13 to 18 percent depending on your plan. This is Netflix's biggest increase since it started its streaming service a dozen years ago. The most popular plan will spike from $11 to $13 a month.

"The company’s appetite for content means it has to spend big," writes Edmund Lee of the New York Times. "More money is going out the door than coming in, a difference that Netflix covers by borrowing even more."

The money being poured into movies and TV series like "Bird Box," "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" and "Stranger Things" is considerable because, Netflix believes, this is what keeps people subscribing month after month: Not an HD print of "Casablanca."

Older films likely wouldn't make a blip even if Netflix did highlight them on its homescreen.

Streaming services “don’t make that much money from the earlier films,” Dixon said, “because they’re in black and white, because there’s a prejudice against black and white films.

“Statistics have long been established, if a movie comes on, and it’s black and white, you lose 50 percent of your audience instantly. If the movie is silent, you lose 90 percent.”

Most contemporary viewers live in the now. The right now. Yesterday isn’t relevant, let alone a film 20, 30, 80 years old. The disposable thrill of the new trumps everything else. (This content will self-destruct in five seconds.)

What's lost in the process, Dixon said, is a sense of history.

"What's happening now is that the entire history of 20th century cinema is vanishing," he said. "With the demise of DVDs and the switch to all-streaming, literally hundreds of thousands of classic films — from around the world — are being pushed into the shadows of oblivion."

Late last year, cinephiles lamented the death of the FilmStruck, TCM’s streaming library of classic and foreign films. The message of its demise is clear: niche services will take a backseat to high-volume juggernauts like Netflix. (That said, services like Fandor, Mubi and Shudder continue to cater to more rarefied tastes, and the Criterion Collection will launch its own service this spring.)

But in any case, if you want to stream a movie that’s older than a college freshman, your options will grow increasingly limited. (Which is why it’s always a good idea to hold onto your DVDs, Dixon said.)

In the age of cord-cutting — 33 million Americans canceled their cable subscription in 2018 — some mixture of streaming services has become the new norm for couch-bound content consumers: Netflix because it's the most popular. HBO because it has “Game of Thrones.” Hulu because it has last night's ep of your favorite sitcom. And any other blend of services (broad or niche) depending on what combo of subscriptions best suits your needs.

For film connoisseurs, which service works best for you isn't always clear. So we've combed through the movies, decade by decade, genre by genre. We’ve broken down the five most popular streaming sites (1. Netflix. 2. Amazon Prime Video. 3. Hulu and 4. HBO Now. 5. Starz) to see which ones best cater to viewers looking to escape the tyranny of the now.

Note: Figures were taken on Jan. 11, 2019. Data from JustWatch.com, a third-party streaming search engine.

* * *

Netflix

Price: $7.99 to $13.99 a month, depending on number of screens, video quality. (Soon to increase to $8.99 to $15.99.)

Summary: Over the past decade, the number of movies on Netflix has gone down as the streaming service has boosted its TV titles and its own original content. In 2010, the service had more than 6,700 movie titles in its streaming catalog, according to Flixable.com, but now has about 3,000 fewer films. Netflix focuses on newer titles: About 93 percent of its movies came out in the year 2000 or later. About 64 percent aren’t more than five years old.

Best reasons to subscribe: A rapidly growing library of original content (TV and movies); a substantial number of newer movies; the Coen brothers' endlessly rewatchable "Ballad of Buster Scruggs."

Movies that came out before 2000: 285

Oldest movie in the catalog: “Prelude to War,” a 1942 war documentary directed by Frank Capra.

* * *

Amazon Prime Video

Price: $12.99 a month or $119 a year (comes with all the Prime perks)

Summary: Amazon Prime carries four times the number of movies that Netflix does — more than 18,000 films. About seven in 10 movies on Prime came out in 2000 or later. But the sheer volume is so great that Prime offers the strongest catalog of old and obscure films by default. Granted, a lot of these movies are trash, but a lot of people like trash.

Best reasons to subscribe: A massive catalog, many of the films older and/or hard-to-find; full seasons of “The Sopranos” and “The Wire”; free two-day shipping on toilet paper.

Movies that came out before 2000: 5,263

Oldest movie in the catalog: “Ben Hur,” the 1907 silent version.

* * *

Hulu

Price: Plans start at $7.99 a month

Summary: The third-most-popular streaming service has a relatively slim catalog of movies and a lot of overlap with Prime, with each service licensing many of the same titles. If you’re just in it for the movies, it doesn’t make sense to have Hulu if you already have Prime. However ...

Best reasons to subscribe: Hulu offers next-days streaming for most shows on the major networks. If you missed last night’s “Law and Order: SVU” and didn’t DVR it, your options are Hulu or purchasing the ep for $2 on iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Movies that came out before 2000: 196

Oldest movie in the catalog: “The Eagle and the Hawk,” a 1950 Technicolor Western.

* * *

HBO Now

Summary: It’s the most expensive of the major streaming services, yet has the weakest selection of movie titles (and older movie titles). Though HBO does nab exclusive streaming rights to a lot of newer films.

Best reasons to subscribe: No streaming service compares to HBO for original content. Netflix might be growing its catalog, but HBO had a decades-long headstart, creating some of the best TV shows of all time when Netflix was just a DVD mailer. Of course the best reason to get HBO: "Game of Thrones," final season, April 14

Movies that came out before 2000: 146

Oldest movie in the catalog: “The King and I” (1956).

Strongest genre: action/adventure

* * *

Starz

Summary: The channel and streaming company (which at one point licensed its movies and TV shows to Netflix) lacks the cultural cachet of the big four streamers, but it does offer one of the stronger libraries of pre-2000 movies of any service.

Best reasons to subscribe: A healthy proportion of older films, with an especially rich selection of classic Westerns and monster movies. Paired with a Prime, a Starz subscription could keep classic film buffs busy for years.

Movies that came out before 2000: 588

Oldest movie in the catalog: “Dracula” (1931)

Strongest genre: action/adventure

* * *

Number of movies with a Fresh score

(60 percent or above on Rotten Tomatoes)

Number of movies with an IMDB score of 7.0 or above

Best movies to stream

(By highest IMDB average rating. Excluding short films/comedy specials/concert films/really obscure stuff you’ve never heard of.)

“The Dark Knight,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Schindler's List,” “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” “Seven,” “City of God,” “Coco,” “The Departed,” “The Pianist,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

“12 Angry Men,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Dear Zachary,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “For a Few Dollars More,” “The Apartment,” “Paths of Glory,” “Hoop Dreams”

“Amelie,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “For a Few Dollars More,” “Requiem for a Dream,” “The Exorcist,” “Chinatown,” “Rain Man,” “Shutter Island,” “Akira”

“Inception,” “Goodfellas,” “The Prestige,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Logan,” “Fargo,” “The Princess Bride.”

“The Good, the Bad, the Ugly,” “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “Up,” “The Sting,” “Inside Out,” “The Deer Hunter,” “Roman Holiday,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”

The highest-rated movies on IMDB, if you were wondering:

1. “The Shawshank Redemption”

4. “The Godfather: Part II”

5. “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”

7. “Schindler’s List”

8. “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

How to Make Yourself Googleable

—When I graduated from college, the world was a very different place. Yahoo and Excite (dating myself here) were

dominating the Internet. Social media had yet to be born and cell phones had just started to become popular.

Since then everything’s changed. Amazon has reshaped the business world. Skype and Zoom have made once expensive international calls free. Google maps has made navigating new areas a breeze. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn have made most people just 3 degrees away. And to top it off, we have access to all of that in our pockets thanks to smartphones. In just over 20 short years has changed faster than at any time in human history. The world today is looking more and more like the one in the Jetsons.

However, not everything’s changed. After all, we’re still just us. Our hopes and dreams are still the same. Better health, better relationships, better jobs, and more money are still the main drivers of our lives. And as far as I can tell, most people are still using the old blueprint of going to college, writing a resume, and then sending it off to potential companies in hopes of landing a job.

As a productivity consultant, I just don’t get it.

The job market is brutal today because we’re no longer competing with people in our area, but with those from around the world. A client of mine who works for Panasonic told me that last year they intended to open a plant in China and were looking for two or three local managers. They hired 15 because the candidates were so strong. Jobs that would have originally gone to Japanese people, ended up going to China.

Thankfully, some people do think outside of the box. Take Renata Chunderbalsingh from Sydney, Australia, who created a chocolate bar resume. When I saw that I thought, “Wow. Now that’ll make her stand out.”

Gone are the days where your college diploma helped set you apart from other candidates. Today, further education such as an MBA or a doctorate achiever that, but again, the pool of candidates is increasing year by year.

Some companies have started to accept your LinkedIn page in lieu of a resume. Personally, having hired a number of people in the past, today I would want to see their social media pages. I’d be able to get a better sense of who they are and, more importantly, to look for any red flags.

I like to tell all my clients to “Become Googleable.”

I used to be way back on page eight (which is comparable to no man’s land). But I went to work on becoming Googleable. Adrian Shepherd from the uber-popular game Half-Life still occupies the top spot. However, I’ve managed to secure four out of the top eight entries on the first page, and another four entries on page two.

The secret – a strong foundation.

Step 1: Work your social media

This is where it all begins. If you dream of becoming a film director, then you need to be posting and commenting on everything movie related. Connect to people who love movies as well as famous people in the industry. Post reviews of movies, talk about new trailers, ask questions, etc. Your goal to let as many people as possible know that you live and breathe movies.

Step 2: Contribute to online publications

Regardless of what field you’re interested in, there are numerous online (and offline) publications you could contribute to. Chances are you won’t land a job at Forbes right off the bat, but you might be able to land a weekly column at a smaller site. Forget about making money from it. Instead, focus on honing your talent. The key word here though is: consistent. It won’t happen overnight, but in time, it’ll pay off.

Step 3: Create your own website

There are two ways to go about this. You can make your name the URL (it’s easier for some people), or you can create a “company” with you as the CEO. I did both. At first, just keep it very basic. Consider it a resume so you want your site to tell a story. At a minimum it should answer these three questions:

– Who are you?

– What do you do?

– What makes you different?

Best of all, a website today is much cheaper than you might realize. A search on Fiverr will give you a ton of people to choose from that will eliminate all the heavy lifting. If you need any recommendations, feel free to reach out to me on FB or LinkedIn.

Most people think you need to be famous (or infamous) to be Googleable. Nope. Follow the three easy steps above and I think you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll find yourself moving up the page rankings.

—

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