All Things Economic

I got a ride in a Renault R5 Turbo back in the late 80s. Based on the same chassis as the LeCar.

Fastest shit-box I ever experienced.

I forgot about Le Car. What a shitbox that thing was!

I think one difference between cars and houses is that cars, outside of blips like the covid induced production shortfalls, can be expected to, and consistently do, depreciate, rather than appreciate, in value. And pretty rapidly. Plus I rarely see people speculating on the value of a car increasing.

On the subject of worst cars ever, one of my favorite episodes of the show car talk was their "worst cars of all time" installment, where they read listener testimonials. The Yugo was actually only number two. One fan related how he had taken a test drive in one and when the salesman tried to impress him with the zippy acceleration of the car the radio slid out of the dashboard and hit the floor. The winner was actually the Renault "Le Car". A listener told of having his totaled when he was tee boned in a collision....by a bicyclist.

I live in a hot housing market. Our vacancy rates are under 3% for rentals and 1% for purchased homes and people keep moving here, including those who are coming from more expensive areas (housing stock is expensive here, but not like Seattle or San Francisco). Currently most purchases are above asking, sometimes as much as 20% above. Great for me, because I'm in the process of selling, but also not so great if I want to continue living in my community.

There has been some improvement in the rental market, because numerous large projects were approved leading into and during the early months of the pandemic, but it's only kept up with demand rather than reducing it. While I think there's a bubble, the supply and demand imbalance is probably going to weather the first few interest rate increases. After that, if Bellingham wants to make good longterm choices, they should probably think critically about approving more projects while they can.

“ From what we have been experiencing here in eastern Tenn. is that as soon as homes come on the market they are gone. Mostly bought by people getting out of the NE and California because of crazy taxes and politics.”

It’s the entire country. It’s not just Tenn. the housing market in the NE and California are crazy. If people were in caravans moving out? The market would not bare what it is right now.

The hot market can be attributed to 08 and low interest rates. Builders slowed the pace of building after 08. Never brought it back up to that pace. Now there is a strong demand for housing and no supply. To make it even a hotter market. Trades left that work after 08. So there is a crunch for qualified workers that can’t be met. Can’t put a hammer in a persons hand and baptize them a carpenter.

I get calls, letters, or post cards multiple times every week from people telling me how much I can make by selling my house through them in this hot market.

The ones that call, I just ask them where I'm going to live after selling my house, and the answer is usually something to the effect of they will help me with that too. Gee, how convenient for them.

How much you have to put into it in order to pick up that 25-50K?

@8, only problem with selling now when prices are too high is you have to buy at the same time. I'm very tempted to sell my current house (make approx 130k) and move into one of my better rentals for a year to wait for the prices to be more realistic when I buy my next home for us.

Last June my neighbor sold 25k over her listing price.

I could sell as is, but would regret leaving $25-50k or more on the table.

my hybrid has 180,000 on it and drives like new, looks near new..knock on wood...i ain't buying shit.

Go see Cal

Go see Cal

Go see Cal

How about that guy from California Cal Worthington ….They ran him out of Texas .

FUNFOR2

Careful what you say about the Pinto. Was the first car I ever owned. Put some aftermarket engine and suspension parts in it which made it pretty fun to drive. Have many fond memories of fun with that car,( yes, including getting laid).

2MUCHFUN

When I was selling cars, I did my share of Get Me Done deals.

"And I'm sure they expected you to just make that disappear! lol"

Couldn't do it on that one... but we could talk the banks into some crazy shit back then.

We got a guy with no job and no down payment a loan for a $13k car based on a letter from a shop saying they would hire him.

At sales meetings I always reminded everyone that we were salespeople... not financial advisors.

"They owed $35k more than the car was worth from rolling negative equity on several deals in a row."

And I'm sure they expected you to just make that disappear! lol

~Scamp

"Time to bring back the Yugo!"

A 1986 Yugo sold on the Bring A Trailer auction site last April for $7500.

bringatrailer dot com/listing/1986-yugo-gv/

@DB , I don’t know if you remember the original Beetle …1995.00 then Honda Civic was 1985.00 and Ford tried matching 1995 with a Pinto . That was an American made Yugo. A real piece of junk . But Detroit complained that the Japanese subsidized their manufacturers so they put tariffs on the Imports . Did Detroit hold their priced ????? Nooooooooooooo. All it was a manufactured price increase . Still people bought the Honda and Beetle.

FUNCOR2

Time to bring back the Yugo!

Every used car has a ton of miles on it , even at the auction . Average new car price is over 30k

“ Do you guys believe these hikes causing home loan rates to rise will affect home sales? Not a bubble burst, but will home sales slow?”

They’re going to slow down when the bubble bursts. Signs are indicating that there is a bubble and it’s going to burst.

I don't see prices dropping on new cars anytime soon, if ever.

Discounts and incentives may come back but not until new car inventory catches up and starts to stagnate on the lots.

Used prices depend on supply. When very few new cars are sold less trade-ins are at the auctions.

There's been a huge demand and short supply so prices went crazy.

It's been two years like no other in the history of the car business.

I hope all this high priced shit comes crashing down, All theses fukn asshole banks buying up any home they can and turn it into a rental...Like on 60 Minutes a couple weeks a go. World banks funding it. I hope there is a Depression and all you rich ass holes jacking up your rents 30% go down crashing and burning...since when have you seen retireed or younger families getting a 30% pay raise, and just because they did don't mean you should get it all.. you fucken land lord ass holes make me puke..

It’s more than the chip shortage now, which is still devastating. Most European car manufacturers (Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW) get wiring harnesses from factories in Ukraine. Naturally that supply is shut down, at least temporarily so car builders are scrambling to ramp up production at other plants. That doesn’t happen overnight.

Most analysts now think production delays will continue for another year plus another year to catch up on depleted dealer inventories and customer demand.

~Scamp

FUNFOR2

Once the chip shortage is rectified, things will get back to normal