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Ever check prices for thirty year old BMW or Lexus or Acura? Those are old luxury cars, but they aren’t priced like luxury. In part because what was luxury then

by ip26 5y ago

Ever check prices for thirty year old BMW or Lexus or Acura? Those are old luxury cars, but they aren’t priced like luxury. In part because what was luxury then isn’t luxury today.

hnaccount141 5y ago
Building a new car doesn't tend to require scrapping an old one. Every car built increases the total supply of cars. Building new luxury housing often (not always) involves tearing down existing housing, leaving the total housing supply static.
- ip26 5y ago
  Even so, everything else remaining necessarily moves down-market as new stock is built.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Typically when people complain about "luxury" housing what they are talking about are dense condos or apartments where there are far more units than whatever was there before. The only people that I've heard complain about luxury housing that's not adding more units are when YIMBYs gripe about single family zoning: it's perfectly legal to replace an existing single family home with a far more luxurious single family home without any community input or checkpoints. But more affordable "luxury" townhomes are blocked st every stage by legislative processes that enable single family homeowners to extract ever increasing land rents, when they enforce artificial scarcity. But YIMBYs have almost zero political sway in almost all jurisdictions, and their framing of single family homes as luxury is far from usual.
dylan604 5y ago
No, I've never compared the price of a car that old in that model. However, comparing a 30 year old car to a 30 year domicile is kind of not in the spirit of the conversation either though. Nobody expects a car to last for 30 years, and most just hope it lasts longer than the financing. Also, cars are rarely purchased as an investment, where someone's place of residence is precisely considered an investment.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> Ever check prices for thirty year old BMW or Lexus or Acura? Why dont you compare houses to prices of 30 year old rotten piece of fruit, because thats what you are doing. 20 years ago my familt bought an apartment, is it now worth 3 times more. Our 20 year old BMW is worth approximately 5% of it's original price as scrap
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Okay... and have you considered the "why"? To start with, 2.2 million cars get built per year in the US, while housing has consistently been under 200,000 new units per year for a long time.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Yes, I have written why, car decays and a house doesn't. Value of land only grows. Even the built up portion of the house only grows un value withing human lifetime. I know a guy who lives in a 500 year old house, i know zero people who have a 30 year old car
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago

by ip26 5y ago

Ever check prices for thirty year old BMW or Lexus or Acura? Those are old luxury cars, but they aren’t priced like luxury. In part because what was luxury then isn’t luxury today.

hnaccount141 5y ago

Building a new car doesn't tend to require scrapping an old one. Every car built increases the total supply of cars. Building new luxury housing often (not always) involves tearing down existing housing, leaving the total housing supply static.

ip26 5y ago
Even so, everything else remaining necessarily moves down-market as new stock is built.
epistasis 5y ago
Typically when people complain about "luxury" housing what they are talking about are dense condos or apartments where there are far more units than whatever was there before. The only people that I've heard complain about luxury housing that's not adding more units are when YIMBYs gripe about single family zoning: it's perfectly legal to replace an existing single family home with a far more luxurious single family home without any community input or checkpoints. But more affordable "luxury" townhomes are blocked st every stage by legislative processes that enable single family homeowners to extract ever increasing land rents, when they enforce artificial scarcity. But YIMBYs have almost zero political sway in almost all jurisdictions, and their framing of single family homes as luxury is far from usual.

dylan604 5y ago

No, I've never compared the price of a car that old in that model. However, comparing a 30 year old car to a 30 year domicile is kind of not in the spirit of the conversation either though. Nobody expects a car to last for 30 years, and most just hope it lasts longer than the financing. Also, cars are rarely purchased as an investment, where someone's place of residence is precisely considered an investment.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

> Ever check prices for thirty year old BMW or Lexus or Acura? Why dont you compare houses to prices of 30 year old rotten piece of fruit, because thats what you are doing. 20 years ago my familt bought an apartment, is it now worth 3 times more. Our 20 year old BMW is worth approximately 5% of it's original price as scrap

crooked-v 5y ago
Okay... and have you considered the "why"? To start with, 2.2 million cars get built per year in the US, while housing has consistently been under 200,000 new units per year for a long time.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Yes, I have written why, car decays and a house doesn't. Value of land only grows. Even the built up portion of the house only grows un value withing human lifetime. I know a guy who lives in a 500 year old house, i know zero people who have a 30 year old car
knowaveragejoe 5y ago