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I'm baffled by how much people spend on cars. But I get it. Everyone else is driving a nicer car, so you feel left out. Even if your rational side knows it's st

by peepee1982 4y ago

I'm baffled by how much people spend on cars. But I get it. Everyone else is driving a nicer car, so you feel left out. Even if your rational side knows it's stupid, you still feel less than. It's the same with homes. But as you say, at least real estate tends to hold it's value somewhat.

hgsgm 4y ago
> But as you say, at least real estate tends to hold its value somewhat. Expensive land usually does appreciate (in some areas, only until interest rates go up?), but the house on the land is a money pit.
- noduerme 4y ago
  In America, the best investments in the past 100 years have been structures like car dealerships built on cheap land around the exurbs of major cities. You get commercial use of the structure, wait 20 years for it to be surrounded by residential development, then sell the land. This, working hand in glove with the driving and commuting culture, had been the middle class gear in the system attached to the resource extraction itself. I'm not here to pass moral judgments on this method of creating wealth, although to me unnecessary mineral extraction for energy is largely fraught with moral hazard. But to say that real estate isn't an investment is to consider the past two centuries of American economic growth to be a temporary aberration, and I don't think you can do that in light of the degree of economic reliance that has grown up around it.
noduerme 4y ago
There's a smart side to this, and a lot of people take it: Buy a car that has all the features you want, for almost half the price. Buy a house in a neighborhood that's run-down but improving and that you can help to improve. You don't have to be famous on social media to be a "thought leader" and increase the value of your assets by pulling gullible people into your aesthetics or way of thinking. You can just show up and buy the thing and use your skills to improve the thing, which improves everything else around it. There is enormous financial leverage if you can do that, because most people aren't willing to put in the work.

hgsgm 4y ago

> But as you say, at least real estate tends to hold its value somewhat. Expensive land usually does appreciate (in some areas, only until interest rates go up?), but the house on the land is a money pit.

noduerme 4y ago
In America, the best investments in the past 100 years have been structures like car dealerships built on cheap land around the exurbs of major cities. You get commercial use of the structure, wait 20 years for it to be surrounded by residential development, then sell the land. This, working hand in glove with the driving and commuting culture, had been the middle class gear in the system attached to the resource extraction itself. I'm not here to pass moral judgments on this method of creating wealth, although to me unnecessary mineral extraction for energy is largely fraught with moral hazard. But to say that real estate isn't an investment is to consider the past two centuries of American economic growth to be a temporary aberration, and I don't think you can do that in light of the degree of economic reliance that has grown up around it.

noduerme 4y ago

There's a smart side to this, and a lot of people take it: Buy a car that has all the features you want, for almost half the price. Buy a house in a neighborhood that's run-down but improving and that you can help to improve. You don't have to be famous on social media to be a "thought leader" and increase the value of your assets by pulling gullible people into your aesthetics or way of thinking. You can just show up and buy the thing and use your skills to improve the thing, which improves everything else around it. There is enormous financial leverage if you can do that, because most people aren't willing to put in the work.