People don’t like the scammy tactics of automobile dealers, but I don’t know in some ways its kind of fun to get insight on the techniques they use to close the sale and maximize profits. It’s a world I’ve never taken a deep dive in before, but in many ways it’s not a dishonest as people think it, but there is a lot of trickery and deceit involved too. Kind of reminds me of my years working in politics. Certain things you can get away. Other things, not so much. But if you know the game, and can level with dealers, you can get a fair deal and leave with respect. I really think the key is knowing you’ll never have the experience the salesman has, and you can’t match their inner-knowledge of industry but you can be informed, know the red flags and when something doesn’t seem right, pause and investigate before proceeding.
Pinto beans are cooking down on the stove 🫘
Of course they are. And yeah, I’m watching some dumb Facebook video about dairymen scraping and slinging cow shit, because you know the internet and that’s the first suggested video and it’s winter so nobody’s grazing at this point. That and some random videos about boys with their Ford SuperDuty trucks. Insert some random comment about us rednecks burning garbage in the stinky old burn barrel, horney buck goats, and smoking weed while riding my mountain bike in the wilderness, and I have a blog post with a good pungent taste to it. What can I say, I am such hillbilly want-a-bee.
Happy Winter once again, though it’s going to be another mild and rainy ☔ afternoon, which means I won’t be riding my mountain bike to work today. But it won’t be that long until I can ride both ways to work as Valentines’ Day approaches and the days get longer. 🚂 Got fucking blocked by the train loading at the propane distribution yard last night, and ended up having to catch the later local bus 🚍 home by the time I rode downtown. Those propane tanker trains are so goddamn loud when your standing next to them and their banging their way along the siding, as you’re waiting.
So yeah, taking the yokel local bus (it’s so local and stops every six feet to pick up all the colored and poor people on -my favorite new word – the pogey! ) both ways, because you know it won’t rain today, 👣 and hell I’ll probably have downtown meetings this afternoon, so maybe I’ll get home earlier so I can eat more pinto beans and call it night earlier. 🫘 Maybe I’m just lazy and don’t feel like riding in, but I don’t love doing Corning’s Hill in the morning, having to ride across those slip ramps at rush hour and fight traffic at the US 9W and NY 32 Delmar Bypass Interchange on my mountain bike. But you could be like a normal suburbanite and own a 20-year old Honda Civic and sit in traffic both ways. And buy one of those plastic houses, a grown up version of those kid ones that are often tossed on brush piles to get them burning well when kids grow up. 🔥 How exciting, so much black smoke!
It’s funny how when I don’t abuse drugs, ☕ I mean don’t go for that extra cup or two or three of the extra strong and teeth staining free coffee in the office after having like 3 cups of coffee how much better you sleep at night, 🛏️ and don’t have to listen to podcasts at 1 AM with ads every 5 minutes telling you SEE WHAT YOU REALLY NEED is BETTER HELP and a SO-FAT MATTERESS. I mean I’m not opposed to getting a new mattress if I can burn the old one out back and still have money for a SuperDuty truck and a cabin that smells like wood smoke horney buck goat and burn barrel. 🐐 My office still smelled a bit like wood smoke, as my Carhartt still has that wonderful smell from Christmas Day camping. 🎅 Not only did I sleep good last night, 😴 just like those piles of heritage breed hogs in barn in cold as shown in the social media 🐖 I also slept in a bit but I think I should have enough time to boil down those kidney beans before I have to run out to the local yokel bus. 🚏 And I’ve totally cut out those caffeine pills, 💊 because while I enjoyed the boost and not having to piss every five minutes, they were making me so jittery and making my heart 🫀 feel like it was failing. Probably because it was, and I keep refusing to go to Clifton Park at rush hour and paying $50 to find out I’m one step away from cardiac arrest. 😍
Truth is while I’m made excited about the kidney beans, 🫘 for eating over the balance of the weekend, I am really excited about that after the warm and rain this weekend, ☔ I should be able to ride in most of next week based on the forecast. 🚴 And in a little over a month, be able to ride both ways to work, assuming the bike path is mostly free of snow. Days are better when you don’t have to take the bus to work, or even drive your big-ass Ford SuperDuty truck work in those days when I get it. ⛽ With the fuel economy, even with the destroked Godzilla, yeah, I’ll be doing a lot of riding of the bike to work. I’m actually opening up to paying a little extra for a SuperDuty with the extended cab, as I could live with the 6 3/4′ bed, and those trucks are more avaliable. Honestly, it makes no sense to cheap out when you are taking SuperDuty money, 💵 but I still want to keep to the low trim, simpler configuration that won’t be a big deal if it I get muddy inside and has at least a few less sensors and electronics to break, even though I know it’s 2026 and three-on-the-tree and mechanical everything is on it’s way out. I know it’s going to look crazy living in my dumpy apartment, 🪟 and being without a vehicle for several months, when I come home with big-assed SuperDuty. But honestly, I don’t want a plastic house, and I don’t spend money on a lot of things, but I do like my big trucks. I won’t lift the SuperDuty I tell myself. Well besides maybe a leveling kit and bigger tires. Or maybe not, how big do you really need such a big truck? I have other money invested for that cabin some point the future, and in the mean time once I get the SuperDuty, I can take that up to the woods and have fires 🔥 and enjoy the wilderness while I stay in New York for now for the money. 💰 I like my job as Data Services director, it’s fun, I get paid to write shell scripts and SQL commands, and come up with creative ways of linking and pulling data. 💾
As far as the weekend goes, 🚴 I am thinking of possibly riding out to Walmart on Saturday for some groceries, 🛒 and and maybe out to Five Rivers later in he day. 🐦 Sunday hit up Hannaford for anything remaining on my list. 📜 If my parents don’t give me a ride out to their house this weekend, I’ll go to the laundromat at 6 AM on Monday, taking the bus down there with my laundry soap powder, which should be a learning experience on many levels. 👖 But you could own a plastic house with a 20-year old Honda Civic and a washing machine in basement which works for two weeks before breaking down, and needing hauling off to the landfill and buying a new one. It’s fine, I bet though the big-assed SuperDuty would not be fun to park in the tiny laundromat lot. 🏡 I’m sure once I have it my rent will go up beyond what the welfare office rate, but whatever. Still beats having to commute to work, and I like my big trucks even if I do really want that cabin with the burn barrel, goats and hogs out back. 🛻 I also got Andrew Sorkin’s 1929 audio book out of the library after being on reserve for a few weeks now and I’m quite excited to listen to it this weekend.
“The Lost Mondore Village of Prattsville” Presented by Richard Sears
Learn about Negro/Nigger Hill in Prattsville.
A little more then a month before I can ride both ways to work 🚴♂️🌇
You know that makes me as a happy as a pig in shit.
But seriously, a day when can ride both ways to work sure beats taking the bus. Usually on a clear day if the bike trail is free snow, by around Valentines Day, I can eek my home on the bike path with enough daylight to make it to the town roads for riding before dusk. Sometimes this is pushing it, obviously this depends on the trail conditions and how cloudy it is. By Presidents Day, if the trail is snow free and the weather is good for riding, then I’m golden.
Not only do I get home feeling all pumped from riding up that hill and enjoying the scenic beauty, I’ll get home 15-20 minutes earlier then if I took the bus. All without the inconvenience and cost of riding the bus. Then I get home, have dinner, and retire to bed. Already it’s great – it’s not pitch black when I leave the office on my bike at 5:15 PM in the evening.
Truth it should be a good day to ride in via Corning’s Hill 🚲
I just love how I feel when I ride my mountain bike to work, that blast flying down Corning’s Hill and how pumped I am in the office. After at somewhat rough night’s sleep and opening up a new pouch of coffee and downing some homemade banana and Maine wild blueberries, I am getting ready to shower and head off to work.
Yesterday was pretty goddamn cold riding my bike down to the dentist. 🚲 I should have gotten an earlier start and put my bike on the bus, but then I would have been there early with the dentist. 🦷 Of course, my flustered nature, a soaked duck 🦆and the dentist kindly suggestions about how awful stained my teeth are from all the coffee ☕ I drink, allowed him to scam me out of $27 into the flouride paint they put on your teeth but it’s certainly gone almost as quick as the money is out of your account. But the doctor ordered it, your teeth are bad, yeah, whatever. You got my $27. I guess it’s a lesson learned for car shopping. 🚙 Don’t shop when your flustered or feeling pressure. Just thank them and walk away. My usual hygentist also used to play that game but I had gotten good at pushing back and he stopped doing that.
I dried out by midday with the always hot office where I work and a fan blowing on my boots and feet. ⚛️ It was good, kind of a busy day, a lot of usual shit come down and thinking breaking in the data work. It’s fun when you can write a 5-liner R script and solve some big problem people are having. Though mostly things are held up because of a vendor issue, so there was also a lot of downtime before we can preform the next big update. Of course, it was kind of late day, because I didn’t get in until 10:30 AM with the dentist appointment, followed by of course the required strong cups of coffee. ☕ That’s because I sleep like such shit and are up half the night reading about the automobile business and pickup trucks, and random shit like goat farming 🐐 and private equity owning rental real estate.
Been continuing to study the auto industry and car shopping and the art of negotiations. 🔎 It’s really fascinating how to play the game and get a fair deal. Basically the trick is to get a total out the door price, and then a written broken down quote of all fees and taxes that go into the OTD price. Never discuss anything but those things until you are in the finance office. And then you look at the fees and negotiate over them, as most of them aren’t real, and even those who are real but excessive can be reduced by changing other parts of deal. 🤝 Get quotes from multiple dealers. 🚘 Find out what incentives are out there, which ones the dealer is likely to claim but not tell you about. I figured out 14 years too late that the dealer on my Chevy made my deal work at the rate I wanted to pay, by claiming to the manufacture I lost my previous truck to Hurricane Irene, even though I sold it. GM at the time had a program that if you didn’t trade in your old car, and you were impacted by Hurricane Irene by any way, I don’t know, my office flooded in Utica, you could claim a $3,000 rebate from GM. Dealer questioned me about it, and honestly told him I didn’t think I was impacted by the hurricane and the rebate is not on the bill of sale based my answer, but dealers actually apply for manufacturer’s rebates after the sale and can request any reasonable ones – only audited after the fact by manufacturer when they choose. 🤪 So who knows what the dealer told GM, probably my house and old truck was washed on the down the Schoharie in their telling. I’m honestly not crying that much about the stealership scamming the General, I mean manufacturers often set up their rebate programs with vague language that are intended to be scammed by either the buyer or dealership.
And take your time, walking feels good, put the pressure on the salesman not yourself. 🚘 Don’t get the scam of the rushed sale on doctor’s advice at the dentist office, as you’re a wet skunk 🦨 after riding in 34 degree freezing rain. I’m glad I’m in no rush to get a truck but I do want one by end of March or sometime in April. Despite what dealers may claim, prices do not change day from day, the only think that changes each month is manufacturers’ rebates, and dealers don’t know what next month will be until it’s announced to general public. People say auto dealer’s are scammy, and some ways they are, but also if you understand how the game is played, it doesn’t have to be game, and you can get a fair deal and be respected by understanding how the auto dealership system actually works. 📚 I still have a two plus months to keep reading books and learning everything I can about he auto industry. It’s fun to learn about big trucks and auto dealerships, and far more practical then let’s say goat farming or building an off-grid cabin at this point in my life, but being informed on such things too isn’t a bad thing for the future. 🔮
Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street don’t actually own homes 🏡
Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street don’t actually own homes but they do purchase on behalf of their clients, large numbers of shares in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and other real estate-related companies. Why does Vanguard et al buy REITs and real estate investment companies? Many investors from 401k plans to pension plans to general investors want exposure to diversified real estate across the nation and the world.
When you invest in a real estate fund, you are effectively buying a slice of a diversified portfolio that includes stocks of numerous real estate companies. For example, Vanguard offers mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), such as the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ), which track real estate market indices.
I’ve never invested in any real estate ETFs but they do offer diversification across millions of properties and real estate has certain tax advantages that can increase its return. That said, it’s only one sector and sometimes the global housing and commercial sectors can loose value all at once.
Many REITs are relatively small to moderate in size, but when you aggregate many REITs together you get real diversification and also buying leverage.
The largest single-family rental landlords in the US:
- Progress Residential (about 85,000 houses), a privately-held company.
Invitation Homes (about 80,000 houses), a publicly traded REIT [INVH]. The company was formed by Blackstone during the Housing Bust in 2012 and later spun off to the public. Blackstone sold is last shares in 2019. - American Homes 4 Rent (about 60,000 houses), a publicly traded REIT [AMH]. The company was founded during the Housing Bust in 2012, and was spun off via IPO in 2013. In 2016, it merged with American Residential Properties. At the time, AMH owned 39,000 houses, and American Residential owned 9,000. Combined, it became the largest landlord at the time.
- FirstKey Homes (about 50,000 houses), privately-held company.
- Blackstone got back into single-family rentals by acquiring other big landlords. In 2021, it acquired Home Partners of America with 17,000 rental houses. In January 2024, Blackstone announced it would acquire Tricon Residential, a publicly traded Canadian company [TCN], with about 38,000 houses in the US and multifamily apartments in Canada. When the Tricon deal closes, Blackstone will once again be one of the biggest single-family rental players. Blackstone is not acquiring individual houses.
These five companies combined own about 330,000 single-family rentals, or about 2.4% of all single-family rentals, and about 0.3% of the 95 million single-family houses in the US (occupied and unoccupied, attached and detached).
