A few years back, I was seriously looking at buying my own land, maybe a house, a homestead. Now that I’m looking at replacing Big Red, I’ve been learning the ins and outs of the automobile industry, and what it means to buy an automobile.
Truth is they are very different things – but maybe not in the way often emphasized in the personal finance business – a depreciating asset vs an appreciating asset. True, most cars only lose value and most houses gain value, but both are very much consumption items. Houses only gain value if you maintain them well, and are situated in a desirable location with many wiling buyers. A lot of homeowners miss out on understanding homeownership is a consumption activity, homes only gain and retain value if you constantly maintain and upgrade them.
Houses for one can only be bought locally if you plan to commute to work. That was the one thing I found most challenging when I looked at buying a house – commuting and distance from work. While a hybrid work-from-home and in-office option would offer greater flexibility even that involves a bit of a compromise. You can’t live anywheres, and where you live is directly proportional to lenght of your commute.
Cars are very different, especially in the internet age when vast inventory databases are avaliable, long-distance phone calls and emails are free. You get a ride or drive to the dealership to pick up your vehicle of choice. New cars, with the same package and trim are all the same, the package and trim differences are trivial and can be understood by the window sticker and not physically touching the vehicle prior to delivery. Houses and land in contrast are quite different.
You can buy a new car “sight-unseen” with a high degree of certainty that you are getting the desired product and if something doesn’t match upon delivery you can refuse to seal the deal. While you can buy land “sight-unseen” that is usually seen to be wildly risky as sellers photos and websites can depart from what you see online. Indeed, some of the properties I looked at online appear much different when you look inside or even just drive up to it from the road.
Buying a home also requires a lot more people to be involved, including home inspectors, real estate lawyers, title inspections. Used cars are much more similar to home buying, as when you buy a used car, you should always get it inspected by a third party mechanics to know all defects. You also want to test drive and scrutinize a used car much more like a home your interested in buying.
I actually hate the idea of considering an automobile or house an asset of any type. It’s a consumption good, a consumer service that benefits it’s owner with transportation or housing. While there is value in selling a used automobile, people don’t buy cars to hold value, they buy them to enjoy the use of automobile for a number of years before it has to be discarded. Likewise housing, while often retaining it’s value better then automobiles, primarily is about shelter. It would be a bad investment to buy a house in most areas and just let it set vacant in search of future gains in value.
It looks like from the radar and forecast that maybe I won’t be going out to see Mom and Dad today but maybe they can do tomorrow on King’s Day if the weather is bad today. It’s winter, it snows. Otherwise, Tuesday at 6 AM, it’s out there with my laundry bag and powded laundry soap waiting for the bus to wash my clothes.
Oh you sad poor individual without a car, having to take a bus to laundromat at 6 AM. 🎽 Like the colored and poor – and those on the pogey. I so love that word. See what happens when you listen to Canadian Country music. You want to buy a SuperDuty and slap on an Alberta Proud bumper sticker. Have you ever thought about buying a 20-year old Honda and a plastic house with a washing machine that breaks every two weeks in the basement? 🏡 Don’t you know, we can slot you into one of those houses for a low, low down payment 💰 and rather then making your landlord rich, you can make a bank and town tax collector rich.
Once the sun comes up, I’ll probably go down to Hannaford and get whole wheat flour, frozen fruit and few other things. 🥞 Yesterday was kind of a bust riding over to Market32, everything is over priced and the SEFCU VTM money printing machine is gone.🏧 Got my carrots 🥕 and they were good in my red lentil-carrot soup I made last night, but the cornmeal pancakes 🥞 this morning weren’t the same without sufficient whole-wheat flour, but I am thinking I want to bake some bread besides the usual pancakes, 🍞 as I don’t buy that crap comes wrapped in plastic at the store. I think I liked plastic better when I could burn it, that said, I don’t really like eating all that toxic crap wrapped or the smell of burnt plastic.
Besides grocery shopping with my bike, 🛒 it will probably be mostly a home day assuming I don’t go out to see the folks. 📚 Do more reading, I don’t know maybe go for another ride out to Five Rivers or somewhere else – I could do a longer ride out to Hollyhock or even Blodgett Hill, depend on my mood today. ☺️ 🚲 Who knows it’s still winter out for a few more weeks and the way I look at it, the more learn the better off things will be. Try not to get too chilled through today. There is always the space heater or the heated blanket, or gasp – I could actually turn the heat above 50 degrees. It’s not like I’m using gas in truck that doesn’t have plates anymore. I don’t have my laptop home, so I won’t be going to the library today to surf the interwebs. 🖥️
Rode out to Price Chopper in Slingerlands to get $1 bills just so I had them handy when I went to laundromat in the future, but the SEFCU ATM is no longer in the store. Disappointing as the VTM there was only place in Slingerlands and Delmar that had singles and $5 bills. I was looking at one of the 3/4 ton pickups in the lot – a Chevy – and was thinking soon enough I’ll have a big Ford like that.
Maybe smoked some weed before heading out, and I forgot to get whole-wheat flour when I was there but did get carrots and more apple cider vinegar. I can’t believe how fast the ACV disappears around this place, but then again I find myself splitting a bottle between work and home nearly every week these days. Red lentil soup with shredded carrots, onions, peas and a bit of garlic powder and salt. Delicious and very filling. To be decided – how gassy it leaves me later on.
Rode out to Five Rivers on what turned out to be a beautiful evening. Mostly because I like looking at the cows and rural landscape. Someday I’ll have cows if that’s what I want. Walked around for a bit, snapped some pictures. While cooking down the red lentil soup, I watched more videos on car buying, roll playing and stragety. I also thumbed through the weekly news magazines on Libby, mostly so I could be informed when Mom starts questioning me on the news. I should read more of the books that I have on Hoopla before there due on Wednesday. Tomorrow I’m going out to visit Mom and Dad, and do my wash there. It will be good to get out.
