Hi zeus628; Re: "I have a friend who has alarge corvette collection, it`s value has been decimated the last 3years."
There are a lot of car buyers I've seen that violate the simple rule of "buy low", "sell high". To get Corvettes cheap, I think that you have to let your brain do the buying instead of your b****s. But most Corvettes are probably owned by the same segments of the society that have been hurt in the stock market fall, at least so far. The prices will only start going up when the public at large gives up its love of stocks (in favor of what Texans call "rolling stock", LOL), and that just hasn't happened yet.
Historically, the older vettes have gone up in price faster, due to their relative scarcity. For example:
vettefinders.com
But trees do not grow to the sky. It's just not possible to pick a particular model and year, concentrate on it and make a profit.
I would only invest in cars if I knew for a fact that I could immediately after purchasing one, have a near 100% chance of selling it for a 10% profit or more on the used car market. That is, I would only buy the outliers. That means that you buy at auctions, and you go to all the auctions, see 1000s of Corvettes, and only buy the steals. Very similar to stock picking.
The problem with investing in real assets like cars is that they have incredibly huge gaps between bid and ask prices (i.e. the spread), and very high real volatility. But one can also take advantage of this fact by purchasing the vehicles in such a way as to gain the spread.
-- Carl |
