Driving east of “the 15” on Rancho Bernardo Road today, I saw nearly a dozen late model Mercedes, BMWs, Escalades/premium SUVs for sale, parked along the road…mixed in with the usual “clunkers”. What gives??
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of those cars belong to realtors. I know two realtors that went from making it big to hitting the skids. The ones that bought those cars can sell them and take the depreciation hit – it will probably be a tax write-off anyway. As for the ones leasing those fancy cars, they’re stuck with making the payments until the lease expires. What good is a tax write-off when you don’t have any business income to deduct it from?
I passed that stretch of road today. My family noticed several newer model BMWs and Mercedes along the Car For Sale By Owner section of R.B. Road. I’ve been watching that area for signs of more cars for sale. But I also think that people are losing their cars, just as they are losing their homes. Does anyone have any data on auto repos?
I don’t have any data on auto repos, but I agree it would make sense for anyone under financial stress to sell off a luxury car first before failing to make a mortgage payment.
I don’t have the time here in December, but it would be easy enough to search Autotrader.com to find the number of BMWs, M-Bs, and Lexus for sale and then track that number over time.
Are we maybe taking this a little too far? I mean that location is basically the RB Mile of Cars and has been for years. As long as I can remember I’ve seen luxury cars mixed in with junkers.
Now there could be an increase in the number of luxury cars, but I doubt anybody’s got any historical data to support that (although there’s probably some guy out there!) and even if there is, aren’t we extending it to the *next* level to suggest that those might be owned by a high percentage of realtors (who are now on the skids)?
I’m not saying things aren’t starting to suck pretty well if that’s your chosen field, but again, sounds like we’re fitting anecdotal things to what we want to believe.
I didn’t mean to imply these cars belong to realtors. I just noticed the cars in the past few weeks have been fairly standard, but this past weekend I saw a couple higher-end vehicles. Maybe just a one-week data point.
Powayseller–I started the thread by asking if realtors were selling their cars on the RB mile of cars, and I understand and agree with sdcellar’s thoughts.
I posed the question with tongue-in-cheek, more than anything.
You know, I had started to wonder if that was maybe the case. Now I have to go and remove my foot-in-mouth…
I don’t do a very good job keeping track of who’s got a sense of humor here (I mean besides myself. I’m funny right? Maybe? Kind of funny? I got a hell of a sense of humor, ain’t I Corporal Briggs?)
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