[Coronita]

Oh boy… where do I even start with this..

[quote=deadzone]A lot of big companies, Silicon Valley and otherwise, have announced going back to the office 3 days a week starting in April. I just used Amazon as a prime example (no pun intended), not generalizing.

I’ve heard from piggington sources, other RE blogs and all over mainstream media that high paid FAANG type workers moving to San Diego to remote work were a major factor in house price run-up in San Diego. (Personally I believe it was a minor factor at best) Now that Covid is over and many (not all) workers will be returning to office in the near future, common sense says that trend will regress at least to some degree.

[/quote]

Ok, specifically with people that relocated.. Do you think that people who did relocate here from higher cost areas, would simply move here, make one of the most important financial decisions in their life (buy a house), and move their entire family down here, just on a whim, without any sort of long term plan or assurance from their current employer that their remote arrangement could continue….That is, they didn’t arrange for one possible cases:

1: they found a new job here, and quit their old job
2: they are important enough to their current company and ensured that 2-3 years from now that covid is better, they wouldn’t have to relocate back to the company
3: they work for a company with satellite offices down here such that if they ever had to return to an office, even it was for a few days in the week, they could do so by returning to a satellite office down here
4: they work for a company that requires then to show up every so often (monthly, every 3 weeks, etc), and are reasonably reachable by car or train etc.

There’s plenty of people I know that fall into each of those categories above, including my tenants. SDR’s neighbors also falls into many of those categories.

If you are correct (which I highly doubt since most normal people and normal families actually put a lot of things into important decisions like buying a house and raising a family before relocating everyone), we should soon see people moving back to where they have to work now and a desperate need of a paycheck, in 2-3 months time and there should be MORE housing supply on the market in 2-3 months time…

[quote]
You guys are so focused on the job growth in San Diego as the reason everyone is going to continue moving here and driving up prices (wait, I thought it was the weather and lifestyle?).
[/quote]

Um, you are using the term “everyone” No one else is. Some people are moving here because those people, specifically in biotech/life sciences have one of the best opportunities right now here in san diego, simply because the dollars poured into biotech/life sciences into San Diego is pretty large lately, especially after covid.

[quote]
I worked in the tech industry during the .com bubble and I am seeing so many similarities that it is scary. What happened to all of those .com era startups, many in San Diego? I know a great many that evaporated. If the stock market collapses like in 2000 (and currently it appears well on its way), a lot of jobs will be lost. And with current housing and rent prices, a lot of folks will be leaving San Diego.[/quote]

In tech, there will always be things come and go and something new happens. I agree, the dotcom era brought a lot of people that were in the tech industry that didn’t really belong there and that were not really qualified to do. So when they had to cut heads, they cut people that were expendable that weren’t really tech rooted (B and C quality workers that personally I could get myself to hire, but for some companies, they just wanted bodies)….When the dotcom bubble imploded, yes those people got washed out and couldn’t find any other tech jobs, because they weren’t really competent to be in tech to begin. But here’s the thing: if it wasn’t for the dotcom bubble, they never would have had the chance to make a lot more money given their limited abilities. So for them, jumping into tech, even as unqualified as they were, was an opportunity of a lifetime (albeit short lived).Most of them didn’t hit the stock option jackpot that they were hoping for, but a lot of them for a short period of time were overcompensated for the (lack of tech) skills they had. When the music stopped, they simply went back to their normal paying jobs they had previously, and let the higher paying tech jobs left to the people who really knew what they were doing.

But, take a look at the bay area housing market:

If you are correct (that a large tech contraction would cause housing prices to drastically correct), then why is it when the .dotcom imploded in 2000-1 and a lot of people lost their jobs, home prices in the bay area didn’t massively correct between 2001-2003? I was there in and out , and can confirm that there was some mild price changes, but it was really just noise. Rent prices in Santa Clara also did not materially decline: the rental we have there never had an extended vacancy or rent price reduction during those time, it stayed around $3500/month for 1600 sqft SFH in Santa Clara and kept going up as early as 2004. The only major price correction happened in 2008-2012 during subprime bubble, like everywhere else (which is why many of us are calling that an opportunity of a lifetime…)…There wasn’t a major price correction right after the dot.com bubble burst. If we didn’t see a massive foreclosure/price correction in the Bay Area (which is heavily tech concentrated) during the dot.com implosion, then again, why do you think any sort of contraction in tech here will have a drastic affect on home prices in SD overall, which is far less tech concentrated than the bay area????

=======

Speaking of relocation and working remotely in SD. Working remotely from SD isn’t really new…Some people have been doing this as early 2001/2. It’s just now a lot more people are doing it because a lot more companies find it acceptable post covid. Not every company will accept it, but a lot more company find it acceptable than back in 2001 when I did it. And even if terms change, people who were given that option to begin with are usually important/skilled enough to buy enough time to adapt to the change.

For me, after being in the bay area a few years and after 2 IPOS and 1 acquisition, I wanted to move back to San Diego. I decided to do this in 2001, when the dot.com imploded and many people were unemployed. Relative to everyone else, financially I was fine and in the worst case, if my employer didn’t allow me to work remotely, I would be in no worse shape then everyone else that got laid off in tech. So I resigned and told my employer I needed to relocate to San Diego for personal reasons. We ended up working out a remote work arrangement for 1 year, so I could transition my team to someone else while I worked remotely from SD until something better came along. During that year, I didn’t really look that hard, and when 2002 came around and my employer didn’t allow me to continue working remotely, I took on some contracting gigs, mainly because my significant other felt bad that I didn’t find anything yet…The contracting gigs paid well even during the tech blowup, but it wasn’t my long term lifestyle I wanted. Every Friday, I hopped on an SAN-SFO flight and came back SFO-SAN either on Saturday or at the latest Sunday. And, I wasn’t the only person on that flight that did that. That Friday flight was packed with techies that traveled between SFO-SAN or SJC-SAN. Even with that housing was cheaper, lifestyle was still better. I continued contracting gigs for 1 year until I found an opportunity down here with a large company HQ’d in bay area with a large office down here, and my comp package was close to bay area comps…

I don’t think too many people working remotely in SD for a company in LA or SF would have any logistical issues in doing what I basically did 20 years ago. That’s certainly better than some people I know who work in the defense sector that have to drive to Malibu from Poway 1-2 days each week, who have been doing this for some time.

[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]Re-shoring/On-shoring Assuming we get lucky (which is likely) and we just end up in a low grade cold war.

Some serious (probably dirtier then most would like to see) mining will need to be Re-shored as well.

EV’s have environmental costs too.[/quote]

Yes, EV isn’t the complete solution. I think it’s more of a bandaid.

I do think it would be cool if we have more solar farms in the desert and share energy across states. For instance all that dessert in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico could be used for solar farms. Just need a way to transmit and transfer that generated electricity.

Also, it would be great if we spent more on researching alternative fuels, more friendly. I don’t think ICB are all going away. It would be great if we have a viable biodiesel, not just B20 or B30 blend.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Okay, I guess any topic that you don’t like or agree with is rambling. Got it.[/quote]

Lol, I neither dislike or like the topic. But looking at the initial post, you took 1 news article about 1 big tech company and generalized that to a specific local market condition without much basis or facts. And when multiple people pointed out more credible information to the contrary, you really didn’t like that and glossed over all those other indicators to the contrary.

For every company large or mid-size that is going back hybrid, there’s several others that are remote. But regardless of remote or not, it’s not only contributing factor for why more people are living here. All the data also indicate job growth in biotech and life sciences. We posted numerous of credible articles about this both from real estate companies that show commercial RE demand, and also job stats from tech articles and a bunch of other sources…more than any sort of “fact/data” you posted to support your opinions….All these articles which you glossed over again and either ignored or denied are factual..and continued to ramble your opinion that you posted in the beginning of this thread…You brought no new data, besides 1 or 2 or 3 new articles that talk about 1 specific employer…And you conveniently glossed over the article about 3 Roots and 14000 applicants on a waitlist for 200 homes….You also gloss over that the inventory in Mira Mesa is essentially close to 0, despite large a population Mira Mesa is serving.

So it’s not that we don’t like what you are saying, but what you are saying doesn’t make sense.

[quote]
You are the one rambling. And SDR with his endless reminders of missed opportunities is not constructive and has no relevance to the present day situation.
[/quote]

I don’t deny I am not rambling, because that’s sort of what this thread is.

[quote]
I am in no way bragging about the success of my gold, just pointing out that it made sense at the time (to me) that that’s where I should focus my investing and that it hasn’t been a bad investment.
[/quote]

No one said you are bragging about your gold investments. But what you initially said about gold investment made no sense without the additional context that your investment into retail jewelry was primarily achieved by off market activity with a family business, in which you had access to below market valuation for jewelry that is generally not available to anyone else. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but it’s not something that can be reproducible by your average joe, and from your initial post about gold, it was misleading for others to think that they can simply “invest” in cosmetic 14k jewelry and come out ahead.

[quote]
Had I taken all my money and dumped it in RE at that time would I be more wealthy today, hell yes. But on that same token, if I dumped all my money in the Stock market in 2009-2010 I would be so wealthy right now that the current prices of RE would be negligible.
[/quote]

But that’s also the point i was trying to make. You didn’t need to dump all your money into the stock market to come out ahead. That’s the point of DRIP investment. If you do a little over the course of several years, you wouldn’t need to be market timing to reap some gains… nor would you feel a need to short sell something to try to speculate a gain. Both much higher risk than DRIP.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Look, I’m not rambling. I was very clear and concise about the mounting evidence that the 12 year long bubble is finally bursting.

You are the one rambling. And SDR with his endless reminders of missed opportunities is not constructive and has no relevance to the present day situation.

I am in no way bragging about the success of my gold, just pointing out that it made sense at the time (to me) that that’s where I should focus my investing and that it hasn’t been a bad investment. Had I taken all my money and dumped it in RE at that time would I be more wealthy today, hell yes. But on that same token, if I dumped all my money in the Stock market in 2009-2010 I would be so wealthy right now that the current prices of RE would be negligible. But I didn’t do that so let’s move on and deal with the present situation shall we?[/quote]

Of course you are rambling. You started this thread as rambling

[quote=dz rambling]
Covid is over now for all intents and purposes. Amazon announced return to the office (3 days a week) and no longer requiring vaccine.

You knew this was coming, other large tech companies will follow suite. This change in addition to tech stocks getting absolutely hammered in the stock market this year will pretty much put an end to the “Bay area tech worker moving to ___ for remote work”.

Just another ominous sign for the housing market along with rapidly rising interest rates. Anybody flipping houses now is going to get rammed hard. I think Zillow was wise to get out of that business when they did.
[/quote]

That’s rambling…Not that there is anything wrong with rambling. We don’t mind people rambling. But you seem to, except your own.

I’m just keeping this thread on page 1, so we all remember.

[Coronita]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-08/the-wealthy-bid-big-to-win-homes-in-supply-strapped-u-s-markets?srnd=premium

Ouch…. Got to hurt….

Wealthy Bid Big to Win Homes in Supply-Strapped U.S. Markets

The impatient and moneyed, trying to get ahead of expected increases in U.S. mortgage rates, are doing what it takes to win bidding wars for homes. That means going big.

This year through mid-February, 5,897 homes sold for at least $100,000 above the asking price, up from 2,241 a year earlier, according to a report by Redfin Corp. In the San Jose, California, metro area, 46% of sale prices reached that threshold, a jump from 20%.

San Jose, CA 46%
San Francisco, CA 40
Oakland, CA 30
Seattle, WA 17
Anaheim, CA 15
Los Angeles, CA 11
San Diego, CA 11
Boston, MA 5
Denver, CO 3
Newark, NJ 3

[Coronita]

Cool, we’re all dead or glowing for radioactive fallout…

I don’t know, I think the in the longer term, if we aren’t all dead from nukes, it might be better for the U.S.

We might actually have a viable energy policy that isn’t as dependent on foreign oil.

Also, this probably also gives thought to China and the chip supply chain.

Besides just a supply chain shortage, there’s serious national security reasons not to count exclusively on Taiwan, in case China pulls a Putin and goes rogue on Taiwan. Now, China is probably also having second thoughts about that, because it’s pretty impressive what the US and EU countries have done to bring Russia’s economy down on it’s knees. And it’s pretty awesome that although Russia has a lot of reserves in US obligations, they can’t access it. ha ha ha… China is probably taking note that it could be them too.

That said, with inflation, it makes more sense to onshore chip fab back in the US. Comsumers can absorb the higher cost since everything else is going up in price. Glad to see Intel, TSM, Samsung, and others expanding chip fab here in the US. Good news for tech.

Go Joe Go!

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Seriously FLU you have some issues man. All of your responses are so long winded, I mean you just wrote more characters in this response than I have cumulatively in this entire thread. How on earth do you manage people in a professional environment with such poor writing skills?

You really need to learn how to paraphrase. I’ll summarize for you since you have reading comprehension issues:

There are several flashing red signs that the bubble is about to burst. I’ve provided several examples: Tech stocks getting creamed, Rising interest rates, end of covid, return to office, high inflation, all of the public RE companies getting ass hammered (zillow, Redfin, open), etc. etc.

I then said under these conditions it might not be wise to throw cash into the stock market at this moment. I also pointed out that money can be made in a down market, although not specifically advising anyone to do so. I also pointed out that my gold investments are going well. Whether I originally bought them at market price or via professional discount is irrelevant.

In response, all I hear from you clowns is “Opportunity of a lifetime”. You guys really don’t have any more useful advice to offer other than to go back in a time machine to 2012 and buy real estate?[/quote]

I’m in tech, I don’t need to have professional writing skills. I just need to send memes.

And yahoo founder jerry yang wrote emails completely in lower case with no punctuation. I think he made a fortunate… how did you do during the same time?

Besides this is a blog. I just like to write long ass responses to weird ass speculation…..

I’m doing fine professionally, thanks for asking. I guess I don’t work in such an anal retentive industry….sorry if you do.

My reading comprehension is just fine. I’m just going where your rambling is going…

Real estate in 2009 was an opportunity of a lifetime here in SD. No doubt about it. Buying gold jewelry from broke people probably isn’t an opportunity of a lifetime since Americans probably over extend all the time…but ….. The magnitude of people selling off their jewelry out of desperation back in 2009 might have been an opportunity of a lifetime. Not my cup of tea to make money, but nothing wrong with it…I prefer higher rent prices that track inflation once someone moves out…

[Coronita]

…

[Coronita]

[quote=sdrealtor]I’ll drink to that[/quote]

I tried drinking the oil, it didn’t taste so good. You know it’s too bad I need to get 3 different oil grades otherwise I’d just buy a big ole 55 gallon drum of oil, since it would take up less space.

German cars take 5w40 euro spec
Old Japanese cars take 5w30
New japanese cars take 0w20

Can’t mix and match…. I guess I could move all Japanese cars to 5w20 but I like to stick with the recommended oil weight from the manufacturer….

Too bad..

[Coronita]

I just ordered 10 5 quart jugs of oil to my stock. I have 5 jugs left at home. Should be able to do oil changes for 2.5 years on the cars until the energy mess is straightened out or a car dies and I replace it with something electric

also bought about 50 oil filters. Each costs roughly $1 more than last year.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Wow you guys are really going mental here, sorry to even bother sharing my info on gold.
– First, if I had used my money to purchase the ETF GLD in 2009, it would be up over 100%
– Second I could have easily purchased gold bullion off the street for the market price. In which case my investment would have gone up over 100%. My “family advantage” only netted an additional 20% profit or so.
– Third, what kind of moron are you to suggest it is immoral or unethical to purchase gold off the “unfortunate”? They need money, I have money and pay competitive price. Do you think pawnshops are immoral too? Get the fuck out of here what that take.
– Bottom line, I made a shit load of money taking risk and shorting the housing market. I used some of that new found cash to purchase gold. I would (and will) do it all over again.

Also, I have never once said landlords were selfish for raising rents. I have always been in favor of free market capitalism. What I said is it is selfish to root for the Fed to keep money printing knowing that it is absolutely fucking over the majority of the population financially, just because it benefits your personal interests. The Federal Reserve blowing ginormous financial bubbles, encouraging risky speculation, and then the government bailing out banks and other failing companies when that bubble inevitably pops, is what I despise. That is the opposite of free market.[/quote]

No, we’re not going mental here. We’re just trying to follow your train of thought on this thread. It first started off about how return to work is somehow going to affect housing prices in san diego, despite folks stating that (1) not everyone is going back to the office (2) there’s high tech job expansion here and (3) there’s some people that moved here for other reasons. And then we followed you down the discussion about how housing prices are insane and that people will be in trouble, despite a good portion of purchases were done in the 2009/10 timeframe with low fixed rate mortgages and then some even refinanced to a 30year 3% or lower, and there’s no incentive for them to force sell, considering their payments are way lower than people are paying for rent, and also that was an opportunity of a lifetime….. Then you took us to the discussion about how the stock market is going to crash, and while we are in the middle of a correction, we haven’t returned back to 2019 levels (yet) at least…And then you mentioned something about day trading assuming we day trade/speculate and are doing so bigly and losing our shorts, despite contrary to your assumptions that most of us do not day trade or participate in speculation in a bigly way and that most of us do boring style DRIP investment over 15-20+years and track pretty much with the 4% rule of compounding, and that while we might speculate here and there, it’s not really material enough to affect the overall financial situation….Then on the other thread where you offered financial advice, we’re trying to follow the logic that you mentioned it’s a bad time to invest and that you took a short position in some stock…which we mentioned really isn’t investing, it’s speculating/gambling and a lot more risking than anyone else who’s doing a DRIP style investment…Somehow, you took us down the path about how Gold is a great investment since 2009, where you mentioned that the bulk of your gold purchase was below $1000 in 2009. But we showed you that gold really hasn’t done that well relative to everything else, because it went as high as $2100 before coming back down to the $1300/1400 only recently have we seen it cross $2100 mainly due to the war and uncertainty of ukraine, and I said that I like gold because it’s pretty and maybe I’ll melt something down and coat a gun. But then you said how retail gold jewelry is a great investment. I said, it wasn’t because most jewelry these day is 14k and worth less than what retail price people pay. Then you indicated that gold jewelry is a good investment. I refuted that because gold jewelry typically is priced way above the price of the gold content and retail purchases also include a 8% sales tax, unlike bullion…Then you indicated you did the bulk of your gold purchases by buying gold jewelry from a family jewelry store who bought gold from desperate people that needed money and sold off their family jewelry and told us you bought some of that desperately sold jewelry well below spot value…something that I pointed out really isn’t a investment that anyone could really do that doesn’t have privileged status to a jewelry store and/or pawn shop, no different that Flyer who has privileged inherited money to buy homes in San Diego and make money “easily”….And I just wonder why you felt it was immoral for landlords to charge tenants high rent prices, while it was not immmoral for a jewelry store to take advantage of someone desperate and not give a fair market value for the jewelry they are trying to sell…And then you said we are going mental, when we’re really just trying to follow your train of thought on investment/speculation….

I might have missed something here and there, but that’s the summary of where you took our discussion on both threads…

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Absolutely for the lay person they should only purchase bars or coins. Gold in jewelry form only makes sense if you have retail jewelry to off load them.

I have family in the jewelry business so bought a lot of gold jewelry through them during the “great recession” and honestly got most of it at far less than the $900-1000 spot price as there were a lot of desperate people hawking their gold in that period.

Some of the stuff I melted down to bars, but the nicer stuff I kept intact as it can be sold easily for double the spot gold price in jewelry form.[/quote]

Well, did you pay sales tax for that, or did you do that (illegally) under the table 🙂

Also, come on man.. Before talking about how well gold investment worked out for you…It would have been more appropriate to first disclose that basically you have family in the business, and that your gold investment gain was primarily only from the special relationships you have with your family and not so much your investment dexterity that others have specifically for gold…because without that special advantage, you would not have been able to reproduce those gains that you specifically mentioned for gold, like any other investment asset class for which you do not have any sort of special advantage…….It’s no different than flyer who keeps claiming how much money and how easy it was for him make money in real estate in san diego, when the bulk of his wealth was inherited… just saying… Not there there is anything wrong with having a special advantage… But let’s at least be upfront and honest about it that that was the primary enabler, and not financial dexterity. Because let’s not mislead others who are trying to build their own wealth right now from the start… that these “easy” ways of making money for you with gold (and in real estate, for flyer’s case) are reproducible by others who don’t have those “special tools”

Afterall, the easiest way to make $1million is… to start out with $999,999

Also, you seemed to have taken advantage of unfortunate people that had no money and had to sell gold at firesale prices, some of them possibly passed down to them from their relatives…. I believe in a few threads back, you mentioned something about unaffordable housing and rent and how landlords jacking up rent was selfish and self centered….How are these two situations any different, besides, you being the one subject to the possibility of a landlord jacking up rent prices?

[Coronita]

Rare vintage wine makes better investments than most consumer grade jewelry BTW. At least you know what you are getting. Well sort of… People in asian pay $100-$150 for empty vintage wine bottles, because they take them and make fake wine and sell it over there with the same label. I’m not kidding.

[Coronita]

Forgot another important reason why consumer gold jewelry is, most of the time, a crappy investment….

6. Sales tax….Almost all consumer jewelry in CA is subject sales tax. That’s 7.75% in SD, and up to 8.25% in other counties. So right off the bat, if you you buy consumer jewelry as an “investment” you lose around 8% in your value if you were to sell it right back.

Gold bullion is NOT subject to sales tax if it’s $1500 or above….That’s why you should always buy at least 1 ounce of gold bullion per transaction. If you buy 1/3 ounce bars, for instance, that’s subject to state sales tax.

You probably already know this DZ if you are serious about precious metal investments, but in case you werent aware…

https://www.jmbullion.com/tax/california/

[quote]
California Gold & Silver Bullion / Collectible State Sales Taxes
Rules and Regulations for the State of California
The State of California requires the collection of use taxes on certain products sold by JM Bullion and delivered to a California address. These taxes must be collected on (1) nonmonetized bullion made from copper, platinum, or palladium; (2) monetized bullion, nonmonetized gold or silver bullion, or numismatic coins if the total amount of a single sales transaction is less than $1,500; (3) accessory items; and (4) processed items. All other products sold by JM Bullion are exempt from these taxes.

The following definitions apply to products on which taxes must be collected in California:

Nonmonetized Bullion. Bullion which has been smelted or refined and has a value dependent primarily upon its precious metal content and not upon its form.
Monetized Bullion. Coins or other forms of money manufactured of gold, silver, or other metal and heretofore, now, or hereafter used as a medium of exchange under the laws of California, the United States, or any foreign nation. The medium of exchange must have had a legal status equivalent to legal tender.
Numismatic Coins. Coins which have an external value above and beyond the base value of the underlying precious metal, due to the item’s rarity, condition, age, or other external factor.
Single Sales Transaction. Determined per invoice, and not on a line-item basis.
Accessory Items. Items such as holders, tubes, coin flips, and apparel.
Processed Items. Precious metals that have been processed by third parties into items that are valued on more than their precious metal content, such as statues or colorized coins.
Use taxes in California are calculated at checkout on the JM Bullion website based on (1) the taxability of products sold by JM Bullion in California set forth above, and (2) the specific tax rates established by the taxing jurisdiction of the delivery address in California.

JM Bullion began collecting use taxes in California on April 1, 2019. Our use tax license number in California is 257602304.

If you are a California-based reseller and wish to file a Reseller Certificate with JM Bullion, please download the California Reseller Certificate form here. Once you have filled out this form, either email it to [email protected]; or mail it to JM Bullion, Inc., 11700 Preston Road, Suite 660153, Dallas, TX 75230. Once we receive your completed Reseller Certificate, we will enter it into our system, and you will not be charged use taxes on future orders as long as your Reseller Certificate remains valid and in force.

PLEASE NOTE: THE ABOVE IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTION OF SALES TAX LAWS AND REQUIREMENTS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. IT IS ONLY INTENDED TO PROVIDE THE READER WITH A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THOSE SALES TAX LAWS AND REQUIREMENTS CURRENTLY IN EFFECT IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THAT RELATE TO THE READER’S TRANSACTIONS WITH JM BULLION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RESEARCH THE SALES TAX LAWS AND REQUIREMENTS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, WE SUGGEST YOU VISIT THE CALIFORNIA TAX SERVICE CENTER LOCATED AT https://WWW.TAXES.CA.GOV/.
[/quote]

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]I see where you are coming from. Jewelry as a collectible would be more desirable and is quite rarer in more than 14K. And unless you own a retail jewelry store you can’t benefit from the large markups that you get from selling 10K and 14K pieces

But from a pure gold melted down value point of view, there is no difference in price (in theory). In other words, an 18K bar is worth the same proportional value 18/24 of the spot gold price as 14K (14/24). But since 18K bars are probably not very common, there may be a slight additional markup but it wouldn’t be much.[/quote]

In theory, yes… but in practice, from you, the retail buyer of jewelry…. how do know how much gold is really in the jewelry and that it’s actually 14k or 10k, and not less? Many retail jewelry pieces don’t actually state the total weight of the gold part, especially cosmetic/affordanble/non-investment grade jewelry. How do you properly evaluate of the total retail price you pay for a piece of jewelry, the percentage of it is for the gold content, and the rest just a markup for the aesthetics?

Because in many cases, the markup for the non-gold content is significantly more than the price of the gold content, and if the worth of the consumer grade jewelry selling back is only the gold’s meltdown value, you’re going to lose the value from the piece’s aesthetic. For example, if you buy a necklace with that has gold and other decorations on it, and they don’t give you a total weight of the gold content, you might end up spending say 50% for the gold content and 50% for everything else. Melt value might only be for the gold content, which is worth only 50% of the total price of the piece…so just to come out even (non-inflation adjusted), gold prices would have to double from the time you purchased the original piece. That’s not a good “investment”…

There’s a difference if there’s some collectors value for that jewelry. But most 10k or 14k jewelry is not collectible, since it’s meant for your average consumer as an affordable option.

Also, if you buy jewelry in bulk for “investment”, how do you test for the actual gold content? How do you really know it’s 14k versus say 12k or 10k? with 10k or 14k, weight tests aren’t that accurate by itself..Now, for a consumer jewelry that your spouse/significant other likes, it doesn’t really matter how true is the gold content is and its unlikely you’ll spend the time an money to get it checked out, since it probably isn’t a big deal. You spouse/significant other likes the piece and that’s all there is too it. But from a “investment” perspective, that’s a crappy proposition. Because you won’t really know what you are getting. That uncertainty is “investment risk”…
So from that perspective, I wouldn’t buy a consumer grade jewelry counting on it to appreciate or view it as an “investment” because all those factors. All that matters really is my significant other likes the piece, fake or untrue to the gold content or not.

There are reasons why if one is truly serious about gold bullion investing, one sticks with well know coins or gold bars. Because while it’s not impossible to make them fake,
1) value is pretty clear: 1 ounce of gold…
2) purity of well know coins are well known. Canadian maple leafs are 99.9% pure, whereas american eagles are 91.7% ..But total gold content is still the same…

3) there are a lot of test kits that while isn’t a guarantee, does reduce your changes of getting a fake coin, The fisch test kit is a pretty good test kit. And they are designed to work on the well known gold coins that our popular…

https://www.thefisch.com/

4) the amount of effort to make a fake gold coin that is almost indetectable using tungsten is not worth it versus doing this to a 1 kilo bar. So while it’s possible to make fake 1 ounce coins with tungsten, the effort for just 1 coin isn’t worth it. 1 kilo bars are different, because fakers drill out the center of the 1 kilo bar and fill it up with tungsten, and being the weight and characteristics are close, with a large 1 kilo bar, it’s far easier to fake…

https://globalbullionsuppliers.com/blogs/blog/are-there-gold-bars-filled-with-tungsten-at-major-banks#:~:text=In%20high%2Dend%20counterfeits%2C%20a,coins%20are%20still%20very%20common.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tungsten-filled-gold-bars-found-in-new-york-2012-9

5) If you’re buying 1 ounce bars from reputable places, they usually have some traceable serial number…For instance Valcambi gold bars…

https://www.jmbullion.com/1-oz-valcambi-gold-bar-new-w-assay/

Again, none of this matters as much if you’re spending like $1000-$10k on gold/jewelry/etc, because if things are fake or not up to spec or not properly evaluated, you’re at most out $1000-10k and probably doesn ot materially affect your overall financial situation. But if one is really taking up sizeable “investments” in gold where it makes a material impact on one’s financials (just like every other class of investment), it behooves one to make purchases without the tools to verify authenticity, because not checking for authenticity is a huge risk for your gold “investment”

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