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That's ridiculous. There have been childless singles living in every suburban neighborhood I've ever lived in. You need to get out more and see the world.
There have always been SOME, but this was NOT common 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. This is largely a fairly recent development, driven largely by the modern higher earnings of single women.
I'm in the Denver metro, and four of the eight houses surrounding me are owned by single people, including three females and one male. Two of the females are professionals in their thirties. The third female is retired. The male is a working professional in his fifties. The houses range in size from 1600 sq. ft to about 2700 sq. ft. The largest one is occupied by the retired woman. Prices range from about $350k to $475k, and two of the houses recently changed hands.
You don't see burger flippers owning houses, do you? Note that singles owning homes is largely for professionals. There is the occasional single who inherits a house or acquires one in divorce, but that is not the norm.
Technically, yes. But if the interest rates influence one's buying decision towards buying new, it is no longer costless financing since you have only gotten out of paying interest by agreeing to take on more depreciation (in effect.) As a result, you are still spending more money. The only exception is if you can positively swear that there was zero chance that financing had any effect at all on your decision to buy new, which is to say, if you would've bought new even if you had to pay cash.
If you cannot honestly say this, then the financing did (indirectly) cost you money!
Assumes that new cars are more expensive. That may be generally true, but it wasn't when I was looking. Assuming a 300,000 mile lifespan, the majority of used cars were actually more expensive than new when considering the useful life they had left on a straightline basis (eg, a car that's done 60,000 has used up 20% of its useful life and if it costs 80% of new, it's not any cheaper). That's pretty absurdly favorable to used cars. Of course, that's for the Prius which was helped by, like most boring cars that most people are buying, holds it's value very well. Also Toyota has to put about a 20% discount on the hood to move them. Combined, you end up with the result that buying a new Prius is cheaper. Interesting result. Apparently the stigma against buying new cars is more powerful than logic. That or most people have greater expectations of the longevity of a Prius than I do as 300k is stretching what I would consider the useful life.
Honestly, that's not that uncommon though. Same thing when I bought the Mazda3. Used cars really weren't the relative bargain they were made out to be. I sold mine with 140k for $6,000. Bought it new for $18,000. In other words, in seven years and 140k is depreciated by 2/3rds. Very few cars actually make it to 200k for a variety of reasons. They get in accidents sometimes which prematurely aborts an otherwise useful life, but they also just become money pits, especially if you're not doing your own maintenance and repairs. With the jalopy market, you've long since replaced depreciation expense with maintenance/repair expense.
You don't see burger flippers owning houses, do you? Note that singles owning homes is largely for professionals. There is the occasional single who inherits a house or acquires one in divorce, but that is not the norm.
My Midwestern hometown has dozens of habitable 2 bed/1 bath homes for under $30k, and they're accessible from public transportation. I've been looking at them as potential investment properties.
You don't see burger flippers owning houses, do you? Note that singles owning homes is largely for professionals. There is the occasional single who inherits a house or acquires one in divorce, but that is not the norm.
Burger flippers aren't meant to own home. To own a nice home, you do have to do something with your life. Nobody in this country is entitled to anything.
What else do you call the unrelated occupancy restrictions and inferior siting of non-SFR which relegate singles to inferior locations, which often include disamenities such as poor air quality??
Hm, I live on a street with lots of seniors. Same exact location as me, and it's not inferior.
You don't see burger flippers owning houses, do you? Note that singles owning homes is largely for professionals. There is the occasional single who inherits a house or acquires one in divorce, but that is not the norm.
You don't see married burger flippers owning houses either.
When will you realize that it has to do with INCOME?
Ahead of what, though? You could, for example, buy another older car with good gas mileage, and then save $300/month for 4 years, then sell the older car and buy the same car that you have now, only this time, in cash so that interest rate is irrelevant. Even if you spend a tad extra on gas and transaction costs, you'd be saving a HUGE amount by avoiding the initial depreciation. And once you own the car after 4 years, the difference in monthly gas costs ceases to accrue.
if you keep the car for a long enough period of ownership, the entire "initial depreciation" argument flies right out the window. and depending on which car you buy, the "initial depreciation" argument never had validity anyways. my 2010 legacy was worth $2,000 less than I paid for it 1 year and 20,000 miles after i drove it off the lot.
Usually some book has guidelines based on demand and high reliability, rebates, longevity etc. Some cars will have little to no effect on used vs new value (obviously new vs very slightly used) and a mediocre car will drop as if it was driven off a cliff.
For example vehicles that have a extended type of warranty but it's only applicable to the first owner but is not honored for any other subsequent owner. That's value loss
A used car has mileage on it. Unknown driving or maintenance habits of previous owner
Or the new owner may not care for the options, interior or exterior colors.
And I think to a lot of people the association of the word "used" may equal devalued.
And nobody will pay the same price for a used car if the used car was the same price as new.
There is ALWAYS a new used car for sale. Dealer demo cars, repo'ed cars, change my mind cars or Leftover model. When my wife and I bought her last car we bought a dealer demo with 5k on the odo. We got 5k off sticker and a a 900 and $1600 rebate. The sticker was 30k. I beat thrm down a bit more and We walked out with 24,300 out the door.
i'll tell you something crazy - sticker price is meaingless. i got $5k of 'sticker' with 6 miles on the odometer. literally accumulated from being driven the handful of places it needed to be in order to get from the manufacturer to the dealership. salesmen love telling you about the car the dealership used for the salesmen to drive around or the demo.
how much less than INVOICE did you pay? because that's the number you should brag about beating - not MSRP.
The fact that a policy was made with the intent of forcing singles out of a neighborhood is not logically contradictory with the fact that not all singles have left. Why is this so hard to understand?
What policy "intentionally" forces singles out of a neighborhood? Zoning residential areas for only SFD with a minimum house size of 800 feet and minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet with at least 50 feet front and a minimum 30 foot front setback? It's the developers who decide what size houses they want to build, and their decisions are made primarily on what kind of houses they can sell fastest for the most profit. It's why the most common configuration for new construction is 3 BR, 2 Baths.
Furthermore, every zoning ordinance that's ever been enacted since WW II, at least in my state, allows for the grandfathering of existing uses, so nobody gets "forced out" of anywhere unless the property ceases to be used for what it was grandfathered as. In my city, there are a couple of working farms complete with livestock within the city limits because those farms predate the zoning that prohibited keeping farm animals within the city limits.
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