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I'm not the Philly expert, but last time I visited some friends out on the Main Line area, I definitely got the impression that there was a lot of old money in the area. People can buy any kind of car that want. Whether they do or not is another matter. I'm in a wealthy area now and I don't see any real exotic cars on a regular basis. Nice cars, to be sure, but nothing that fancy. Maybe the occasional Bentley or Porsche. Usually, though, people just drive normal cars. Hondas, BMWs, Toyotas. In a different part of the country, with more of a car culture, I'm sure it would be a different story.
You crack me up. In my area 800k will buy you a 4,300 square foot (+ finished basement) 4 bedroom, 7 bath brick home, on over 2 acres of manicured lawn, Viking, Sub Zero, and Wolff appliances, 1300 bottle wine room, 4 car garage, 6 stool English Pub, home theater, workout room, and butlers pantry. Built in 1997.
This might be a cheap starter home in your circles, but here it shows you have definitely arrived.
That sounds pretty good. Where do you live? I work from home and can move anywhere!
EDIT: Just found the house you are talking about. Not bad, needs some updates, but definitely nice overall!
Still, $600K-$800K homes are not in range where people have much disposable income to spend on a high end or near exotic car. Once you get up to $1.5M a $85K Tesla is a little more reasonable, costing around 5% of the house, so it's basically like someone in a $600K house driving a Prius.
Presumes that everyone stretches to buy a house, which isn't the case. It's not needed here in Sacramento. You can buy a nice house in a very good neighborhood for that kind of money. Custom home 3,000 - 4,000 square feet in Folsom in a great neighborhood with great schools, four car garage, 1/4 acre lot. Frankly, it's already more than I'd want already. When you get up around $1.5 you're looking at 4-7,000 square foot homes with a view on .5-2 acres. I mean, the view part I like but you can get that at $600-800k as well. The rest of it frankly that's just way too much house for me to want to take care of and they're too gaudy for my tastes. Some people like that but that's what justifies the price. The 20 foot foyer and marble dripping off everything with tons of built-ins just is too much for me and $100k on the pool/landscaping doesn't really appeal to me, but again the only thing that really commands that price has it because for some people that's what they want and it along with the extra 2,000 square feet is what justifies the price over the $600-800k homes.
On the other hand, you go somewhere else and $1.5 million gets you a 1,200 square foot cheaply constructed tract home on a postage stamp that seriously needs remodeling unless you actually like wood siding and 20-year-old shag carpets or is just a pure tear down and start over. Even in the Eastside though, $600-800k isn't that bad depending where you're looking. $600k is kind of basic in Bellevue, yeah. Still a lot nicer than you'd get for twice that in Cupertino though and no where near as nice as you'd get for less in Roseville.
Generally what often happens is the people who aren't the ones stretching to buy the most house end up being those with greater disposable income. You make an income sufficient to stretch to a $1 million or $1.5 million house, yeah, you probably skip the 1,500 square foot basic starter home for Folsom for $300k but you don't necessarily go all the way up 5,000+ square foot on 2 acres all the way out in EDH either and the 3,000 square foot, three-car garage home for $600-700k is just fine for you.
I don't consider the cars you mentioned to be exotic cars. They're high end mass market cars. Maserati has a $700/month lease deal (no money down). You can lease a Tesla for $500/month which is about the same as the small Lexus SUV.
I live in a neighborhood where houses range from about $500K-to a few million. There are mix of cars in people's driveways. I think it just depends what is important to people. Some people love cars, have money and spend heavily on them. Others don't really care about cars and spend on other things.
We don't drive super expensive cars. My husband drives a Dodge and I drive a small Lexus SUV. My next door neighbor spends more on cars because he loves cars. I have to say that nobody on my block has a car that costs over $100K.
I'd be in a Tesla if you could lease one for $500/mo. You can't. It's half again that much for a stripper at 10,000 miles/yr, which is the other problem although at $500/mo I might just have said f it and eat the mileage fee. But then that's also not the model I'd want, which would be the max range model with the 90kwh battery and with a 15,000 mile lease that's over $1000/mo without any options. After gas savings that'd still be well over double my current car payment which just isn't worth it to me. I could make do with the range issues as mostly I'm in the Bay Area if I go farther and charging isn't an issue there and I usually take one of the motorcycles on longer trips anyway. At $500/mo it would be about the same, leased instead of bought though so not apples to apples.
But yeah, in general fancy cars are generally the middle-class equivalent of fast food and iPhones for the poor. It's the luxury they can afford so they end up stretching to buy it whereas the more higher income skip it or are just so wealthy $200k is whatever money so why not. A Tesla would be a definite stretch for me. I could afford it but it would be very stupid financially. Bread and butter sales for the $50-80k cars isn't really the wealthy. It's the middle-class being stupid and wasting more money than they should, kind of like I would if I could lease a Tesla for $500/mo.
I live in an area where houses start around $600,000 (for a 3 bedroom 2400 sq ft home) and goes up to the Mcmansions......
And these are the type of cars we see every day..... Tesla, Bugatti, Lambo's, Maserati's, Jags, Bentley/Rolls, numerous Porsche's, and assorted unique exotic supercars.... AND custom vehicles of all ilk...
So while in some areas the price of homes to type of cars might be a direct correlation, it does not appear to be the case in my area... Because starter homes around here do literally start at $600,000...
Have a person who lives about 4 houses away from me.... The lower end of the housing prices in this area, and he drives a custom Mercedes G Class which come from the factory at around $115,000 and this has a paint job worth $20,000 and wheels that are one off that cost 2800 per wheels.. Not counting anything else that was done to it...
I live in an area where houses start around $600,000 (for a 3 bedroom 2400 sq ft home) and goes up to the Mcmansions......
And these are the type of cars we see every day..... Tesla, Bugatti, Lambo's, Maserati's, Jags, Bentley/Rolls, numerous Porsche's, and assorted unique exotic supercars.... AND custom vehicles of all ilk...
So while in some areas the price of homes to type of cars might be a direct correlation, it does not appear to be the case in my area... Because starter homes around here do literally start at $600,000...
Have a person who lives about 4 houses away from me.... The lower end of the housing prices in this area, and he drives a custom Mercedes G Class which come from the factory at around $115,000 and this has a paint job worth $20,000 and wheels that are one off that cost 2800 per wheels.. Not counting anything else that was done to it...
Where the hell do you live!!??
And today, I see a woman get into a Mercedes AMG that retailed at around 160K.
It's not like this is some obsession of mine, but it just clicked the other day when I was driving that every stop light has a Porsche SUV, a Jag, A high end Mercedes, ect, ect.
Also, what kind of house can someone who makes, let's just say - 500K a year afford?
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