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Hey guys, I'm new here and figured most of you would know about how people/operate and function with these high end vehicles.
I live in the NorthEast outside of Philly in a nice area. In an hours time I will see G-Wagons, Porsches (Not just a Cayenne. Cayenne Turbo/Turbo's!), Tesla's, AMG's, ect, ect. Oh and of course the influx of Maserat's lately !
Now close to me we have fairly large sized houses. Pricing on the ones I'm thinking of start around 600K and go up to about 800K.
I literally NEVER see anything other than a Honda, Toyota, Ford, ect. in the driveway.
Maybe a middle of the road BMW or Lexus. Not once house has an exotic.
I've gotta ask. Where the hell do these people reside?
I know it sounds like a bizarre question but it gets you thinking. "I've never seen an exotic or high end car in one driveway around here. EVER!".
It seems that the common thought process is that they live in a smaller home with a nicer car, but there are also houses tucked into the woods and off the main roads that are simply mansions! And even then they usually have middle of the road Chevy's !
1) I don't consider the cars you mentioned "exotics" -- I reserve that term for Ferraris, Lambos, Bugatti, McLaren, etc.
2) Nice cars are usually kept out of sight in garages.
There's a lady somewhere around my neighborhood with a Continental. I see it all the time, turns off into a subdivision about a mile from where mine is. There's an C63 and GTR and Tesla on my street. Everyone else has frumpy cars. I'm not in a pricey neighborhood by any means, houses are around $200-300k. They're all garaged, of course, so you'd have next to no chance of actually seeing one in the driveway if you just drove through on a Saturday morning when most people are home.
Thanks for the responses guys! And what I meant was that, since I live int his area and have to pass through these neighborhoods all the time, you see into the garages and it's just the cars that were outside... are now parked inside.
Believe me, that came across my mind too. Maybe it is that simple? Just Garage kept?
Honestly though, never seen one of these higher end vehicles.
You notice these vehicles because they stand out in the road, but they don't sell in large numbers at all. And they sell to the kind of people who can afford to keep several of them, with storage out of sight of the public. You're never going to see anyone who has a Maserati as their only car, except MAYBE a Ghibli (if you are willing to pay extra for an inferior BMW 5-series). What's going to be parked outside? Probably a relatively humdrum Lexus or BMW daily driver.
Now close to me we have fairly large sized houses. Pricing on the ones I'm thinking of start around 600K and go up to about 800K.
Why would people living in starter homes be driving such expensive cars? In that house price range the cars tend to be pretty modest. Maybe a base luxury car at best, but certainly nothing high end. Who buys a car costing more than 5-10% of what their house costs? That's insane, especially for the typical first time buyer moving in to a $600K- fixer upper.
Why are people living in starter homes driving such expensive cars? Some of the higher end houses I see might have a Tesla, but in that price range the cars tend to be pretty modest.
It's Philly, not Seattle. Philly is probably more like Sacramento. Starter homes are $200kish, not $400-500k like they are in Seattle or $1.5 million as they are in South Bay. You'll see a lot of Teslas in Cupertino which is basically all starter home neighborhoods in the $1.5 million range with a few teardown and rebuilds going for more like $2 million. On my street the GTR and C63 are basically young, just wasting money. The couple that has the Tesla I've talked to. They've been here for 20+ years, just never got around to moving on from the starter spouse and starter house, I guess.
You might need to look to a higher price point of housing to find some of the more expensive cars, remembering that in a large metro area like Philadelphia that people are mobile, so they may go out to King of Prussia, but reside in Lower Makefield, for example. Depending upon the area of Philadelphia suburbs, parts are not far from the Chateau Country of Wilmington, and adjacent areas in Delaware County like Chadds Ford and parts of West Chester, as well as Main Line suburbs, like Easttown Township (Devon, Berwyn, etc.), where the Maserati dealer is located, since I passed it when visiting a friend who lives in Chester County not too long ago. South Jersey also adds some areas of concentrated wealth, and some of the wealth in the Philadelphia-Wilmington metros is intergenerational wealth, making the purchase of a higher-end/exotic more likely than someone who came into a bit of money recently who might be more apt to drive a nice, but not as exclusive a vehicle. There's definitely no shortage of higher-end cars in your region at all.
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It's Philly, not Seattle. Philly is probably more like Sacramento. Starter homes are $200kish, not $400-500k like they are in Seattle or $1.5 million as they are in South Bay. You'll see a lot of Teslas in Cupertino which is basically all starter home neighborhoods in the $1.5 million range with a few teardown and rebuilds going for more like $2 million.
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.
My neighborhood price range is $400-$650k. Most expensive car I've seen is probably my neighbor's new Escalade, it's probably about $80-85k, depending on options. Then again, he's also the GM at a local Chevy dealership, so he's probably got a huge discount, or he doesn't actually own it, the dealership might.
There's several nice older Mercedes, probably $50-60k, and a few Corvettes, $40-60k. No new ones here yet.
The neighborhood across the street from me though, those houses start where my neighborhood ends, and go from $650k to 1mil or more. I've seen several GTR's, Porsches, Maseratis, in there, and there's a Mercedes SLS in there too. I've seen a few Vipers, Teslas, and there's even a new BMW i8 in there somewhere.
I haven't seen any Lambos or McLarens or Ferraris, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few in there.
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In that house price range the cars tend to be pretty modest. Maybe a base luxury car at best, but certainly nothing high end. Who buys a car costing more than 5-10% of what their house costs? That's insane, especially for the typical first time buyer moving in to a $600K- fixer upper.
