• IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    That naturally involves wear and tear

    Houses have wear and tear as well, they unsurprisingly do not suffer the same evaluation by the market as cars do. That doesn’t tell the whole story because a lot of the depreciation of cars is how the market itself views that asset. Some cars even lose up to 20% their value once driven off the lot for pretty much the same reason an iPhone loses value so quickly when a new model comes out or isn’t fresh out of the box.

    The entire point is that while the argument of “They’re meant to be driven” and “wear and tear” are valid arguments they are valid because of how the market views that “wear and tear” as a massive negative. Some of that is spurred by the difference between rehabilitation of a used house versus rehabilitation of a used car, that’s including the logistics of how a motor for an early 2000 model vehicle is much harder to find than say a replacement HVAC system. There’s a bit of the logistics of how cars are made and how you cannot just drop XYZ transmission into a random car unlike say how you can just drop ABC model hot water heater into your plumbing.

    There’s a deeper reason why that wear and tear on a car is so vastly different and thus treated differently than wear and tear on other more repairable things.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Exactly. Homes retain their value because repairing wear and tear is quite affordable. Even expensive repairs like a new AC or roof is still only a fraction of the cost of the home. And those repairs will last for 2+ decades.

      Meanwhile, an expensive repair for a car, such as a new engine, will often result in the car being sold to a junkyard due to the price relative to the value of the car being extremely high.

      • Mac@mander.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Yeah, I just spent $2,600 on a new engine for my car but my car is actually only worth $2,000. Lol

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          On the other hand, if that 2,600 is the biggest expense for the foreseeable future then it is far cheaper than buying a whole car.

    • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Houses have wear and tear as well, they unsurprisingly do not suffer the same evaluation by the market as cars do.

      that’s because you’re not buying the house, you’re buying the land the house sits on and the house is a nice bonus that’s thrown in. sometimes “houses” get bought to be demolished so some rich asshole can build an even bigger house on the lot.