mudslinger; I used to deliver parts to Federal Mogul in Dayton a few yeas back. Last I heard it's gone and closed now..
I don't think it's any surprise that "rat rods" are selling for next to nothing cuz nobody in there right mind is going to buy a piece of shit for big bucks. Dueces will always bring big money cuz the buyers for those cars are on the opposite side of the spectrum. The housing market has been over valued for the last five-ten years and of course there value is going to fall the fastest. The "flip this house" buyer is going to lose his ass in the next couple years and rightly so. Every time I see one of those shows I want to throw something at the TV because it's nothing but bull shit. You can't buy a house in a shitty neighborhood and dump tens of thousands of dollars into it and expect to sell it for twice the price in six weeks. Anyone whose had a house knows the truth about that. The economy is going to cycle and there's nothing you can do about it. A lot of hot rod guys own more than one car and can't afford to finish it let alone two, three or more. Ebay has so many rip offs on it that people are scared to play the game and with less people in the game the bidding isn't going to be as high. Just hold you course and sell what you don't need and focus on one project and you'll probably be OK....don't panic.
aman; your right..our plan is to finish the stuff we got.. economy wil turn around..went thru this crap in the 80's up here. 1939fiat
Housing market here is slugish. But employment numbers are pretty good. There was an article in the paper the other day that noted an increase in pawn shop lending since the gas prices took their skyward leap. And I know some folks that are cutting way back on their vacation plans. It will be interesting to see what effect the economy and gas prices have on NSRA and GoodGuys event attendance. To keep this on topic, the Model A restoration guys are passing on.
I'm with you on that thought. I'm still waiting for somebody to cough up a multi-belt blower drive for my 6-71 392 project. I guess the economy isn't bad enough yet to free one of those up. I don't need any more projects. Just need to finish one of the (4) I already have some day.
Even the landlords in the metro Detroit area are hurting in many 'burbs. A lot of them only see 3 month tenents in their houses, so they are constantly in flux. Apartment rents are going up though, because folks are going to extremes to cut expenses to recover. There are TONS of houses to rent so house rent is dropping a bit now & a lot of landlords are still sitting on unrented property. BIG LIE #846- "It'll be better after the election, just you wait"!
I list a fair amount of stuff on eBay and have noticed a slow down in sales, then again, the quality of my stuff is not what it was 2 years ago. I'm out of '32 Ford stuff and '49-54 Chevy stuff. Just sold the rolling chassis to a project today, turns out the winner is a HAMBer! I had to relist it twice and drop the asking price, but that just proves I had it overvalued. I still have a lifetime of projects, and it feels good to have some room in the shop............Latest eBay Fuckup is the Shipping Wizard!!!!!!!!! If I could opt out of that deal more stuff might sell, they printed the shipping on one item at $140.00, how in the world they know were the winner is before the auction ends is a mystery to me. Winning bid was the ONLY bid I got at $19.99, DHL shipped it for $11.60. eBay chased away the bidders with the shipping guess!
You hit the nail on the head, man. The wanna be posers are leaving the building. Big dreams of getting attention get destroyed and they dump it for something else.
I lost a buyer over shipping over the weekend, too. But I had a second bidder to fall back on. I wouldn't take anything for granted on eBay, I've had stuff with crazy BINs sell on the last day of the auction on the BIN. It's all a matter of the right guy finding you with it there, now - sort of like setting up at the swap meet.
When you borrow on your house a year ago to buy a hot rod....things are great when you cannot pay it back. It is driving the prices down.
how can you not say it's economy? go to the grocery store with your wife but take the receipt from 6 months ago you wont believe the difference.
In Kellyville, 40 minutes out of Sydney, houses (plural) that developers were selling for $950,000 in 2004 are now selling for below $440,000. Its not just a Cali or Detroit thing. Ebay over here has in their infinite wisdom decided to make PayPal the ONLY means of payment from mid June. It has absolutely murdered the number of adds and the finishing values of what's left. A mate of mine has just finished a gold chainer T bucket with full registration ( a nightmare in Sydney ) that last year would have brought $55k in a week. Last month on Ebay it got to $23k.....
Get into the junk food industery, no economic down fall is going to keep the fatyy's from their Frito's. My earnings are at an all time high. Maybe I should buy up all the projects I see eh?
Ring a ding ding boys ... we've got a winner. We have not even met the financial definition of a recession. Perhaps it's perception to a degree with the recent "deals".
I agree that eBay's new CEO making retarded changes is not helping to sell anything. New higher fees, retarded changes to the feedback system, and pushing Paypal down everyone's throat is really making things tougher to sell stuff on eBay. Not to sound too harsh, but I hope this guy dies of AIDS and then someone who's not a completely retarded jackass asshole homo gets the position and makes eBay a great place to sell stuff again.
I know i've gotten some pretty good deals off ebay recently. Model a windshield hinge/top rail for $15, Offy sbc dual quad intake for less than $100 shipped, same story on a pair of offy staggered bolt pattern valve covers. It's definately a buyer's market. I completely agree with the new CEO's changes. They are trying to cut out the little man and sell only wholesale chinese junk.
Maybe all the folks from up North are moving South ... The county I live in ( and worked for ... almost 30 years ) just approved 5 NEW subdivisions in the last month. Granted ... used homes have slowed down a little ... but unemployment is less than 5 per cent. I believe a lot of those would not work regular in a pie tasting job. I am looking at two houses now for possible purchase ... to clean up and flip. New car sales are down ... so I am told. We all know GASOLINE is up. NSRA Nats South was down and the few vendors I spoke with said sales were slow. I am not saying things could not be better ... things hopefully will get better ... but I believe that nationwide ... the economy is no where near as bad as the MEDIA tries to make it out to be. Folks who borrowed too much, lived too large and did not plan for the next bump in life's highway ( lived paycheck to paycheck ) ... are in DEEP POO.
I never got the thinking that houses are consumables, like food and gas, and there's an infinite demand for them. A lot of suppliers of construction materials who bought into that and went insane expanding production facilities are finding out a harsh reality, too. gary ++++++ Looking for a good, solid, uncut, 30/31 Ford 5-window coupe, preferably an original survivor.
Of course, once that happens, you'll only be able to buy wholsale made in China SBC intakes and Model A windshields..... Do they make any of those there? (is that a typo or something where I added the bold?) Wouldn't that be nice? I'm probably going to end up on onlineauction.com though. $8 a month for unlimited listings with no final value fee, and you can lock in that rate permanently. It's not great but it can't be worse than eBay is, and it's better than some of the others out there. I figure the more that know about it the more that can go check it out. No one really understands what this guy's up to but he has a history of taking companies apart and splitting off various assets. Which I guess is one thing, but to do that now, to go from a place where you were essentially a monopoly in the market, to try to make yourself into a competitor for something that already exists.... is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the site was in the first place. It would be like if we logged on here tomorrow to find out Ryan had hired someone else who made this into a goldchainer site and opened it up to everything from pastel street rods to muscle cars to tuners and mini-trucks. In the meantime, I've been posting things here, with limited success. Which is fine, I have stuff I know people here just aren't going to jump on. But I guess I'd rather send a few bucks Ryan's way once in a while, than to the pricks at eBay who could care less if I exist.
I sell on ebay. "Not too rare- but always popular" parts prices are way down IMO. "Super rare-somewhat rare" stuff still is doing fine. Car "projects" that are not drivable, even popular models, "look" lower to me. I'm "ready" for a deal. Housing market; if you can, NOW is the time to move up from an apartment to homeowner, OR upgrade to a better home. I just bought bigger on Dec 22nd...can't believe the deal I offered, was even accepted. I have more garages now than I could ever need I'm not rich, no real job, but I'd sold some stuff and saved for a big down payment, and just happened to have enough when the "doom & gloom reports" caused sellers & buyers to balk.
I'm seeing a slowdown here as well, but FWIW I believe the media is playing this up to more than it is currently (not saying it couldn't get worse, it always can). Just remember the old newsie addage 'if it bleeds it leads'. I figure financial hemoraging is the same to them.
Want a 4 year old 3 bed 2 bath with a 2 car garage for $70.000.00. Come an hour south of Atl. I'll show you a few. Don't tell me the economy isn't taking a dive. Was going to put my house up but these foreclosure's have driven the price down almost 10% here.
It's funny people in oil producing states say it's all the media's falt. People in the real world say it's the bad economy.
Working a guy on Craigslist for a 52' Caddy at the moment. He listed it for 3k last Wednesday, $2500 Friday, 2k yesterday. Car is complete, runs, decked, shaved & lowered. I've seen a lot of this type of activity lately on the vintage cars.
I'm finding car prices/projects are great for me now...bought several in the last few weeks. People who are in trouble are off loading their "extra" junk. As for the parts of the country that are doing poorly, look at the way labor works there. I don't want an argument about unions, but they sure ain't helping the auto industry in the north. Housing down here is on the upturn. My appraisal went up this tax year and it's based off like sales in the area. But down here, we normally only pay $140,000 for a 3br, 2bth house, not $500,000.