I have been watching this "fire sale" from the beginning and that made me laugh. I hope I am not being a jerk, but it just seems the term "fire sale" was not properly used.

 

+1 agree

 

i'm going to guess real estate lending/brokering just given the location (CA right?).

bread/butter finance is certainly possible though ...

 

I already own an R8. That's why I chimed in.

 

This 430 was actually listed on fleabay a couple of weeks ago for 160, no reserve- no bids.

 

Guys,

Chances are these cars could be LEASED.

That means the "owner" can't sell them for less than what he owes.

For someone with this many cars the choices are not easy.

He can give all the cars back to the leasing company or just stop making payments.

In both cases the leasing company will come after him to be made whole again. If he can't pay them he'll have a Write Off or Collection on his credit report.

He can also declare BK to end the pain. Both options ruin his credit rating.

If all the cars had been paid for with plain old cash the owner should consider himself lucky not to have invested the cash in bank stocks. The cars are worth more now than any bank stock would be.

In that case - even at prices 25% lower than the new listed prices - he'd make out like a bandito.

Anyhow, good luck to the owner. When I lost every last one of my millions in the NASDAQ crash in April 2000 I owned one Porsche and rented an appartment in San Francisco. That was a lucky position to be in. All the $$$$ I was making did not change my demands on life. I had just one car and didn't even want to buy a house.

I had hardly any expenses and a view of the Golden Gate. But it still took me three years to get back on my feet financialy.

Today's market has been pounded to badly that even the more risk averse have taken a huge beating on their assets and income. Unless you were 100% in cash and/or bonds you had gotten hammered during the past 14 months.

I started telling everybody during Thanksgiving 2007 to get out of equities. Nobody wanted to listen to me. By X-Mas I was writing five page emails to all my friends and relatives. I begged them to listen to a guy who had lost almost all his $$$$ in 2000.

Not one person listened to me. Most are now down 40-50% on their assets.

The lucky ones still have income streams, even if they aren't sufficient to pay for all their living expenses.

I just talked to a Doctor friend of mine last weekend. Even his income is down 20%. A doctor?

Who would have thunk?

The market is dead! Long live the market!

The market will find a bottom.

Where will the bottom be? You ask.

Judging from my very painful NASDAQ experience we will be at the bottom when nobody asks anymore how low it can go. Everybody just assumes that we are going to ZERO.

Keep in mind that every bottom has to be tested. In November we had a bottom which still needs to be tested and hold. If it doesn't, we'll make a new lower bottom. Then this new lower bottom needs to be tested.

The NASDAQ started to crumble in March/April 2000. It was over 5,000. It took three years of making lower bottoms - until the final bottom. I think it was around 1,200. A more than 75% decline from the peak. Yet, most traders thought the selling was done in May of 2,000.

 

Could just be that the guy needs to sell his cars to keep up the rest of his lifestyle, houses, girlfriends, etc.

He has had them listed on craigslist, but he has a different story there. He says thtat he's getting a new Vantage.

Regardless, he does not appear to seriously want out of these cars at even his reduced prices.