I don't even know what to call this thread, other than I'm puzzled!
It sure is hot out now, and my wife would love to have a place at the beach. She's wanted such a place for awhile. But, while a beach house or cottage would be nice, a condo within walking distance to the beach is even a stretch right now. Places at the beach are painfully expensive—always a bit more than we can afford—and, as my finances rise, so too do beach places, and so I'm always a dollar short and a day late. BUT, I'm hoping that with rising interest rates, places diminish in value, making such a place maybe affordable.
Here's the puzzler part, and I can't see how it's possible. This was inspired by a potential question one might get in an MBA interview, to evaluate critical thinking, not that your answer is right. Like, how many gas stations are there in America? Of course, most don't know the answer, but the way to answer it is there are over 300 million folks in America, 200 million have drivers licenses, and the average American drives 10,000 miles a year. Let's say you need 3 tanks of gas per 1000 miles, so that's 30 tanks of gas a year. 30 x 200 million is 6 billion tanks of gas. That's about 120 million gas tanks to fill weekly. Let's say the average gas station has 6 pumps. Let's say the average gas pump can fill 500 gas tank weekly. That's 3000 gas tanks per station. Do the math, and you come up with 40,000 gas stations nationally. I just googled and there are more than 145,000 gas stations nationally, so my answer is far from correct, but I proved I have the ability to reason.
So, using the same logic. There are over 300 million Americans, and about 130 million households. Households are more likely to purchase beach properties. Surveys have shown that most Americans are flat broke and can't come up with $400 to cover an emergency. The top 1% of households is 1.3 million American households. So, let's reason that over 90% of Americans cannot even consider purchasing a place at the seashore, being in the flat broke or reasonably successful category, and so maybe 10 million American households can even consider purchasing such a place. (I fall at the cusp of this fringe, perhaps, maybe being able to get a 1 to 2 bedroom condo within a mile of the beach if there is a downturn.)
SO, you have 10 million American households who could do it, half of which probably don't even want a place at the beach, half again who consider it and never do anything, and half are interested in the Pacific coast and the other half in the Atlantic coast (like me). The Atlantic coastline is fairly long. By my critical thinking exercise, it seems that's 1 to 2 million households interested in a place, or already owning such a place, within a mile of the beach, the shoreline being rather lengthy along the Atlantic seaboard. But demand is obviously there, a 7 figure place isn't a rarity anymore.
So, where are all these folks coming from with deep pockets to afford such a second home, when most surveys indicate most Americans are flat broke?
It sure is hot out now, and my wife would love to have a place at the beach. She's wanted such a place for awhile. But, while a beach house or cottage would be nice, a condo within walking distance to the beach is even a stretch right now. Places at the beach are painfully expensive—always a bit more than we can afford—and, as my finances rise, so too do beach places, and so I'm always a dollar short and a day late. BUT, I'm hoping that with rising interest rates, places diminish in value, making such a place maybe affordable.
Here's the puzzler part, and I can't see how it's possible. This was inspired by a potential question one might get in an MBA interview, to evaluate critical thinking, not that your answer is right. Like, how many gas stations are there in America? Of course, most don't know the answer, but the way to answer it is there are over 300 million folks in America, 200 million have drivers licenses, and the average American drives 10,000 miles a year. Let's say you need 3 tanks of gas per 1000 miles, so that's 30 tanks of gas a year. 30 x 200 million is 6 billion tanks of gas. That's about 120 million gas tanks to fill weekly. Let's say the average gas station has 6 pumps. Let's say the average gas pump can fill 500 gas tank weekly. That's 3000 gas tanks per station. Do the math, and you come up with 40,000 gas stations nationally. I just googled and there are more than 145,000 gas stations nationally, so my answer is far from correct, but I proved I have the ability to reason.
So, using the same logic. There are over 300 million Americans, and about 130 million households. Households are more likely to purchase beach properties. Surveys have shown that most Americans are flat broke and can't come up with $400 to cover an emergency. The top 1% of households is 1.3 million American households. So, let's reason that over 90% of Americans cannot even consider purchasing a place at the seashore, being in the flat broke or reasonably successful category, and so maybe 10 million American households can even consider purchasing such a place. (I fall at the cusp of this fringe, perhaps, maybe being able to get a 1 to 2 bedroom condo within a mile of the beach if there is a downturn.)
SO, you have 10 million American households who could do it, half of which probably don't even want a place at the beach, half again who consider it and never do anything, and half are interested in the Pacific coast and the other half in the Atlantic coast (like me). The Atlantic coastline is fairly long. By my critical thinking exercise, it seems that's 1 to 2 million households interested in a place, or already owning such a place, within a mile of the beach, the shoreline being rather lengthy along the Atlantic seaboard. But demand is obviously there, a 7 figure place isn't a rarity anymore.
So, where are all these folks coming from with deep pockets to afford such a second home, when most surveys indicate most Americans are flat broke?
