Why are used cars so expensive right now?

I just noticed a '86 toyota truck on CL going with an asking price of $28,000.00

I noticed it because I like their trucks, especially the 22r/re ones.

It did have less than 30,000 miles though.

The price of that truck is no more than 5 grand, even with the low miles.

(Anyone looking for a ride, I have this tip. When four door vehicles are aging out of what Uber demands, they price of the used vechicle goes way down. Look for vechicles that have aged out of the app, or close to it.)

Stocks are vastly superior to real-estate. Businesses with reliable growth and some pricing power.

The S&P500 has generated approximately a 266% return in the past 20 years (ex any dividends). The average home sale price has climbed by just under 100% in that time.

Real-estate will nail you annually on property taxes (although not in every state) and you have to maintain it (let's assume a best case and you own it without a mortgage).

You can sit on a stock you bought for a decade, not sell it, let it appreciate by a lot, and incur zero taxes on the holding the entire time.

The average US house incurs ~$2,500 in property taxes each year (a painful expense across a decade). And you have to out that cash every year. If for any reason you can't come up with the taxes, they seize your property; that doesn't happen with a stock holding. The government doesn't care if the real-estate is going up in value or not, they want their property taxes. At least if your equities don't go up, you owe nothing when you sell. Equity trades also have zero commission now in most cases - you can sell a million dollars worth of stock at zero commission; you can't do anything remotely like that in most cases with real-estate.

Most real-estate struggles just to keep up with inflation. Average home sale prices haven't managed to outrun the cost inflation in average new car sales in the past 20 years. You're probably as well off sitting on gold ETFs like GLD or IAU as you are typical real-estate as an inflation hedge (IAU only has a 0.25% management fee, far lower than the typical real-estate property tax).

In most states your real-estate will also suffer a persistently climbing tax basis if you're lucky enough to see value gains; and local governments love to increase property taxes whenever they can.

And last but not least, in most cases you can click a button and liquidate your stock holdings in a matter of seconds or minutes with near zero hassle.

Obviously that equation changes if you're an experienced, competent property manager and you can get a healthy yield from your real-estate; however that's a serious job, with an enormous time/effort/labor/legal/mental burden, not a low-effort side task (much less a near zero effort task like sitting on the S&P index).

Is Covid going to calm down, what comes after Delta?

High demand and low supply due to supply chain slowness doesn't immediately translate to price inflation. Prices go up in this scenario but the question is if it's just temporary (meaning supply eventually meets demand or demand goes away over time) or it is in fact permanent inflation.

I used to think this way and realized there were two key things I missed (these are game changers).

1) There are places where the appreciation on the primary residence is not-taxed or taxed at a low rate. I.e. In HCOL areas, people who just bought a house and did nothing much in life (say, drove an Uber just to make ends meet), are worth 1-2 million dollars after tax.

2) When you buy real-estate through a mortgage, you are getting massive leverage on your investment. Would I borrow 5x my principal to buy shares? No! Why is that? If prices go down on shares and I bought on margin, I can get a margin call. If I have a 25-30 year mortgage, I can ride the ups and downs.

These are all my personal experiences .. I followed blogs like greaterfool and totally missed out on some key aspects in life. Owning a home was a much more pleasant life experience than renting for me personally. It is certainly more risky (with respect to restricting job mobility), and more expensive in some respects (utilities). I just want to provide a counterpoint to your argument. Not a financial advisor so pls don't take stock in anything I say :)