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Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

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Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#601

Post by justwool »

kriops wrote: post #436
lmm wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If anything taxing space use makes more sense than t…

You can't just assert that it makes sense when answering why it makes sense. If you are right, then the owner is losing out on money by operating a car wash, which by the way is their moral and legal right. If you think you can provide more value with the same space – offer to buy it.

[flagged]

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#602

Post by pas »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #384
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real business of car washes is real estate. Is there any evidence of this? Companies like Mister Carwash lease nearly all their properties and when they purchase plots seem to alway try to do a sale and lease. Their latest results claim they run 436 sites and lease 427: https://ir.mistercarwash.com/news-events/press-releases/deta...

>The real business of car washes is real estate. What I see in both car washes and the storage business suggested by one of the child posters is low-labor cash flow. I can't speak for all geographies, but locally what I observe is car washes are built on low-value land where these new heavily automated car washes have got to be a cash cow once they are paid off, especially with monthly subscriptions. I do unfortunate…

> much higher value land

getting a building permits for a car wash is much much much easier than for something higher value, and in absence of LVT ...

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#603

Post by [deleted] »

Gormo wrote: post #589
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument sounds backwards to me. Under the common ad valorem property taxes, the tax you pay goes up if you invest in increasing the value of your property, which punishes you for improving it and incentivizes leaving your land fallow. Under a land value tax, building on your land does not increase the tax you pay. That’s the point!

> Under a land value tax, building on your land does not increase the tax you pay. That’s the point! The Georgist LVT is much more bizarre than that. Your taxes don't go up as a result of the improvements you make to your land, but rather they go up as a result of the improvements your neighbors make to their land, if such improvements lead to increased perceived market value for the entire area. Ad valorem taxes alr…

[deleted]

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#604

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

Gormo wrote: post #589
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument sounds backwards to me. Under the common ad valorem property taxes, the tax you pay goes up if you invest in increasing the value of your property, which punishes you for improving it and incentivizes leaving your land fallow. Under a land value tax, building on your land does not increase the tax you pay. That’s the point!

> Under a land value tax, building on your land does not increase the tax you pay. That’s the point! The Georgist LVT is much more bizarre than that. Your taxes don't go up as a result of the improvements you make to your land, but rather they go up as a result of the improvements your neighbors make to their land, if such improvements lead to increased perceived market value for the entire area. Ad valorem taxes alr…

I can’t speak for Georgists, but one clear problem I see worth solving in my city is empty lots downtown. And decrepit, vacant commercial property. Our city has a housing crisis. Speculators own these lots on the theory that they’ll be valuable later. Since property taxes don’t go up unless you build something, they don’t have any costs associated with this ownership, even as the need for development has grown more acute. On the other hand, significant property taxes are imposed on anyone who actually builds or significantly improves their property. You tax what you want to discourage. Our current tax system discourages development in general. LVT addresses this problem.

In short, ad valorem taxes land+improvement and LVT just taxes land. Various tweaks that have been made to ad valorem systems could also be made to LVT and don’t constitute a difference between ad valorem and LVT.

The objections you raise about how your neighbor’s development raises your taxes apply to both LVT and ad valorem tax regimes.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#605

Post by [deleted] »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #384
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real business of car washes is real estate. Is there any evidence of this? Companies like Mister Carwash lease nearly all their properties and when they purchase plots seem to alway try to do a sale and lease. Their latest results claim they run 436 sites and lease 427: https://ir.mistercarwash.com/news-events/press-releases/deta...

>The real business of car washes is real estate. What I see in both car washes and the storage business suggested by one of the child posters is low-labor cash flow. I can't speak for all geographies, but locally what I observe is car washes are built on low-value land where these new heavily automated car washes have got to be a cash cow once they are paid off, especially with monthly subscriptions. I do unfortunate…

[deleted]

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#606

Post by Arainach »

Gormo wrote: post #590
mumbo_rmj wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I don't see how there's anything particularly special about land that warrants construing it as something fundamentally different from any other scarce resource.” I’ve overheard enough conversations between high net worth individuals to say there’s absolutely unique qualities about land as an asset class or they wouldn’t hold so much of it. read some solid reasons for land focused tax regimes long ago but couldn’t r…

> I’ve overheard enough conversations between high net worth individuals to say there’s absolutely unique qualities about land as an asset class or they wouldn’t hold so much of it. Every asset class has its own uniquely defining characteristics in financial terms. There are unique qualities of stocks, of bonds, of index funds, etc. But I don't see any fundamental difference between land and any other scarce resource…

No one needs stocks, and you can create infinite new stocks. Everyone needs to live somewhere. Land is a fundamental necessity.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#607

Post by lesuorac »

Gormo wrote: post #597
lesuorac wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business are in general not solvent in their first years. Even some business such as Uber took 15 years to generate a profit [1]. However, the saying about "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." is that even if you can point out that say Enron / Wirecard / FTX are fraudulent, good luck making any money on that. Michael Burry nearly messed up his timing for '08 and could've lost to an inves…

> Business are in general not solvent in their first years. Even some business such as Uber took 15 years to generate a profit [1]. This is true, but it's not clear to me how it relates to either the discussion of whether markets are rational or the discussion of whether common-law liability is more effective than preemptive regulation. Can you explain the connection? If the implication is that people choosing to bea…

> This is true, but it's not clear to me how it relates to either the discussion of whether markets are rational or the discussion of whether common-law liability is more effective than preemptive regulation. Can you explain the connection?

Its tangential. The Market-Irrational quote is all about how even if you know the stock market is wrong (especially due to large scale fraud by that company) you may not be able to profit from that knowledge because the market can continue to buy that stock (be irrational) longer than you can afford to have the contrary position (be solvent).

People (probably myself as well) use it to describe other situations though. Such as a Taxi-like company selling 20$ car rides for 10$. No matter how irrational having your only revenue source be a loss-leader for decades; if you bet against Uber at IPO you'd be out 30/share right now (current 70, IPO 40).

To get back to the actual origin of this tangent [1], although Uber still exists but imagine you only had a Taxi industry and Uber comes in and all the Taxi drivers get fired. Then Uber goes bankrupt and all the Uber drivers are fired. Now all you have are a bunch of unemployed people. Society did not benefit here. That's the scenario being described in the origin of our tangent. In these situations there might not be somebody with a large pile of cash that they feel like investing into re-starting the taxi industry so that region may just not have taxis anymore or just the richer parts of the region have a rebirth of the taxi industry and the poorer parts are un/underserved. So it would be rational for people to have a NIMBY approach to something that in the long term will only cause problems.

> I'd regard that rationality itself includes probabilistic decision-making, and that attempting to preempt all risk is itself highly irrational.

Betting with 1:-1 odds is irrational unless you're running a money laundering scheme. If you think that a region can only support 4 car washes then as a local government official you should prevent the 20th from being built because it's just not sustainable (or at least force them to prove 20 can be supported).

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39738996

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#608

Post by PaulHoule »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #599
poulsbohemian wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The real business of car washes is real estate. What I see in both car washes and the storage business suggested by one of the child posters is low-labor cash flow. I can't speak for all geographies, but locally what I observe is car washes are built on low-value land where these new heavily automated car washes have got to be a cash cow once they are paid off, especially with monthly subscriptions. I do unfortunate…

One pattern I have seen in the UK is temporary manual car washes operating in former gasoline stations. Firstly, the location, visibility and site layout are obviously perfect. Secondly, the old brown-field gas station has sludge-filled underground tanks that cost a lot to remove, and do a full environmental clean-up. There are long delays to wait for a deep-pocketed developer, or for the site value to rise. In the m…

There are stories about the UK being overrun with sketchy businesses like manual car washes and sweets shops

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90...

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#609

Post by TecoAndJix »

derbOac wrote: post #461
speakfreely wrote: post #336

The answer is private equity "roll-up" strategies of "boring businesses". You're going to see this accelerate in tons of other things that PE thinks can be easily consolidated, the gold rush has already started for dental practices, primary care providers, coin laundry, HVAC companies, landscaping, etc. American small businesses are disappearing because that's what consumers want (what they vote for with their dollar…

I don't think it's necessarily what consumers want. Sometimes it's what business owners want (eg when they retire and sell), and consolidation gives the new owner the benefit of local monopoly or decreased competiton. Absolutely no one in my area likes trends in veterinary care, for example, but there are only so many options.

What are some of the negative trends you are seeing in veterinary care?

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#610

Post by zharknado »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #594
idiotsecant wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am trying to imagine what kind of lovecraftian geometry you have the misfortune to live in

I'm barely even exaggerating. There's literally 5 within walking distance.

“And although the space they occupy isn’t like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a padlock, a garage door, a wheeled cart, the tip of a key code pad, so the effect is like one of those trick drawings and your eyeballs eventually realize that the space between each self-storage is, in fact, another self-storage.”

Adapted from Pratchett, “Guards, Guards!”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7949916-and-although-the-sp...

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