At 19:36 29 January 2006, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Stewart Kissel wrote:
When discussing purchase costs of gliders....I have
decided to compare them to SUV's. You can buy a perfectly
fine used glider for $30-$40k....or you can go into
six digits for something a little better at the margin.


And try and sell a 10 year old Escalade for what you
paid for it.

In fact, this is also the desirable situation for gliders:
buying a
brand new glider for $30-$40K like a new SUV would
cost, and selling the
10 year old glider for much less than you paid for
it. A major reason
old gliders hold their value is that new ones cost
considerably more.

I've bought 5 gliders and sold 4. When I was able to
sell my used glider
for what I paid for it (or more), I also had to pay
far more for the new
one. When I had to take a loss on my used one, it was
because I could
buy a new one at a very attractive price. My overall
costs for trading
up were much less the time I sold the used glider at
a loss than the
time I made a big profit on my used glider.

The only people that benefit from high used prices
are those people
leaving the sport. People getting into the sport or
trading up to a new
glider do not benefit, and neither does the sport.
--
Change 'netto' to 'net' to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA


Eric,

What you say makes sense right up to the last paragraph
which ignores once of the most fundamental factors
enabling us to buy gliders. If resale prices dropped
steadily (like motor vehicles) and a pilot couldn't
say to his spouse 'but if I put the money in a glider
at least I'll get most or all of it back' then the
whole glider market would collapse and the sport as
we know it would become completely non viable. Said
spouse eventually becomes, with luck, so hacked off
with hearing the above argument with each new glider
purchase that he or she will just shut the mind off
and won't analyse it in the same depth that you have.
Paradoxically it is marito-politically easier to get
the OK to spend more money to buy a glider in a strong
resale value market than it would be to be allowed
to spend less money on the same glider in a weaker
resale market. Wimmin! (Or insert some alternative
PC US expletive to taste)

The glider resale market is extremely sophisticated
IMHO.

John Galloway