My Investing Muse

Total costs of ownership (TCO)  have come up a few times recently. This is an important concept that we should bear in mind for our purchases, especially those big-ticketed items. It is not just about the ability to put in the deposit and service the monthly instalments. We should factor in items apart from the purchase price, interest rate changes impact and others. Total costs of ownership TotalSense - total coats of ownership This is a good summary provided by TotalSense on TCO. The costs components comprise purchase, repairs, maintenance, upgrades, service, support, security & training. There is a news article and a few Twitter posts that caught my attention. News screenshot from US News  article FHA recent approval of 40-year mortgage terms Let us look at an example of a property in the USA using a great  article  from TheBalance. Screenshot of an article from TheBalance This is the assumption used in the example by TheBalance: Estimate assumes 10% down paym...

This section (in italics) is taken from Twitter user CarDealershipGuy: Jeep is the most *under-discussed* canary in the coal mine in the car world: It just had its *worst* first quarter in at least six years with sales falling 20%. For starters, Jeep launched a line of luxury SUVs in 2021. But Jeep's timing couldn't have been worse... This was right before the economy peaked and interest rates started rising, stifling consumer demand for expensive vehicles. Jeep sold a measly 2,000 Grand Wagoneers and about 5,600 Wagoneers across the entire U.S. in Q1. An absolute textbook case of a bull-market investment manifesting in a bear-market. But it's not just the Wagoneer... Jeep's volume-leading Grand Cherokee had a sales decline of *27%* to 54,502 units in Q1. And if you needed more proof that people are disinterested in overpriced luxury Jeeps and simply want affordable... Jeep's least expensive models — Cherokee and Compass — were the *only* models that experienced a y...