[Colo9250]

With used car loans around 7-8% which is double 3 years ago, you might think that sales are down. Wrong! A Mercedes Benz sales manager said his dealership sold 30 cars last Friday.

[ARW]

However, I’m starting to see adds for low rate financing. 0.9 for 3 years, etc. don’t know if this is a contrary indicator but interesting.

[TomGuy]

With used car loans around 7-8% which is double 3 years ago, you might think that sales are down. Wrong! A Mercedes Benz sales manager said his dealership sold 30 cars last Friday.

Similar with real estate in my area. Home sales did seem to cool a bit, but many homes are selling at 6% mortgage interest.

Typically [for us old codgers], 5-6% interest rates are low-moderate; 7-9% interest rates are moderate; 10-12% are high-moderate. We remember the Nixon-Ford-Carter era and rates at 15-18%.

It was the GWBush real estate crisis that dropped interest rates almost into negative territory [<1%]. Even now, rates are still artificially low -- both for consumers and for investors.