Just for the record, it’s not (just) lack of spares, the 685 earned its reputation about the time of delivery as the 435 HP GTSIO was a bad idea in 1970 and it never became a good one.

I read somewhere that of the people in the US that can afford to fly private, only 4% actually do.

I go to John Tune Airport often, the ramp looks like a Cirrus showroom.

I can only speak from my personal experience, but as a buyer’s rep I do build a close relationship with each of our clients, I know them and I know what they do for a living.

Zero bought airplanes by cashing out Crypto.
Zero bought airplanes with Covid cash.
Zero bought airplanes with fake or fraudulent cash.
Zero bought airplanes with actual cash, but many did not use financing.
Zero inherited it, they may have generational wealth, but they are all working.

It seems that when we talk about wealth to buy anything beyond a V-tail Bonanza there’s this idea that some kind of funny money comes into play… again, I can only speak definitively about my own direct experiences, but all of our clients made airplane money the old fashioned way.

They worked for it.

Can you give an example of that, Chip?

Can you give an example of that, Chip?

We sold 20+ Citations in the last 12 months, I echo Chip. Almost all were cash buyers that either had a liquidity event (business sale) or were well paid professionals/business owners. I didn't see any Covid Cash/free money purchases. Of those 20+, only 1 person financed and he was wealthy enough to have bought three of them with cash. All buyers were white males if you want to add to the statistics. Of those Citations, all were owner flown except one.

But back to inventory, I'm not seeing much a pull back in the low end Citation market. I think they will continue to appreciate HOWEVER, I do believe that much of the price appreciation we are seeing is mostly inflation; not any real gains.

I respect both Chip's and Michael's assessments, but I will have to disagree on one thing. The effects of covid cash are mutated but certainly not, from my perspective, gone. Our business received some moderate payouts. Whether I write a check for a $10,000 or a $1,000,000 piece of equipment, there is no way for the buyer to know when or where that money came from. The cash balances of many businesses and individuals are still unusually hefty as a direct result of covid payouts. Those cash balances are still driving purchases.

From the inception of "covid payouts" the one common thread I saw was that almost nobody admitted to having received them. They wanted everyone to think they always had that money. For many who received those funds, the losses were "paper" only. Unfortunately, for me, my loses were real. I had one personal business shuttered for almost six months. I had multiple tenants shuttered for similar periods. I am losing a national tenant, restaurant, this month whose business tanked during covid and has simply not recovered.

I have, and will continue, to maintain that covid money has juiced many a market, including aviation, and the full return to normal, from that aspect, has simply not occurred.

Jg

Completely agree. Over $800 billion in PPP "loans" (except they were forgiven so they were just gifts) were given out with zero oversight. They were supposed to be used by businesses to keep their people on payroll if the business was forced to close due to lockdowns but they weren't used for that. Business owners laid people off anyway (who then took advantage of the increased unemployment payments to make more sitting on the couch than when they were working) and used the PPP money to buy personal vehicles, boats, and airplanes (see Kanye West, et al).

The PPP program was one of the biggest scams in our nation's history. It would have been trivial to write the law such that businesses could only use the money to offset actual payroll amounts spent and it would be trivial to verify that an employee in the program was not also collecting unemployment. But they didn't write it that way - it was just a giveaway to business owners.

The 10 honest business owners out there that actually used the PPP money for what it was intended are the exception that prove the rule.

Everything about COVID was a total scam. PPP, EIDL, school shutdowns, incentives to hospitals to mischaracterize and inflate COVID deaths and serious illness, ineffective masking requirements, inadequately tested vaccine mandates....everything. Our government is either: A) very corrupt, B) very incompetent, or C) all of the above.

Why shouldn't we have a fraudulent aircraft market. Everything else is a fraud. All you can do is ride this wave of nonsense. The alternative is to be crushed by it.

All of the above. We are living through the Fall of Rome, but with WiFi.

Matt's already on it!

"Think of it as a Baron with jet engines."

[youtube]https://youtu.be/jQWMrjThBkM[/youtube]

What is wrong with a 20 year term loan?

Did any business owner not have covid cash? The government wanted to get money out FAST to keep the pump from sucking air. So they sent it out willy-nilly, and plenty of functioning solvent businesses got a big boost.

I’m sure some of our clients received PPP money, but airplanes cost millions of dollars and I’m pretty sure none of them got millions of dollars from the PPP.

Some of us thought it was for businesses like restaurants that couldn't open so they could continue to pay workers, and didn't take any. Didn't realize it was just a free-for-all money grab.