Hey Les,
I fully understand your position. If I try and distill my primary issues they are as follows:
- How much of todays prices are driven by new buyers entering the market with high disposable income - buyers who stay in the market for only one or two years then exit?
- Can this cause a higher margin opportunity for purveyors? - My reasoning here is that long term collectors may be on lists, short term collectors need a quick fix, so will go to an established dealer and pay the market price rather than the makers price.
- Although not all dealers will put a higher price to a customer, some will - will this then lead the maker to put the prices up?
- Do new short term buyers get taken advantage of on pricing in this respect?
Now .... if this cycle continues and exiting short term buyers are replaced by new ones, then all in all this is good for the market as price inflation will be maintained, and the long term collectors benefit the most (interms of return , however the increasing prices can also be seen as a bad thing for some).
But ... if we have a disproportionatley high number of new short term buyers at the moment, then, when they exit, there could be a dip!
My questions where aimed at getting some statistics together to correlate against price movements .... but a good gut feel will also do
Cheers,
Stephen