Eric's collection

The moral of this story may be that money does not buy happiness.

 

I'm guessing Eric said that because of his back issues. Since I can remember he has spoken of the pain he endures. If thats something that is constant everyday, I don't blame him.

 

I used to be one of those "well how bad can it hurt?" kinda guys! Until I got back problems myself.

Last year, even though I didn't understand what it was, my sciatic nerve started to kill me. For close to 8 weeks all I did was look at my leg in pain. I took pills and drank every night just to make the pain go away.

I know what kind of pain I was in, for Eric to have surgery it must of been much, much worse. So I understand now. I would much rather have perfect health than all the cars in Eric's collection.

Get well soon.

 

Sorry to hear that mate. Id rather have my health also.

 

that is true, my mom died 2 years ago she was my best friend as was my dad who died in 2000, so i have all this nice stuff and zero family, my back is so bad I cant ****, or go to the gym. i have to take pain medication most of the time, however today is pretty good best day in a month, i'm lonely sure I can have all the girls who couldnt with what i have but they are there for the wrong reason, i',, continue later,

please dont think that i'm ungrateful , i very blessed and lucky and I am VERY greatful for whay i have, but that wasnt the question, i'm not happy not ungratful, thats 2 different things.

 

oh man, sorry about that. I can tell you though, that you are a great guy for sharing the cars with us!

I hope you feel better soon!

 

Good man. Gratefulness is a quality trait.

 

Hey Eric,

I'm not happy either but theres obviously many of us in the same boat. Grateful yes, happy no. I'm just personally not where i want to be in life but I'm only 28 and have to push ahead with the aim of achieving happiness.

Hope all is well buddy

Matthew

 

Sorry to here that but if you aint got health you got nowt. Stuff is just stuff and a collector collects weather its small inexpensive items, cars or art its just stuff

A friend has a plack in his office that says:

LOVE MANY
TRUT FEW
BUT ALWAYS ROW YOUR OWN BOAT

The good thing about this site we all have a great love of cars and more importantly driveing them anyway who is going to goodwood I read napiols P4/5 is going after dubai

 

be happy
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nice dog,

i'm living the life of my dreams, and it a lot of hard work to get here, it wasnt handed to me, and that isnt relivant anyways, it dosent matter the source of the $$$ its what you do with it that matters and how you treat people that matters, in my opinion.

i'm just alone in this world since my parents died, some people live for their kids, spouses, or parents, i was in the latter group, and not having brothers and sisters to share memories with makes it especially hard, i just startedd making $$$ in 2000 when I lost my dad, I did get the chance to buy both my parents a house(that was a dream come true) it was hard at the time but I did it. But with my recent financial success I wish I could chartedr a jet and take them to where ever they wanted to go. We didnt have much and now that I do their gone, and thats why i'm not happy, also laying in bed for 18-20 hours/day and not being able to go to the gym and taking pain meds hasnt helped either, luckily I dont have an addictive persoality so when i dont have pain which is rare I dont take the meds, addiction isnt an issue-physical dependance might be but very little because i dont take the hard stuff and wont.

i am greatful for having the arents to give me the tools to become a success it just hurts thay aint here to share it with them.

 

WOW. Are you serious? (The post I was referrering to was removed, it wasn't nice)

I'm thankful to LV Eric for actually letting all of us to get to know him. That seems to be a rare thing.

 

Damn Eric.. you're a helluva guy.

 

It truely is. I really appreciate and respect how much Eric has shared with us about not only his cars, but his business and his personal life. It shows alot about the kind of person he is.

Eric I would love to meet you someday, you seem to be the kind of person one could learn alot from, alot in all realms of life.

 

Eric,

Did the surgery go OK? I remember you posting before that once its done you should be OK and it should be your last. Hope everything worked out - I have had bouts with back pain and I can't think of anything as debilitating or f-ing up your life than constant back pain.

I enjoyed reading your business stuff. I am in a *completely* different marketplace (manufacturing in the automotive sector). I have some friends who do sub prime loans on motorcycles. Their game is to buy bikes cheap, fix them up and sell them quite a bit above market value, but they will finance ANYONE. They require 20% down, and their data shows they average 6 payments before a default, and something like 40% end up getting repoed. The ones that are repoed they just fix up (if necessary) and re-sell again. The ones that are not recovered are made up for by those that are, and by the recurring payments they get from people who are making the payments. It always seemed like a good business model and since he's selling a luxury item it's not like people are forced into his doors by tragedy or anything. I'm just not sure it can be expanded much because of market appeal. I can see how subprime lending in Vegas would be a ripe opportunity! Did you ever try expanding beyond Vegas or do you have other locations too?

Any comments on the real estate? I'm in a position where my only real asset is my business. I want to take $$ out and invest in other things that will generate revenue and diversify my risk, my ownership and my susceptibility to things like a recession, etc. Buying/leasing out commercial property seems attractive. Is there a certain sector that you've found to pay well? Maybe low income housing, or commercial RE or....???



P.S. On the happiness thing... some folks are driven to acheive. These people cant ever feel truly "happy" because they never feel their job is done - there is *always* more to achieve. Its normal, so don't let it get you down too much, Eric. ~40yo is young enough to have a family.




For those complaining about his collection... why would someone else have the same collection as you would? Also, until you are in a position to buy cars like these, you never know what you'd like. Most haven't driven all the types of cars he's got shown so until you go through cars and try 'em all, you can't say what you would or wouldn't have in a collection. It's one thing to appreciate a certain car, it's another thing to own it, most of the time.

 

props to you Eric. you are the kind of person more people should strive to be like. keep on keepin' on.

 

Sub-prime lending is lending - as in loans, for homes generally - to people who have poor credit and otherwise would not qualify for typical loans. The market is known for aggressive lenders who know that a few months or years down the line, depending on the loan program, the buyer is going to default - that is, become unable to pay their monthly payments. At that point, certain events would place - one of which is foreclosure, which is the bank taking back the property. Keep in mind, in that timeframe, the value of the property would also [generally] increase. I'm not exactly sure how the lender makes the money off this, but there's a general idea.

Also, keep in mind that the people getting sub-prime loans are those who buy things and don't pay for them, whether due to inability or fraud or otherwise. Just want to point out that there are two sides to this. Sort of.

Eric, can you explain what I missed? How is money made in this market?

 

Eric, hope the surgery went well. As above, at c40 y/o, you're certainly young enough to have a family and give others the life lessons your parents passed on to you. To not do so would be a shame, values like you speak of are a rarity.

All the best
Jamie

 

I agree. He seems to be a quality guy that I would like to meet some day. Very rare.

 

I'm a self taught business nerd, so I'll take a stab.

As you basically said, sub prime is simply the market for people with poor credit qualification - whether it be bad credit score or no credit or any credit logistic that makes them such a low liability that most or all typical loan services will not lend them money. You focused on home loans, but it could be for anything.

You alluded to the common sense fact that the market is high risk if income is only made by loan interest, because - of course - the borrower (OOPS, edit) is high risk. So, you essentially answer your quesion about how to make money in the market if you'll just think things through a bit more. One of the best answers is to decrease your income source being interest on loan - if not eliminate it. In other words, you figure out how to collect money up front. One example is you can charge membership fees to gain access to a loan group. Another example is you can have arrangements to collect profit percentage off of purchases made with the loans you give. Another example is the source of the loan (as in whether or not the money comes out of your pocket or not) - because you could actually sell credit from OTHER creditors - though what I mean can be complex - but the fact is that there are sub prime lenders who want borrowers just as borrowers who want sub prime lenders and you can essentially sell the lenders to the borrowers or sell the borrowers to the lenders by various ways. But if you are already selling a membership fee to do business with you, then you may either want there to be a hidden cost in THAT fee as the fee to contract with the OTHER lender(s) or you may want to find out some other way to sell access to OTHER lenders/creditors - like possibly card activation fees - because some people would be wary of two membership fees but it is not unusual for card programs to charge a membership fee AND activation fee. Technically, you could do all of the aforementioned. It's really about designing a business model to migrate high profits to low risk, because simply upping the interest in the same high risk area is not going to have nearly as much profit potential nor as much security.

More on topic:
It is an impressive collection and a great photoshoot. The article spread was short but sweet as well. Thanks for sharing. My best to your health and my understandings as I've had some critical physical pain requiring surgery as well and have been seeing a chiropractor regularly lately for an injury that will probably give me problems for the rest of my life and cannot be fixed with surgery. Also, my understandings with the parallelism of family - especially parents - and happiness - as I come from a low income family too and it is also extremely important to me to give back as much to my parent(s) (at least the one that really deserves it - my mom) as possible while I still have time and let her experience the freedom and happiness of her dreams that she deserved all along but in large part did not get because she spent time and money on me and her whole focus has been about survival instead of prosperity ... the latter of which she barely comprehends except in fairy tale fiction. Mom mom's dreams are my dreams and my achieving makes my mom elated and it is one of the most precious things to share with her and I can guess but do not really know how empty I would feel without that.

Keep your head up high. You're a good man.

 

Well said. I hope you achieve those dreams for both you and your mom.

Eric, thanks for sharing your story with us, it really puts things in perspective. I hope you find that happiness you have always been seeking.

 

Thanks for all the kind wordss, I just wanted people here to know me a bit more, sure there are the haters and I feel bad for them because until they lose that attitude they will never achieve anything-I know I was one when I was very young-in my teens. It took me along time to grow out of that, so I have insight on that topic of hating.

On a side note I want a 2nd Enzo so bad i cant sleep. it will be my daily driver. It wont happen for a few more months, I want to sell off a few cars and I have my house to finish-wow thats alot of $$$$,

Its amazing how deep the Sultan is, this home I bought from them 90% finished, was nothing more than a cabin on the other side of the world for them to come to once in a while, the other house in Vegas they built was where they were going to sleep I guess, there are almost no closets in my house because it was designed for short visits. I was very lucky to get it I could never recreate it at my current income level.

I'm building it to share with friends, have car events we could have 500 people there for a party and have room for 500 more, i'm going to use it as much as possible for charity events, the older I get the more I like to help and give joy to other people, I can do this and make $$$ at the same time so everyone wins. I'll have someone post a pic of my front door they hung last week, the trim isnt in yet.

 

Well I'm sorry to hear you are still in so much pain. Remember when you get that Enzo painted flat black that you need to make a run to San Jose for an SR meet or something. I am still yet to see an Enzo of any sort, and I'm dying more than you (not physically, only mental anguish of course) waiting for the one on its way to SVAG.

I'm sorry if I'm overstepping some line, but I always thought you were married maybe I misread a post or two somewhere(?)

Best to you Eric and I wish you the best with your back and so forth.

Peter Hatch

 

nope i'm single, never married, no kids, have a cool girl so its all good. Getting married aint for me yet someday. i dont need the govt tell me i love someone

 

Eric, you are my new idol. My respect for you has shot up.

Thank you.