Rising prices/labour

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Having started motorcycling in 1958 as a cheaper, quicker way to commute to school than using the Toronto bus and streetcars every day. 5 days of travel by TTC was $1.25 a week and total time about 5 hours/week whereas the second hand Ariel "Colt" cost about 20 cents worth of gasoline and about 1.25 hours of riding a week, I would point out - respectfully - that times and the value of money have changed. Gasoline was 9 cents a litre, and my part-time grocery clerk's job paid 75 cents an hour. I bought the little Ariel 199cc bike for $325 and a year later sold it for $275. Insurance was $32/year.
I think a spark plug for the bike was either 75 or 95 cents.
AFJ
 
I put in CR9EIA-9 spark plugs when I built this race bike in 2018 and I haven't touched them since. I've put 5000-ish km on it, almost all of which is way up there in the rev range ... I probably should change them at some point ...
 
adri said:
Can't comment on Mac's situation, but, if I were trying to operate a bricks and mortar motorcycle business here in Chrawno, the biggest reason I would have raised my shop labour rates aggressively in the past 5 years isn't because of salary or parts costs going up, it's because of how much $/sq. ft. and interest rates have gone up in that time.

The price per sq. ft. on retail space, ESPECIALLY the dwindling space in the city that's still zoned automotive, has skyrocketed.
The motorcycle businesses paying rent are being choked out because of how much landlords could get from car repair businesses in their place.
The motorcycle businesses paying mortgages are facing high interest rates.

As much as I wanna shake my fist and yell "you bastards!" when I see the $120/hr labour rates... as soon as I think about how much their overhead has gone up the last little while, in large part due to just being close to me, I'm like, yeah, this sucks, but I understand.
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A friend rented a shop in a strip mall for his auto repair business for years but when it was sold the new owner had the right to up the rent, doing so by $100 a month. He moved and a couple of years later it happened again. No LTB help. The first two hours of the day covered the rent.
 
nobbie48 said:
A friend rented a shop in a strip mall for his auto repair business for years but when it was sold the new owner had the right to up the rent, doing so by $100 a month. He moved and a couple of years later it happened again. No LTB help. The first two hours of the day covered the rent.
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That the reason I will only do commercial real estate no ltb miss the rent locks are changed don't come back.

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GreyGhost said:
Those that were pencil whipping inspections have to do things properly now so a lot of dangerous trucks are facing huge maintenance bills. I call that a win.
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There's still going to be fake inspections. Wink wink nudge nudge, yeah sure I did that whole inspection, photos get taken of an old set of pads out of the garbage can from some other car and job, etc etc.

Anyhow, on the topic of labour, paying $150/hour or whatever for work is fine if you're actually getting someone who knows what they're doing, but I have a problem paying for a licensed mechanic and then some crackhead kid who can't find his own ass with both hands and does sloppy sh!t quality work ends up being the person working on my vehicle. THAT pisses me off.
 
Scuba Steve said:
That the reason I will only do commercial real estate no ltb miss the rent locks are changed don't come back.

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I thought about that, but the returns are too low to justify real estate investment -I’d go to other securities with less risk and work as a small time investor.

On rez deals, I can get positive cash flow with 80% leverage - not possible in commercial. Picking tenants is always a challenge, but if you’re not blinded by greed, this isn’t that hard. I have no burn marks after 20+ years in the game.
 
adri said:
Yes, in theory doing it right means measuring every single brake pad, but let's be honest... I'm sure you can eye ball your own brake pads and know which will beyond-a-doubt pass safety, and which are worth taking out and measuring.

Making it so that all pads need to be taken out and measured, even those that will beyond-a-doubt pass, is going to mean more time spent on each safety = more cost to the consumer that isn't needed.

But the offset is better consumer protection, so... Pick your poison.
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Brake pad & shoe thicknesses are measured in place using a simple guage, they are not removed.

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Mad Mike said:
I thought about that, but the returns are too low to justify real estate investment -I’d go to other securities with less risk and work as a small time investor.

On rez deals, I can get positive cash flow with 80% leverage - not possible in commercial. Picking tenants is always a challenge, but if you’re not blinded by greed, this isn’t that hard. I have no burn marks after 20+ years in the game.
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Industrial rates are again different from retail. I don't know how some small retailers survive on selling candy bars and magazines.
 
nobbie48 said:
Industrial rates are again different from retail. I don't know how some small retailers survive on selling candy bars and magazines.
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Some are laundering money. Relatively easy way to clean illicit cash. I doubt that is the majority though. The old school model of immigrant owners living above the store with family as employees seems more viable as it saves rent and labour costs.
 
MacDoc said:
or living in the basement and renting the main floor.
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I was looking to buy an industrial condo around Steeles and Middlefield a few years back. I was shocked at how many condos had living space in mezzanines.
 
PrivatePilot said:
There's still going to be fake inspections. Wink wink nudge nudge, yeah sure I did that whole inspection, photos get taken of an old set of pads out of the garbage can from some other car and job, etc etc.

Anyhow, on the topic of labour, paying $150/hour or whatever for work is fine if you're actually getting someone who knows what they're doing, but I have a problem paying for a licensed mechanic and then some crackhead kid who can't find his own ass with both hands and does sloppy sh!t quality work ends up being the person working on my vehicle. THAT pisses me off.
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Shops are finding it hard to recruit qualified help these days not many want to be mechanics with the high buy in for tools and the need to be constantly upgrading your knowledge base to keep up with the latest tech. The base shop rate might be $150 hr but the guy turning the wrench isn't getting rich as the overhead is taking the lions share.
 
Dirty Frank said:
The base shop rate might be $150 hr but the guy turning the wrench isn't getting rich as the overhead is taking the lions share.
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I don't know, I know more than a few mechanics who seem to be doing quite well for themselves. And the one 410T guy I know seems to be doing the Scrooge McDuck thing.
 
bitzz said:
Like all the trades, IF you're good at what you do, you'll always have work. People NEED their stuff fixed.
There are a lot of people in the "trades" that shouldn't be.
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I’m pretty good with a hammer and a trowel, never was interested in doing that for a living.

In part because that kind of work makes me happy - didn’t want to ruin that by making it a job. Or deal with people that are impossible to satisfy.

Same goes for fixing cars and bikes. I respect people that can tolerate customers in any build or fix business.
 
Mad Mike said:
I’m pretty good with a hammer and a trowel, never was interested in doing that for a living.

In part because that kind of work makes me happy - didn’t want to ruin that by making it a job. Or deal with people that are impossible to satisfy.

Same goes for fixing cars and bikes. I respect people that can tolerate customers in any build or fix business.
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Customers are literally the hardest and worst part of the industry. Not the 80% that are cool. The 20% that give you 80% of the headaches.
I guess that's probably a lot of industries in hindsight...
 
adri said:
Customers are literally the hardest and worst part of the industry. Not the 80% that are cool. The 20% that give you 80% of the headaches.
I guess that's probably a lot of industries in hindsight...
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I found that dealing with people is the hardest part of any job I've done. Whether working in my day job, project job, side hustle, or anything else.

Vast majority are great and respect you, your time, and your efforts. But there's always a small minority that will make you question your sanity.

We pay many many thousands for consultant that are supposed to be 'experts' in a particular field...trust me when I say I should start my own consulting company because I'm quite sure I know more than them in my field...but because I'm an employee, and not a 'subject matter expert' billing by the hour...anything I say is met with 'cool thanks', and the SME is 'oh my good lord...you're the second coming of christ' mentality.
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