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I have purchased three vehicles off eBay—none of them “cars,” per se, but two commercial trucks and an SUV.Buying a high-ticket item, like a motor vehicle, on eBay is not the same as buying a six-pack of Gold Toe socks. You don’t just win the sale, send the seller a PayPal for thousands of dollars, and wait by the window til your new ride comes rolling down the street on a flatbed. Here are 10 experience points from my eBay buys.1). If you’re getting a smokin deal on the vehicle, you’re going to need to go down to wherever the vehicle is and inspect it before you transfer the rest of the money, or hand-over a cashiers check.Most sellers have a deposit requirement of $500 or so, with the rest due on pickup. So, assuming you felt confident enough in the legitimacy of the deal to bid, your downside risk is minimized.One purchase was for an SUV from a seller in Dallas. I flew down to pick it up. They were very professional in their pre-handling of the transaction, and offered to pick me up at the airport, then drive me to their showroom (not a dealership), about 15 mins away.I made an appointment at the local dealership for a 50-point inspection (or whatever it was), and the seller was totally-fine with me taking the truck down there for a once-over (once I showed them the cashier’s check for the balance, and let them photocopy it).There were a few adverse results on the checklist (“will need tires soon,” “needs wiper blades,” “will need rear brakes soon”), which actually made me feel MORE comfortable, since it was not all green lights on a used vehicle with 50,000 miles on it…but nothing that turned me off on the deal.I handed over the cashier’s check, and was on my way home (for a 13-hour drive, in the vehicle) within about three hours. That SUV is still in our driveway, 12 years later, and running strong with 230,000 miles on it (purchased with about 50,000, as noted above).I used the same method when purchasing a Freightliner straight truck. Took it to the local Freightliner dealer, and had them do an inspection, telling me everything I needed to know. Checked out basically fine, as well.2). If the seller won’t let a reputable, IMPARTIAL, third-party inspect it, bail on the deal. I was lined up to purchase a VW Beetle in South Florida, and the seller kept hemming and hawing about my taking the vehicle down to VW for a check-up. He wanted payment in full before letting me drive it anywhere beyond “around the block a couple times.” My gut said it was not a good idea, and I pulled out, but got hit with bad feedback in retaliation. So, be sure to have your inspection arrangement in place, and in writing, BEFORE you bid.3). If the seller is not offering a CarFax report, ask if they will reimburse you for pulling one, if your bid is successful, and you complete the transaction.4). The market is about to be FLOODED (no pun intended) with hundreds of thousands of flood-damaged vehicles from hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Buyer beware, BIG TIME. Watch for other-than-clear titles, and even if clear, get your inspecting dealer to look closely for the tell-tale signs of flood damage. They will know what to look for, especially if it is in the area of the storm.5). I will stress again, beware of other-than-clear titles. If you’re a “car guy” who can replace a full wiring harness, do body work, or replace other essential components, then maybe the way-low price is worth your labor to get it back to normal, but that’s a big gamble for a “AAA-to-change-a-tire” guy like me. How bad can it be? BAD! Don’t be fooled by the awesome price.6). Figure out BEFORE you fly down to get the vehicle what kind of “driveaway” plate or permit you can get. Otherwise, you’ll be on the open Interstate with a car that has no plates on it, and that could be a major pain in the you-know-what. If the seller is a dealer, they will have you covered. If it is a private party, you’re on your own. Contact your home state DMV, or the DMV of the state you are driving from to see what your options are. Otherwise, you’ll need to trailer it.7). DO NOT bring cash to settle your balance. If the seller requires it, that’s a red flag, and not worth the risk, both from a rip-off point of view and a personal safety point of view. Walk away!8). If it’s a private party, meet in a public place, like a Starbucks, McDonald’s or in a WalMart/Home Depot parking lot. If you feel ill-at-ease about the transaction, post an ad on Craigslist for an off-duty cop to be your security detail for a couple hours. It is well-worth an extra $100-$150 to have that peace of mind. They can hang-back, and you are polite, but protected.9). Don’t do the transaction on a weekend. Banks are closed to verify funds (even of a cashier’s check, which the seller may require), dealerships sometimes do not have open slots in service, and DMVs may have funny hours, etc.10). Trust your gut, above all else. If it doesn’t feel right, at any point in the transaction—whether at home in your bunny slippers, or after the inspection, with a cashier’s check in hand—walk away. Don’t let the fact that you have “come all this way” cloud your good judgment. There is always another vehicle out there for you, so act accordingly!11). BONUS POINT: Exercise extra-caution on Euro-brand vehicles. If they are out of warranty, repairs can be VERY costly. BMW, Volkswagen, Land Rover…may require special tools, or special racks, or special expertise that only the dealership has access to, which will flatten-out your “great deal” really quick.The bottom line: You can often save thousands of dollars by purchasing your vehicle on eBay. That said, the expenses and due-diligence involved in making that purchase may-well nullify any savings you are getting by purchasing this way. You need to weigh all of the above—dollars spent to take delivery, inherent risk, and other unknowns—against the price of that same vehicle at a reputable local lot, where you can walk-in and talk to a person if what you bought is not to your expectations.Good luck, and happy eBay motoring!

To understand the current situation in South Africa, you need to understand first what happened in the past. The really short, simplified version is that white people have clashed with black people over land ever since white settlers arrived in South Africa.During the Apartheid years, the white minority government forcibly removed and displaced many black people, in many cases took their land and forced them into small, semi-independent “homelands”, dotted all over the country:You can see that the homelands (coloured areas of the map) form only a small part of the country. Yet the majority of black people lived there. True, the homelands were largely based on where these tribes already lived, but by the time Apartheid ended, millions of people had been confined to those areas.In the cities, the same segregation happened. Residential areas were proclaimed as whites only suburbs, while black people were forcibly removed to “locations” outside the city, known as townships. These remain to this day the poorest areas of each city, with dense housing and shacks, minimal infrastructure and service delivery.After white minority rule ended in 1994, the ANC government embarked on a long and difficult journey to restore these inequalities and right the injustices of the past. Massive housing projects were rolled out, to try and get black people out of shacks and informal settlements, and into small, government-built houses known as RDP houses (Reconstruction and Development Plan housing). These houses look like this:Meanwhile, a land claims court was set up to deal with the thorny issue of land restitution. People who were forcibly moved off their land during the Apartheid years could submit a land claim, which the government would then settle either by buying the land back from the current owner and giving that land to the claimants, or by means of financial compensation if the land owner was not willing to sell, or the claimants wanted cash compensation rather than land.This land reform process was initially based on a Willing Seller, Willing Buyer principle. It failed miserably. In part because most claimants wanted cash, not land. Which means communities that have already been compensated through the land claims process, still have no land. (This causes some distortion today because the government conveniently overlooks the thousands of hectares that were restored through cash compensation but do not show up in the government’s land audit as black owned land now).And the average community member also did not benefit from the money paid to their tribal chiefs or family leaders or community trust. The tribal system in general is another factor often overlooked by government. Millions of hectares of tribal land is controlled by black tribal leaders but black citizens do not own title to this land, and the agricultural output of this land is far below potential - most of this land is used for subsistence farming, not commercial farming.Another reason the process failed is because white farmers who reluctantly sold to the government as part of the land claims process, in many cases inflated their asking prices to ridiculous levels, far beyond the market value of the land. And when they left, they often sold all their stock and equipment, leaving the new black land owners with nothing, having to start farming from scratch, with no access to capital and limited or no commercial farming experience. It was destined to fail and left behind a bunch of struggling black farmers (now with land but still living in poverty) and a small number of obscenely rich white farmers, who walked away with millions.In some cases, those same white farmers then approached the new black farm owners a few years later, offered them a fraction of the price they were paid for their farm by government, and got their farm back cheaply.I’m not apportioning blame here. I’m merely explaining that this was an expensive and painful exercise for the government, and while there were some notable exceptions, it became quite clear that many white farmers abused even the land reform process to their own advantage. They either refused to sell, or asked obscene amounts of money for their farms.There are a few success stories, and a few white farmers were willing to assist the new owners to help make a success of farming, but the majority of commercial farms handed over to black claimants fell into disrepair and became unproductive. The land reform process failed to address the injustices of the past and did not seem to make a meaningful dent in the inequality of land ownership. (In reality, a significant percentage of land was restored but the process was flawed).The result is that the majority of productive, commercial farmland is still in the hands of the white minority (either by individual ownership, or in the form of companies or trusts controlled by white families). And the majority of black people are still without land and sufficient access to housing. Land invasions and illegal shack building is common on vacant land around big cities, due to the huge need for land and housing. Millions of the poorest black South Africans still live like this:If you have read this far, you can now begin to understand what is behind the government’s move to take a more radical approach to land reform. Black people have been in power, politically, since 1994, but they do not feel in power economically. The white minority (8% of the population) still own most of the economic wealth and most of the private land in South Africa. This, dear questioner, is why white landowners in South Africa are being “targeted by their own government”.The land hunger is such a burning issue that many argue (including President Ramaphosa) that the stability of the country is at risk if we do not speed up land reform (through land expropriation without compensation). We do not want to see haphazard, illegal, violent land grabs as we saw in Zimbabwe. And to avoid that we have to address the land question and make tangible progress.For the sake of clarity, let me add at this point that I think Land Expropriation Without Compensation is a very bad idea. But I’m trying to explain how we got to this point.Of course, there are many other possible solutions or positions between Willing Buyer Willing Seller on one hand, and Land Expropriation Without Compensation on the other hand.One possible solution I thought of is that white landowners who own land that black people have a legitimate historical claim to (proven in court), can avoid expropriation without compensation by working with government through an incentive program, to ensure a successful land claim without compromising productivity or food security. Let government make an offer of fair compensation, based on the average market value from two independent valuations (one appointed by the government, the second one by the farmer). The valuation is based on purchase of the farm PLUS the equipment and agreed stock, so the farm is sold as a going concern. And if the land claim is legitimate, this offer cannot be refused by the farmer, and he cannot inflate the price.Then, to assist the claimants further, the market value compensation offer comes with an additional, generous incentive or severance package, that requires the farmer to train the new landowners over a period of at least one year, and facilitate a gradual handover process that allows the new farmers the best possible chance to succeed.In this way, no farmer will lose their farm without compensation, and several may agree to the additional incentive package to train up the new land owners, so the farmer can retire in comfort. Maybe I’m naive to think a white farmer who is angry about losing his beloved farm will be willing to work with government and assist the new black farmers. But an angry farmer can also just settle for the compensation offer, without the additional incentive package. And to prevent sabotage, a portion of the compensation is held back until after the handover. If the farmer destroys his farm, poisons the land, burns down the barn or farm house, and sells all his stock and equipment, he forfeits a significant part of his compensation.This is just a suggestion. Just because willing buyer willing seller did not work, doesn’t mean the government should now take land without compensation, which is essentially correcting a historical theft with a new theft. (In most cases, the current owners of agricultural land are not the ones who stole that land from black people - so to steal that land back from them is wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right.)I will add one last comment which I’ve explained in other answers already, and that is that the land issue is also about politics, not just about restitution. It is a hot political issue that will possibly determine the outcome of the next election in 2019. The ANC has lost a lot of support and they believe they can win voters back (and divert attention away from other failures and scandals) by taking a radical, populist approach toward land reform.Long answer for a complex issue, sorry about that. As you can see, there is more to this than what the headlines portray.Thank you for reading.EDIT: Thank you for all the comments. There are those who strongly disagree with aspects of my summary above and I suggest that you read their comments also, despite the anger and animosity that comes across in some of them. I was not trying to make a political point with this answer.

When investments are made with care and detailed knowledge of ground realities, real estate investments can earn substantial returns. The following must be gauged critically before making any investment decisions:Location- The Indian economy is a fast growing economy and presents the investors with an opportunity to make fabulous wealth. Different factors affect the speed of growth:Population growth of the cityGrowth corridors within the citySocial infrastructureAccess - Knowing about upcoming roads and infrastructure helps in making sound investment decisions. It is safe to assume growth in these areas. Plans to Metro development also affect the growth positively.Type of Property- Indian real estate offers four investment avenues- agricultural, industrial, commercial and residential. Industrial and commercial properties require a larger amounts of investment and run the risk of having lower liquidity and high vacancy. They however present an opportunity of higher returns in the form of cash flow and capital appreciation. Residential property is considered to be the safest and easiest option. They are available in relatively smaller ticket sizes and offer returns in the form of rentals when leased out.Developer Reputation- To avoid the risk of an investment turning sour, it is always recommended to do a thorough background check on the developer. Check the track record will go a long way to shield from losses occurring on account of delays or poor construction quality.Stage of Development- Real estate investments can be made at the following stages:Pre-launch-Investments made in this stage usually offer the best returns however it is important to check the reputation of the developer and ensure the land title has been properly vetted.Launch- The project is ready for commencement after all government permits have been obtained. Launch prices are usually close to market rate.Partly Constructed- Most investors enter into projects at this stage. The project has already taken off and is partially completed. The returns after entering at this stage escalate slower.Completion- The price of purchase would be the highest. These properties are a good source of rental income. Commercial properties would be preferable over residential to generate cash flows.Quality - Quality check of amenities must be done before investing however this check is possible in the pre-launch stage. Once the project is launched, the prices escalate quickly to meet the market rate.Price - Determining the price of a property can be a tricky process. No two developments are the same therefore comparison can be difficult to reach a price. The best way to reach an objective price is by taking the services of an expert.Expected Future Price- Anticipating the future price rise is inherent to any investment. It is imperative to forecast the future price of any property. The exercise of estimating future price trend will ensure that the investor is not in for any surprises by the market at the time of sale.Land Title- It is crucial to perform due diligence on the land title however it can be a cumbersome process as land ownership date back to decades. Any defect in the land title of a previous owner can invite litigation. An expert can provide a thorough title check and would be value for money to get a title report.Investor Protection- It is not uncommon for developers to exceed the timeline promised for completion. It would be ideal to hold land as collateral but individual investors typically do not have the bargaining power to make this happen. Investors making large investments must involve experts to be able to get collateral which is twice the value of the purchase to safeguard their interest.