Well then you are also talking about the airframe too, which is why they are priced at lower. We need Sanderson to chime in here.

Airplanes in my humble opinion are the cheapest things I own.

This relationship between time and value may be misleading. Some years ago Neal and some other brokers who actually deal with selling/buying aircraft noted that the difference between a zero time engine and one with say 100 hours is about the same. While an engine with say 1000 hours and a run out engines aren't very far apart either.

The point is valuation isn't linear. Your first few hours on a piston reman is essentially free while the back end usage is already discounted as run out units. That was my recollection of the "reman or not" thread. Interesting food for thought.

The difference between a 500k airplane and a 100k plane is 400k worth of pending depreciation... single or twin.. like when airborne, the twin will just get there faster. ok maybe it's 450k worth of depreciation.

I could have bought a 200k duke and wondered what else was coming.
I bought a very deficient 90, ooo duke , spent another 90,000 or so on it. I now have a 150,000'duke I am comfortable with. I did not buy it to sell.

I followed that build. Awesome airplane. At some price point, it doesn't make financial sense to reengine an airplane, especially a twin. Not sure exactly what price that is. For a lot of us, it is a labor of love, and the cost doesn't matter as much, but for the market, I think the economics of reengineing twins pushes the prices down. Why else are airplanes as cool and capable as Dukes as cheap as they are?

I try to concentrate on high quality airframes and what adds the most bang for the buck. In my experience, you want a pristine airframe and buy a plane with low to mid-time engines and sell it in the same condition. Engines that are mid-time and running strong usually go the distance. Buying a low time engine and paying a premium is a gamble. Buying high time means you will be putting in engines and the next owner will not pay you nearly what you had to spend.

People are mostly visual. They love shiny paint and gadgets. A mechanic wants to see a solid airframe. Engines are speculative. Oil analysis, compressions, time, etc. I have seen people pronounce engines as dead and the owners run them another 10 years or 1000 hours and I have seen others with good oil analysis and top maintenance that throw a rod through the case. Engines are the easiest thing to overcome in a sale. Bad airframes do not sell and ratty six-pack panels do not sell either.

Actually I was referring to my Duke N65MY it had been a foreclosure.
I did buy Lazarus to sell and hope to make a small profit at around 100k.
He is a work in progress.
Laz had some autopilot issues on ferry flight and I was figuring another grand for autopilots central. It had worked fine on the ground. After some hard looking and diagnosing, we found that the trim switch which includes autotrim was installed upside down. Since the a/p is on the avionics master we had never touched the trim switch. The friend who ferried the plane to Georgia naturally flipped it to the on position, and lo and behold it would not work. I have saved a grand.
Damned cabin pressure pop off outflow valve is sticking open and is buffalo ing us, as we can pressurize in the test mode but then it pops open. Have called the experts. Laz is going to make someone a very nice plane for the money.
We believe this is the last bug, and wil be soon solved.

That and that. Good clean airframes carry a premium. They also can hold their surprises. The biggest single expense(s) in an airplane that is otherwise airworthy are engines and props. Just double it for a twin. At the lower end of the market, that can double your cost. If you figure people generally buy airplanes at the upper end of what they can afford, that can be pretty daunting. 80k bonanza, maybe a 30 k hit, 80k baron, a 60 k hit. Big difference to someone trying to decide between the two.

Ok, listen here all you two engine gas gobblers, my E-185-11 will go almost as fast as ANY of yours will (ok not all) and it'll even get to the ground faster if I lose an engine!

(Don't mess with me, I burn MOGAS...)

Have a good night Fellas, Rainbow fishing in the morn on PendO'Reille, gonna get me a big un'!

Envy here. Working all weekend. Have fun!

Wilco, Jim, & if we get any I'll get some pics & post them. We might get rained on good in the morning, though; have to sit in the heated cabin while trolling & drink coffee & tell lies....

Life can be hard ,Chris

I know, it is hard, Jim. I'm not sure if I put cream (for the coffee) in the boat when I was in it last time.

(I am SO Blessed).

Boy, this thread sounds like the history of the Roman empire, Oh sorry I mean the American Empire. Centralize the masses, that works Overregulation and too many lawyers. That is great. Dull the masses with FB, instagram, twitter.

"Hey guys remember when we used to fly airplanes." You did what? Why?

"Yeah, now we just pretend to fly them on the computer until the computer quits, then we hit CTRL-ALT-Delete and it is all good."

I am a thirty something pilot and I can not believe how the world has changed.

Please remember not all change is good.

BTW great thread. It was getting dull around here.

As an aside, imagine for a moment a conversation between older men at the cafe near the airport.

Today-"Man I loved that Baron I owned. I flew my family all over. It was great."

30 years from now-"Remember that picture I put up on Facebook, that was awesome."

Me needs more twins, less technology.