Buying the Batmobile

 
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed! Batman fans can now utter those classic lines in style before jetting around an imaginary Gotham City. It’ll only cost them $1 million – the price tag on a replica of Bruce Wayne’s Tumbler, which served as the Batmobile in the Dark Knight trilogy.

One of just five versions that exist in the world, the vehicle is being sold by Florida-based J & S World Wide Holdings, which specializes in “hard-to-find items.” The near facsimile features an LS1 V8 engine, automatic transmission and monster 44-inch super swamper tires with custom rims.

It also comes with GPS navigation technology and five driver-assist cameras to avoid accidental scrapes. The vehicle is “street legal,” meaning it probably doesn’t come with forward-firing machine guns, rocket launchers or an integrated machine-gun-mounted escape vehicle otherwise known as the Batpod. But what it lacks in weaponry it makes up for in sheer coolness.


The Chinese Housing Boom Down Under

Want to buy a home in Australia? You’ll need to compete with the Chinese. Wealthy Chinese are pouring more than $5 billion a year into the Australian property market, accounting for 12 percent of the new housing supply per year, according to a Credit Suisse report entitled “The Chinese Property Boom Down Under.” And it looks as if they’ll be accounting for even more: Chinese spending in Australia’s residential market totaled $24 billion over the past seven years; Credit Suisse estimates a near-doubling to $44 billion over the next seven. It’s not just Australia’s cleaner air or beautiful beaches that are attracting Chinese money. Chinese investors are scouring the globe for compelling investment opportunities since their banks are offering low or negative real interest on deposits and Beijing is restricting property purchases. The boom is jacking up property prices in Sydney, Melbourne and other cities to among the highest in the world.

 
 Articles first published in 2014 in The Financialist