Hermés Birkin Bags Are a Better Investment Than Gold And Stock Market
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Forget about putting your money into stocks or gold. The Hermés Birkin bag is a much smarter investment. Baghunter also predicts the price of the Birkin will double in the next 10 years.
According to a study by Baghunter, as reported by Luxury Daily, researchers found that the iconic and highly coveted accessory has increased in value by more than 500 percent since its 1984 debut. And, unlike the S&P 500 and gold, the value of Birkins has never dropped. In fact, the handbag’s value has increased at an average rate of 14. 2 percent annually, making it one of the safest investment markets.
“There is a difference between luxury and ultra-luxury. While the luxury market suffers during worse economic times the ultra-luxury market is impervious to economic factors that can affect other industries such as high-street retail and stock markets,” Baghunter founder Evelyn Fox told Daily Luxury. “As such, potential volatility in the economy throughout 2016 will likely have little to no effect on the ultra-luxury collectors market and we expect it to continue to thrive for the foreseeable future, remaining the least risky investment opportunity in 2016.”
But, as we all know, getting your hands on a Birkin isn’t an easy task. Even if you have tens of thousands of dollars to drop on the bag, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get one from an Hermés boutique. Sometimes stores will turn away a potential buyer or place him or her on a waiting list that could span several years. This explains why the resale market for the Birkin is surging, and why prices are expected to double within the next decade.
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According to Huffingtonpost , save that buyer’s remorse for your new car — that $15,000 Hermes Birkin handbag is a solid investment, a new study finds.
Over the last 35 years, the high-end bags — commonly flaunted as a status symbol among the rich and famous — have increased in value by more than 500 percent,according to a study by online retail platformBagHunter.com.
Annually, the bags saw an average increase in value of 14.2 percent.
When compared to the average price of gold and the S&P 500’s returns, the study found that the luxury handbags were the only commodity to consistently increase in value year after year.
“This makes Hermes Birkin handbags by far the least risky investment of the three,” the authors wrote.
So what exactly makes these bags so special?
If you ask Heritage Auctions, whose Hermes bags have sold in the tens of thousands of dollars, it’s all about the supply and demand.
“These bags are not available to your average woman. She can’t just walk into Hermes and buy it,” Max Brownawell, the New York City auction house’s senior specialist of luxury accessories, told The Huffington Post.
Even if one has the money, “Hermes won’t sell these bags to just anybody,” he said. “You’d have to have a long-standing relationship with one of their sales associates.”
That relationship may include the client making a lot of prior purchases. Even then, each customer is restricted to buying no more than two bags per year, he said.
Adding to that limit, once someone gets a chance to buy, “They’re not asking you what color, what size you want. It’s, ‘This is the one bag we’re offering to you,’” he said.
Because of that restriction, there’s no guarantee that prospective clients receive the exact bag they want. And because of that, fans and collectors alike turn to each other, or outside buyers, to swap or purchase the ones they want, he said.
“They have one of the few systems that can be collected because it really is quite a search,” he said.
That’s where online stores and auction houses like Heritage come in.
The auction house’s website boasts an assortment of Birkin bags for sale, starting at around $13,500. Back in May, it sold a Porosus Crocodile Kelly Bag, which is another popular Hermes bag, for $52,500.
“Our average client probably has between 50 or 10 or 20 (Hermes) bags in their collection,” Brownawell said.
Asked what qualities a person should look for if he or she wants to invest in a bag, Brownawell suggested condition, color, style and whether the bag was released in a limited quantity.
“The best return you get on these bags is if you sell them in pristine, unused condition,” he said.
That doesn’t mean that a used handbag — so long as it’s in good shape — will lose its value, however.
“Generally, the only thing that would hurt its value is if anything has been changed, like the style of hardware or type of shoulder strap,” he said.
Brownawell recommends that buyers who get their hands on a less desirable but newly released style sell it right away, as the latest collection will always be highly sought after.
And bags with non-classic coloring, those made of exotic materials or those that are are part of a limited-edition collection will always be golden — in the Hermes Birkin sense, he noted.
A employee holds a 129,000 USD crocodile Hermes Birkin Bag for the press to see during a private opening for the new Hermes store on Wall Street in New York 21 June 2007. The store which is located at 15 Broad Steet is across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. The store is one of several luxury shops opening near Ground Zero as part of a revitalization project in the area. AFP PHOTO/ TIMOTHY A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
Take last June’s fuchsia crocodile-and-diamond Birkin handbag, which set a world auction record for $221,846 in Hong Kong.
The previous Birkin auction record was for a red crocodile bag, which sold for $203,150 in New York in 2011.
