Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by yepnopemaybe 1487 days ago
It might be useful to think of Legends Solar panels as a kind of fixed income security. It depreciates over time but produces a steady stream of dividends. Significantly lower risk than the stock market, but with somewhat predictable returns.

The important thing we hope to capture is the experience... it'll feel much more like owning a consumer product than an investment.

2 comments

It sounds more like real estate investment than fixed income security. You get electricity instead of rent.

Similarities include physical depreciation, need for maintenance, insurance, importance of location, vacancy risk (vs bad weather), tenant risk (vs power customer), how each case is special snowflake, etc.

Fixed assets depreciate over time, but fixed-income securities do not unless you are assuming inflation.

1. How are you defining risk in this context and comparing it to the stock market? There is no track record shown in the FAQs.

2. What is the "somewhat" in "somewhat predictable"? The 7.3% estimated returns seem to come out of thin air with no backing calculations to them.

3. How are you returning capital to investors? This is nowhere in the FAQ. Do I actually get what I put in back or am I buying an interest rate depending on the life of the panels hoping to break even at some point?

4. If there is no secondary market, how do I re-coup any of my initial investment? Am I locked in for life? Circles back to question 3, is the principal returned after a fixed amount of time?

5. Do I receive a K-1 and operating losses due to panel depreciation?