I always buy cars that appreciate in value but the two you've selected only depreciate in value.
If you want whatever car you buy to just be a throw away object then i suppose the accord seems ok for that.
Well i have driven a CVT once, it was a Honda Insight Hybrid.
But honnestlly i personally didnt like that CVT transmission at all.
It was reallly noisy, and not really that accurate.
I'm not a huge fan of automatic transmission in the first place as you know.
But i do think that there are way better automatic transmission systems on the market then CVT´s.
But of course thats all a personal opinion.
A more old skool conventional automatic, or something more modern with dual clutch systems are way nicer to drive imo.
Of course if you have a decent CVT it might also drive nicely.
But i personally didnt like the Honda one.
Here's my deal with the CVT. I've driven in my uncle's maxima with 200k+ miles on his CVT, and have seen what happens when they go bad. I understand that it is an eventuality. I do however like automatics, since for me it just works when it's working. Its one less thing to deal with, and I like automatics for that reason. A lot of people have been outspoken about not liking gps and rear view camera. Here's why I want those things.
The reason I really want the rear view camera is that in a year, depending on what happens in a year, this car may be going to my little brother, and he'll really need a camera to check when he's backing out. If the car goes to him, which it might because I may just move up to something newer in a year's time, it would be nice for him to have it. Really the gps isn't the biggest deal (since google maps duh), but most cars don't have a rear view camera if they don't have a gps since the screen is dual purpose. At least cars this old and price range.
The only reason I've picked an accord with gps is because it actually just happens to be the best accord in terms of engine, mileage, and shape, in my area, regardless of gps.
I dont know if there are any related issues like this known in the USA.
But i know that in Europe in the Nissan primera´s with cvt´s, cause allot of issues with the distribution chain of the SR20 engine.
The problem seemed to be that the cvt kept the rpm really low, which caused the distribution chains to stretch or something like that.
I'm not sure if this issue would also be an issue with the Maxima´s, since the maxima's have a different engine namely a V6, and those exally might have a timing belt instead of a chain idk.
And i´m also not sure what particular engine the Altima has.
Since we dont have Altima´s uphere.
But in europe the CVT with an SR20De engine was not a great combination.
According to wikipedia the 4th generation Altima Coupe SE's have a engine called the "VQ35DE"
Ah yeah the VQ series, those are V6 engines like also in the 350Z and such.
Great engines by the way.
Ah I saw a 350z. The dude that was selling it was sketchy, which sucked because it was lower mileage and under $6k.
350Z's are very nice sporty cars, and pretty reliable as far as i know.
Just check for rust and eventual damages.
However not sure if a 350Z would be ideal for daily, since yeah its a sports car.
It wasn't in good shape mechanically, and it was a bit more than I wanted to pay. Something was up with it, and you could just tell after driving it around the block. Slower than it should have been, the hood didn't fit right, a muffler cover or something was falling off and dragging off the bottom of the car, and the car creaked when it turned left but not right.
Those cars are often abuse in racings and such.
So yeah you need to be aware if you want one.
They can be pretty costlly to maintain.
Altima would be a better bett in that regards.
But just check for rust issues, i have read something about that.
And there are some video´s on youtube about that.
Similar issues that Mazda has with the 3 and 6 from 2003 till 2009.
Those are terrible rust buckets, unless you buy one in carlifornia where it barely rains.
Yeah and it's a Chicago car, so I'm definitely going to be looking for any rust spots. The guy says its clean of any rust, but I'm definitely going to check it over thoroughly and have a mechanic look over it if I like it.
Well if the Altima is rust free, then i can highly recommend if you buy it,
to give it a decent anti rust protection.
Man if its good I think I'm going to go for it. I just really like the styling of the altima coupe's. The Accord would probably be a smarter buy since it wouldn't have guaranteed imminent transmission problems, but I just keep coming back to that styling...
I agree that the Altima looks pretty good.
Unfortunatlly we wont see those uphere atall.
But i would say, just go and checkout on both really.
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Or you could buy a Mercedes, but i suppose those are pretty expensive there. 
Yeah man I had lunch with my longtime mechanic cousin, and what he said was stay away from German if your trying to keep repair costs down. He'd worked on CVT's as well, and he was more recommending of them than he was of German cars in this price range to be honest.
Yeah german cars are pretty expensive to maintain.
And from the last 8 / 10 years they arent that reliable either anymore.
The older ones are pretty decent, but newer ones, especialy things like Volkswagen group those arent that reliable anymore since 2008 tbh.
Japanése cars like Toyota, Honda, Mitsubitsi, Subaru, Nissan, Mazda,
are still the more reliable cars i think.
Especially Toyota and Mitsubitsi.
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I was gonna point out any kind of performance car will generally be abused unless you are buying for old people and even then they are not worth it because 90 percent the reason people sell them is that they cannot afford the maintenance
Someone's gotta say it, so I guess it'll be me: Mazda MX-5 Miata.
I'd just go with a Kia. Use that cash as big money down on something like a Forte or an Optima from 13-16. Get a full remainder of powertrain and bumper to bumper warranty as long as it's less than 60k miles. You'll finance about 6-8k max. pay it off in a couple years.