It’s A Buyer’s Market for Cars
If you’ve been to a car lot in the past several months, you might have noticed that you get a little more attention than usual. Dealerships are desperate to start moving inventory in a market with way more cars than car buyers. With news in the past few weeks of Chrysler and General Motors shutting down up to 25% of their dealerships, expect the deals to get even hotter.
Car buyers are finding great deals in a couple of ways. First, they’re finding dealers much more willing to negotiate, either reducing the selling price or throwing in some of the bells and whistles that people like on new cars at no additional cost. The average price of a vehicle sold in the U.S. is down nearly 3% in just the past six months. In addition to the cost savings, many sellers are offering cash back rebates as incentives to get inventory moving again.
Dealers are even willing to take a loss on some cars. During the first quarter of 2009, more than a quarter of all 2009 vehicles sold in the US were sold below cost. That’s not just below the suggested retail price, but below the cost that the dealership paid for the car in the first place.
Savvy car buyers are having great success combining offers and incentives extended to them by desperate automakers and dealers. In one recent case, an Oregon buyer paid $18,000 for a $27,000 Mazda Miata after $4000 in discounts from the dealer and a $5000 rebate from the manufacturer. Not every buyer will find a deal like this, but if you’re in the market for a car, you can afford to be much more aggressive than in the past.
The flipside of this opportunity for car buyers is that if you need to sell a car to help finance a new car purchase, buyers are not easy to find right now. The buyers that are in the market are finding great deals buying cars off of lots or are having trouble getting financing outside of a dealership. Selling a car in this market will require patience and flexibility as buyers have all the negotiating power right now.
One underutilized tool that can help you to find a realistic and fair price on a car is the Internet. Several sites have emerged recently that reflect the actual prices being charged for particular cars at dealerships, giving buyers an idea of the types of deals that other buyers have found. This information can strengthen your negotiating position as a buyer.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tags: car buyers, dealer, discounts, Incentives, rebates
Related Posts
