Broker quotes conventions in marketplace

Maybe I’m misremembering but I think in the old days (2016) lease quotes were always with first month or zero down to make it easier to compare deals. This is the convention stated in the leasing 101 page.

However, since 2021 most broker quotes in the marketplace are all $/month +DAS.

Anyone know why this changed? I think it makes it harder to value deals. Wouldn’t it be easier to have a standard quote requirement for all posts?

If I’m totally wrong and it’s always been this way, please do call it out.

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I (Ashleigh) post things with first month + fees at signing because things like registration costs vary greatly from state-to-state. A lot of people also want a breakdown of the fees and consider them as sunk costs and pay them up-front. It’s pretty easy to estimate what it would be with just the first month at signing, though.

There are requirements to be transparent, so I try to lay everything out for buyers.

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you’re totally wrong.

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Too many variables from location to location. Imagine having to reverse engineer and reconstruct every offer in order to get relevant numbers.

Even within CA, there’s a 3.5% sales tax swing, depending on the city where the car is registered.

Plus people don’t shop exclusively where they live.

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To me, it’s logical to take out the variable that can change, not to mention, 80% of my customers actually do structure deals that way in the end, so it makes sense to show it that way.

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This is asked at least twice a year and the answer is the same, the broker pays to post on this site and gets the deals direct from the dealer, so why should they spend time and money to recalculate the deal just for some LHer’s convenience.

If you want the car then spend a few minutes converting it to $0 if you want it to be zero.

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If this site has taught me anything, it’s that someone may have good credit, but they generally have $0 savings to their name and live paycheck to paycheck. Take the 25k one pay Porsche Cayenne transfer, for example. It was effectively $800ish per month, and it barely got any bites. If it was $800/month with zero down, there would’ve been a line out the door. The balance sheets of most people in this country are atrocious.

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I prefer to tie up 25k in stocks and pay $800 from my cashflow. YMMV of course.

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Let’s assume on a good day you can lease a Cayenne for $1300/month with $0 down today. By utilizing the one pay being offered for transfer, you would save approximately $400/month for 24 months, or nearly $10,000. You’re going to make me 40% on my money in 2 years without taking unnecessary risks? Can I give you all my money to invest? I’d gamble 75% of those on this forum don’t have 25k to their name. I also don’t want to hear that “what if I total the car” BS. My wife and I combined have dozens of years of driving experience with 0 totaled cars. Don’t spend your time worrying about the lowest statistical probability.

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Doc fee ,acquisition and many others do not change by state. I don’t blame brokers for trying to show a low upfront price but at this point it’s not much different then those dealer ads LH dislike

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As a refresher these are the

Advertising Standards

Dealer or Broker advertisements posted on, or linked to, the Marketplace should include the following:

  • Approximate MSRP
  • Amount due at signing
  • Monthly payment
  • Months and annual mileage
  • Broker fee amount, if required (disclose on every post that contains a deal, not just OP)

If the amount due at signing is advertised as “first + taxes + fees”, provide an estimation of the drive-off amount based on seller’s state.

Discounts that are advertised as a percentage off MSRP should indicate the money factor rate markup (if any) and/or the required dealer add-ons (if applicable).

If conditional incentives are included in the deal, disclose the dollar amount of those incentives, and provide an estimate as to how much more the deal would be without incentives.

Marketplace titles that include a monthly payment shall specify what is due at signing. Titles shall not be predominantly in all-caps.

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That may be true but it’s not relevant to the topic. Let’s stay on topic.

I have noticed that the cap cost reductions built into the drive-offs have steadily gone up from some of the deals.

I like how @oarfish18 and @Jeff_BeachCitiesAuto structure their deals in CA - $2k das. I think that’s a reasonable amount at drive-off.

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I totally understand the POV of the brokers to keep their listings as generic as possible to avoid confusion across different states/tax implications/etc.

The one portion that bothers me is the assumptions/inclusion of loyalty, directed loyalty(BMW) and MSD’s in the quote. This is similar to Mfg/dealer quotes where they assume you qualify for being a student, a doctor, and a lawyer all at the same time lol

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This comes up yearly, nothing changes. Ideally, it should be effective cost + tax and gov’t fees. Effective cost should include broker fee + dealer add-ons.

Some brokers here are awesome, transparent with all fees, DAS, incentive assumptions, and terms. Others you only find out after clicking into the calculator or sending an inquiry. Sometimes you don’t even get a calculator link.

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How about they post cars that they have access to as opposed to bait and switching. That was an annoyance when I dealt with a few brokers!

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I like this idea. It’s more transparent and somewhat standardized. The Private Transfers section requires posters to show effective cost, maybe It will be useful marketplace too.

Maybe taxes can be left out since they vary by state.

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I don’t care how they structure a lease in this market.

  1. $ off MSRP is minimal
  2. Incentives/Rebates are not great
  3. Residuals are low for the most part
  4. Money factors need another 0 after the decimal

Hopefully the benchmark of 1% of the MSRP with $0 down comes back again, but doubtful.

Arguably the discounts, rebates and rates aren’t much worse than they were 4-5 years ago.

The residuals aren’t as friendly though and the MSRP’s are higher (sometimes considerably) than back then as well.

BMW rebates/incentives have been pretty poor on ICE cars. I see dealers discounting to near same levels, but Mfg programs (MF, RV, Rebates) are not helping.