I think Tesla ran into the wall last year.
It’s funny how they claim to be a set price and yet they keep changing the prices.
Really throws a wrench in the whole buy from the factory and get the best price argument
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Yeah, I agree. Just chose you to reply to 
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Anyone who’s been around Tesla for more than a couple years knows this has always been modus operandi for them.
The market adjustment is built into the list price whether that’s up or down.
I would, if I could, move this discussion into a new “What to do with LH” thread. But I can’t. Maybe west coast mods will? 
Ha. Who’s the chicken and who’s the egg? Manufacturers can’t lose to dealers, maybe in the short term only.
My two cents on selling leasehackr:
I asked myself if the slickdeals owners would sell that site today. i told myself no. It’s a great resource and I’m sure the ad dollars/traffic has made it a valuable asset for them. I think of leasehackr the same way and think you should keep it because it could continue to gain value.
Here are a few more parallels to SD:
I know we like to think of this site as being worlds above slickdeals, but I see them the same. I started using slickdeals 20 years ago. I still follow it constantly to buy things I don’t need and always check there before I actually need something to ensure I’m not overpaying. Occasionally I’ll find a deal in the wild and will post if it’s not already known. Being an infrequent deal poster on that site is ok and the value is in complete information transparency, even if it’s YMMV.
I use leasehackr in a similar way, although slightly more skewed towards using when I need something. Im for sure on here the one time every few years when I need to find a new car. But in the last three years, I went through 6 different cars opportunistically (flipping, buying EQSs I didn’t need). And I’m an infrequent poster. This time around, I happened to discover that dealers on the west coast were more willing to negotiate on the EQS SUV and that was helpful to share (deal in the wild). I didn’t get the best deal, but I got a better deal than I could have just last month.
Where I think this site is different, and I’m going to theorize is a top 3 reason to blame for the increase the in “unwanted” traffic, is the common practice of not disclosing dealer info. I know this will cause a lot of stir, but I think not sharing the dealer publicity in my post is my biggest regret. For one, the DMs eventually annoyed me. But also, I think the concealing of information extended the window of opportunity for folks to try to negotiate a deal like/better than mine. Maybe that’s why redditors feel like they had a shot for days/weeks after the first EQS unicorn deal was posted and we had a slow trickle of additional deals in March. If I instead shared the dealer info, that hack goes away quickly in SoCal and only those who are on here constantly get the best opportunity. Reading complaints of what this site has turned into, I think that sense of being a power user and not getting the best deals is possibly what’s bothering folks. I get it. If I trolled slickdeals every day and I never got the FP deals, I’d stop using slickdeals.
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Does LeaseHackr run ads?
Honestly, I don’t know. If they do, I’ve never noticed them.
With slickdeals, if you click on a affliate link, slickdeals gets paid for the click/ sale? That’s not true with LH. Brokers pay to advertise. I don’t think the rate fluctuates based on number of sales.
Folks like us post our deals or gather info, and the owners make no money off of us. As @Ursus said, the owners probably have a good idea of what the value is
I think not sharing your dealer info was the right way to go about things. If you asked your dealer and they didn’t mind, that’s fine. I don’t know what it’s like to be a car salesman but I’d imagine the influx of calls/ tire kickers would have been overwhelming. Depending on how many cars they actually have in stock, it could be welcome leads or a nightmare.
I do agree though, we have all been there. The curious newb. Something about a luxury German vehicle for $500 a month……whether Macan or eqs….just brings enough attention to leasehackr to make the experience a little less pleasant
If LH gets sold and shuts down after a few months we can all just chat on this website, stealmymoney.com
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Or the north east EQS meet starts their own site!
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There is a section like that: https://forum.leasehackr.com/c/supporters-lounge/22
Some users who posted their deals might not have access to that section though.
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I didn’t know this existed. im just going to hang out there
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Great question. If monetization is the issue, I wouldn’t mind an ad here and there.
On your point about not sharing dealer info. I agree to an extent and recognize that the feeling of needing to save their inbox/voicemail comes from spending a lot of time with the salesperson and forming a relationship. That’s real. I similarly feel bad for the Target price match folks when I call and they already know about my hack. But if LH power users got in immediately, we could just mark the deal as dead and noobs would stop reaching out to them.
At the end of the day, I like LH and am hoping it doesn’t get shut down due to sale. I see potential for more value over time in this new regime with more casual users. Hope others do too.
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I didn’t even know that existed. Its like a secret room…hah
We should just share all the deals there. Need to verify password in order to go in.
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It’s only for supporters. Normal users can’t go in. " Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private."
Wow thank you for the responses. I didn’t mean to distract us from the memes.
We have no intention to sell at the moment. @michael and I truly enjoy building this community and the banter here.
As to the evolving nature of the community – I agree and have been exploring relaunching our Pre-Negotiated Deals program as a potential way to address this. By allowing low-effort users to get a fair deal outside of the forum, we can potentially:
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Reduce the friction on the forum and allow expert users to focus on leasehacking
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Allow sellers to move certain inventory at a higher margin from the non-forum demographic
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Enable LH to gain some marketing income to sustain its ecosystem
Obviously, this is contingent upon inventory recovery and sellers’ willingness to participate. If you know credible brokers/dealers who would be good candidates for this program, send them our way please!
@rmanzo7 We don’t see ourselves operating on the same business model as Slickdeals. Slickdeals relies heavily on advertising and affiliate marketing. We have worked really hard to avoid that, turning to crowdfunding instead where we ask everyone who can to chip in. When we do reach out to business for affiliate marketing opportunities, they are businesses that we think provide values to the community. We would pull back on our recommendation when we don’t think the program’s value proposition align with ours (e.g. First Republic’s increased interest rate). Funny enough, Slickdeals actually reached out to LH in its early days – we haven’t figured out a partnership model that would work between us yet.
You know, I never thought of this. That’s a good way to look at it (though there are so many auto forums out there).
I would be happy to move this to a new thread, but can we get a better title than “What to do with LH” so we don’t give out the wrong message? We are not looking to cash out. Everything we have built so far (Calculator, Rate Findr, SIGNED!) revolves around the core spirit of LH – helping users discover deals. We would definitely welcome more ideas on how to make LH an inclusive, sustainable platform without losing our hackr culture.
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I think cutting down on the chat in deal threads (and most others) and keeping it in Off Ramp would help on the signal to noise ratio and keep people more interested. The Edmunds “lease deal” threads that are Q&A don’t have people talking about how much their cousin likes their Bolt.
Example: way too may comments in an EQS deal thread like “Ohhhh, I have a car also. It has tires and my house has electricity. My neighbor has a car with navigation, I knew a person that bought a 1980 MB 300SD on BaT and Hunter Biden had a G63 after college.”
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