Fair enough! Just don’t be surprised when you don’t splash a full court shot.
Doc fee is on dealer location.
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Overshooting reality also often ends with your offer in the trash rather than with a reasonable counter offer.
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Just be careful. Wherever you register the car should be a valid residence of yours, not just somewhere to skip out on NY taxes.
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Yes, I occasionally do business in NJ and have a small apartment just for me to rest when I’m too tired to travel back to the city. The savings for me resting and the insurances and taxes are priceless.
Technically, if the car is mostly in NY, it is supposed to be registered and taxed in NY, but I’m not about to get into the intricacies of tax law, drive-off rules, time spent in a state (especially a neighboring one), etc. NY registrations are less expensive than those in Jersey, so really, you’re saving MAYBE $200 by registering a 3 series in NJ rather than NY.
Thats very important information, thank you for it. Honestly, I’m probably short sighted and only saw the savings in my tax and insurance rates.
But at this point, if I already know I just want a 3 series just to cruise and not picky with options, I should shop around different dealers and see which one bites 12% right?
Yes and no. There’s valuable information above, and as @mllcb42 said, you may rub a dealership the wrong way and they won’t entertain it. It’s all a guessing game. 11% is hard enough to get right now. For instance, I’m at 11% on orders but 10% in stock.
Are you prepared to engage a broker if you strike out with dealerships? The other thing is that you don’t want to contact so many dealerships that when and if you do decide to go to a broker, there’s a conflict of interest because you already contacted that dealership.
This is very interesting and something I’ve never heard before. Genuinely curious - why is it a conflict of interest? If I reach out with 10% pre-incentive and the dealer refused, and you as a broker are indeed able to get me 11%/10% from the same dealer - then I would consider the broker to have more than earned their fee.
You helped the customer get a better deal and the dealership got to move metal based on your arrangement with them. Win-win, no?
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It’s a conflict of interest with the dealership. It’s generally hands-off when a customer is already in the CRM. It’s not fair to the original salesperson, for one. Sometimes we get exceptions, but it’s better to not step on the toes of others if a customer has already been in contact with a dealership.
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It’s not limited to brokers either. There are many dealer representatives on here that can not work with you if you’ve already gone in and talked to someone else in person and that in person salesman can not get you anywhere near the same price. Different places have different non compete rules, etc.
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I was aware of this but didn’t realize it applied to external entities, like brokers in this case as well. IMO this makes more sense to me than putting same rules on the brokers too.
As a consumer and somewhat knowledgeable on what kind of factors go into a deal, I’d want to try my hand at any dealerships I can personally reach out to and if I’m still far away from what a broker is offering here, then would absolutely pay their fee to get a car through them. I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I atleast tried my hand at it first, albeit unsuccessfully.
Ehhh.
It reminds me this .
Sorry off the topic a little bit…
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Discount is a poor metric to look at in isolation because there are so many other ways to take money out of your pocket while nominally showing you a great discount.
The broader issue is that a good lease requires a trifecta of incentives, RV and MF on top of a good discount and that’s missing on the 3-series. You might want to look at the BMW 2-series and MB C300 too
Alternatively, if your credit is excellent you can swap into something like this.
NJ residents won’t have to pay tax again on it AFAIK.
You also risk blacklisting yourself from ever working with that dealership again when they just think you’re an unrealistic tire kicker.
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I had a customer that was previously working with a dealership I partner with. He was unrealistic with his expectations, and then came to me. He kept changing the goalposts, and when he finally settled on something that was in his budget, I was working with the dealership on it. Once I disclosed the name (unbeknownst to me he was previously working with them on his own at this point), they showed me the CRM notes on him, how he was unrealistic initially, and didn’t want to sell him the car, regardless of us working things out with me. That said, he also ghosted me anyways.
Long story short, there is some truth to the fact that being unrealistic then hiring a broker might not net you anything in the end. Not saying your 10% off scenario is unrealistic, but someone mentioned 13% above, which is highly unlikely unless it’s the final 15 minutes before closing time and 1 more sale needs completed to hit the target. Good luck finding that one dealer though.
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Thank you all for the great input. Its great to hear the perspectives of brokers and other consumers. The whole reason I started this thread was to check the market and try to get a good to great deal, but also be sure I had realistic expectations. I recognize the work it takes for the brokers, dealers and me, and I try to keep everyone’s effort as low as possible so we don’t waste each other’s time. This car is actually for my father so I’m also dealing with his “evolving” perspective. Thanks again!
More a “West End Girls” fan myself. 
True. However if you want an extraordinary, maybe unicorn deal, you need to push that boundary. And with that expectation, comes the understanding of having a high strike out ratio.
As such to the OP, set your expectations and requirements inline and proceed forward!
Right, my point was more about me reaching out to a dealer at 10/10.5% discount offer, they decline, then you as a broker getting me the same 10% from the same dealership I approached initially.