Can I finance a new car without a heavy down payment? Leasing is screwy right now as we all know and I am about to start a new leasing cycle but want an exit option if I finance however without any or very small down payment. My last 4 leases were Zero Drive off, just first month and DMV. I’ve never financed but it is more appealing during this current climate.
Yes you can do $0 down as long as your credit is ok
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Not every lender does 0 down.
Is 10% a prerequisite or can one just do 1k or 2k? just curious if anyone has any experience.,
Some require LTV 90 or 80%.
All depends on your credit and the price of the car. Ultimately it might comes down to Loan to (Vehicle) Value ratio. Or your debt / payment to income ratio.
He doesn’t need every lender to do it, just one. 
On a new car as long as you’re not over MSRP for selling price, should be simple to find a bank or CU to do 100% financing as long as you have good credit. On used cars the LTV needs to be in line but still not that hard to do. Sure there are outlier banks that won’t do that, but who cares - you have options as long as credit is ok.
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Can good credit be considered a 750+ score? Wife is around 800+ since I carry the household debt. Will have to make this a joint app to reap the lower APR.
On a car loan, 750+ is plenty high enough to be consodered good credit (tier 1) with most banks.
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Maybe balloon payment is an option?
Never had any issue with putting $0 on a car loan/lease, although I usually just do first month down…. Tesla did make me pay taxes/registration. If credit and income are fine, shouldn’t be an issue
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Make sure you account for gap insurance when putting little to 0 down.
Only if it pencils though. In some cases, if the deal you got was good enough and the value of the car is high enough, the potential loss may not be much higher than the cost of GAP (which could be $500-$800). Given how unlikely a total loss is, I’d only do it if I felt that value delta was above $2k for a long enough period of time.
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Thats if the deal is strong enough, sure. If not, GAP is refundable (prorated) - at least it is here in FL. Buy it, and after a year or so of payments evaluate the balance vs value and you can recover the bulk of it.
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