When is the best time to buy a new car?
This is a question that I get asked on a fairly regular basis.
The absolute best answer there is to this question would be … the best time to buy a car is when there is a fair amount of pressure being exerted on the car dealership and sales people, either by ownership or the manufacturers.
Trust me, it all rolls downhill. And at times the pressure can be very real and very purposeful.
So what are you going to do?
Call various dealerships and salespeople and ask what kind of month they’re having and if the pressure is up high enough that if you come in you’ll be assured that your deal will be a sweet one? Well, you could take that approach… good luck. How are you going to know this?
Seriously though, the best time to buy a new car is traditionally when the new year models begin to hit the floor at the auto dealership. This begins in earnest late in the summer to early in the fall. And with each passing day that the year older models remain on the lot, the incentive for them to be sold grows in importance. It’s just a matter of the market at work. Every dealer must move their inventory.
Every year in the fall until the end of the year you’ll hear the local automobile dealers and the manufacturers themselves begin to tell you how much you can save now and how they have to make room for the new arrivals. And as for the message itself this tends to be true.
As the calendar year begins to rapidly come to a close on those in the car sales industry, the urgency will continue to increase. This is where a bit of flexibility on your part can literally save you thousands of dollars on your next car purchase.
With flexibility, I am referring to the more the better in terms of make, model, color, options, etc. As you can imagine, the closing year’s models aren’t going to be reordered or renewed.
Knowing this you may have your eye on a particular car at a particular dealer, but the risk is if someone else buys it ahead of you, you may not be able to find that exact car again. And, of course, as the absolute end of the year closes in, you won’t have the selection that you had earlier.
But having said this, you will have the opportunity to negotiate a very good car deal. This is where your flexibility saves you big money on your car purchase.
The key to car shopping this time of year is to realize that you may lose the car you are looking at to a more eager buyer and that your selection and option choices will dwindle as time goes by. Being mentally prepared for this and above all don’t get emotionally attached to any one car that you see possibilities in.
With your emotions in check, and your flexibility at its highest, buying a new car at the end of the model year is (as a general rule of thumb) the best time to buy a new car.
The end of the model year strategy next…
