Now is a great time to trade-in your vehicle

If you are looking to replace your current vehicle with a newer model, now is a great time to do so.  We probably shouldn't be telling you this, but dealerships are really looking for vehicles to add to their pre-owned vehicle fleet which means as a consumer with a trade-in vehicle, you benefit all the way.

Point blank, resale values and trade-in values have never been higher, and if you are looking to replace your current vehicle, you could get a great deal on your trade-in. Here are a few things to know about how things work with a trade-in vehicle.

For starters, the value will always be a little bit lower when you trade in your vehicle. That's because you are getting the book value, not the market value. The market value is what the dealership or you could get selling a vehicle yourself. That said, there are a lot of considerations to take into account here.

Selling a vehicle yourself is not necessarily an easy thing to do. You have to take phone calls from prospective buyers at all times of the day, and you have to set up times to meet these potential buyers which will definitely cut into your weekends or evenings. Then you have to make sure the vehicle is always clean and it is free of any potential problems.

Look at it this way, a dealership taking your vehicle as a trade in won't be overly worried about a small scratch on the bumper. A potential buyer may ask you to take a few thousand dollars off the price of your car when selling it yourself for that same scratch.

And then there are the tax implications. A trade-in vehicle is calculated before taxes are applied on the price of the new car while a cash deposit is applied after taxes.  In other words, your trade-in value is actually the amount you get plus tax. The market price is just the amount you get if you apply it as a deposit.

So sometimes, even if on paper there is a $2,000 or $3,000 difference between the market value and the book value, at the end of the day taking into account the headaches that you're saving and the taxes, you may just be getting the same value or more value by trading it in especially right now with prices being so high.  This is definitely worth checking out. Give us a call today to learn more.