Automotive Industry Shocking Developments – Pricing & Availability

Inventory Woes in the New Car Market
As you probably know, there’s a lot going on in the automotive industry. Both new cars and used cars have a lot of changes going on. We’re going to talk about all of them. We’re going to talk about some wild price swings on vehicles and also some changes in the new car market and even the electric vehicle market, something that’s been overlooked.

New Cars: Inventory Crisis Deepens
First, with new cars, it’s getting worse with inventory. Look, you know a few months ago, beginning of the year, even last year, there was talk about does a chip shortage and inventory for new car dealers is less than it was. You probably have been driving by all of the new car dealers in your area and seeing empty lots or if you do see cars, if you look closely, they’re probably used cars, not new cars. Many large-scale new car dealers are down to single digit cars.

Severe Shortages and High Demand
Here’s an article where a major Chevy dealer used to have 80 cars on a lot, then it went down to 40 or 50. Now today, we have five according to the general manager of that dealership. And this is just not from this article; we talk to dealers every day. A lot of our clients are major dealers. We have a large-scale car dealership client in Fort Worth, Texas. They used to keep 250 to 300 cars on their lot. Now they have none. Every car that comes in is delivered the same day.

Slim Pickings: Impact on Consumer Choice
If you want to go to that dealership to see cars, they’re not going to be there. New car dealers are short on cars. We have a client that we’re working with that’s looking to get a certain type of minivan, a Chrysler Pacifica minivan hybrid, and in their area within a 300-mile radius, there is one Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivan. That one is pre-sold. In addition, the factory that builds them is shut down for a month and a half. New car inventory is thin and getting thinner.

Used Cars: Prices and Market Dynamics
What about used cars? Well, used cars, a different story. This article talks about home prices going up, but car values are set to fall, and this is used cars. Used cars are dropping like a stone. Here’s why: for the last six or eight months, many people who wanted to buy a new car weren’t able to find one, so they bought used. Some of these used cars were selling for more than what they did brand new two or three years old.

Unprecedented Price Fluctuations
Some dealers are actually raising prices of used cars that are sitting on their lot. It used to be that used cars depreciated over time. Every week or every month, the new book value came out, and it was less than it was the last book. Some of these cars are going up in value. And if you watch the auction results, Mannheim Odessa, the major auctions, some cars are selling for more than they did even a month or two before. When the dealership sees that the car under a lot is there selling for more, they might mark it up, not marking down cars like they used to, but marking them up over time.

Changing Market Dynamics
That’s all changing. There are big volumes of repossessed vehicles starting to hit the marketplace. More cars that are non-fuel efficient are going down in value: SUVs, larger trucks because of the gas price inflation is starting to create demand destruction. Meaning that as people spend more money on gas for their car, groceries, rent is going up, they have less money to spend on vehicles. So more expensive vehicles or extra vehicles are not being purchased, right?

Electric Vehicles: New Entrants and Market Reception
What about electric vehicles? Well, there’s a new company called VinFast. It’s a Vietnamese startup that has electric vehicle crossovers. They’re going to start their first showrooms in California. 24 more stores open by the end of 22. So they’re going to have close to 30 dealerships by the end of this year and develop rapidly. They’re targeting high-volume production as well.

The Future of Electric Vehicles
What are your thoughts on electric vehicles? Is this the wave of the future? Is it a fad? Is it something you’re interested in? If that was the only new vehicle that you could get, would you buy one? An electric vehicle in general or a new car company in particular? Or do you want to wait to see, are their vehicles going to be any good? Are they going to be reliable? Are they going to break down? Have you even heard of this company VinFast? If you’re in California, do you see where they’re constructing one of these showrooms?

Conclusion: Industry Challenges and Opportunities
The car business is probably right now at a historic moment in things changing in dynamic results of the industry. New cars are in shorter supply ever in history, used cars prices are dropping like a stone, and electric vehicles are having new offerings. Here’s something else about new cars: there’s an old joke back in the days of Soviet Russia, the USSR, that if you bought a car, you might have to wait two years to get a new car, three years to get a new car if you ordered one.

Looking Ahead: Adaptation and Uncertainty
And that used to be an unbelievably kind of fantasy joke that nobody could understand like how could you wait that long? Well, here in the US, many types of cars, if you want to order one, might be a five or six-month wait. It’s not three years, but it’s also not a week or two. Call up any of your local dealers and ask them if you were going to order a new car, how long would it take? Whatever they tell you, take it with a grain of salt, add a little bit because they might give you a shorter optimistic number. But for most vehicles, if you get an honest answer, it’s five or six months and it could end up being longer.

Closing Thoughts and Engagement
The chip shortage excuse is no longer really an excuse. It’s more the companies are ramping down production because that’s the new business model for dealerships is to not have inventory. Let us know what you think in the comments. We’ll see in the next video episode.

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Vermont Title Loophole Facts: Tax & Residency

Today we’re going to talk about the very popular Vermont registration title process that many people use in all parts of the country to get valid ownership documents for their vehicle. A lot of questions come up about this. Do you have to be a resident of Vermont? What paperwork do you need? What about taxes? These are very common questions, and we’re going to look at all those and we’re going to get the information directly from the Vermont DMV.

Getting Information from Vermont DMV
So, we’re going to get it from the horse’s mouth like they say. We’re not going to use any kind of urban legends or old wives’ tales or anything that you might hear online. We’re going to get it right from the Vermont DMV. First, we’re going to look at the FAQ page on the official Vermont Government website.

FAQ Page on Vermont Government Website
FAQs:
Can someone else fill out the registration form for me? Yes, someone else can complete it but you have to sign it. Application must be signed by the owners of the applicant, that’s you.
How long do I have to get inspected? Well, inspection is only for newer vehicles, so it doesn’t really count as far as older vehicles.
Do I have to be a Vermont registered resident to register a vehicle in Vermont? No, anyone can register a vehicle in Vermont. That’s key.
Do I need a Vermont license to register? No, anyone can register a vehicle. Notice the answer is the same. So don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. As of right now, you can register as a non-resident.

Required Documents
Now, what paperwork are you going to need? Well, we’re going to use their required document wizard. What do you need to have? It also tells you completing your forms prior to coming to the DMV makes it easier. Now, if you’re from another state, you’re not going to go to DMV, you’re going to do it by mail.

Types of Vehicles and Eligibility
First, it’s going to tell you what type of vehicle do you have? Auto, Truck, motorcycle. So we’re going to put in Auto. The answers are going to be pretty much the same. Next is most important question is your auto 15 years or newer? 15 years or newer? This Vermont process is for vehicles that are 15 years or older. So if you have right now a 2008 model or older, that’s what’s designed to be used for this process. So remember, 15 years and older is what this process is for. So this question asks you is your vehicle 15 years or newer?

Required Documentation
No, what do you need? Well, there’s no other questions, required documentation. Please complete the forms, VD119, VT005, fill in these sections, and either bring or mail the form to the Department of Motor Vehicles. That’s it, end of story. There are no more questions, no more questionnaires, right? So it’s very simple, you have to fill out the forms properly because we talked to Vermont DMV very frequently, and they tell us all the time that there are common errors people make on these forms. So make sure you fill it in right, but that’s all you need, required documentation, complete the forms.

Bill of Sale and Required Fees
Now, one of those sections is about a bill of sale. You need to have a bill of sale for this, so make sure you do that.

Taxes and Fees
Required fees:
What fees will be due, taxes is what people ask about. How much tax do I have to pay? Well, let’s see what Vermont says about that. Here’s their page on taxes, official government website. Purchase and use tax is due at the time of registration. It’s a percentage of the purchase price or NADA clean trading value, whichever is greater, minus the value of a trade-in, which normally doesn’t apply because you’re not buying it from a dealer, you’re not trading in a vehicle. So, this is where people kind of get a little bit anxious.

Tax Rates and Options
Well, NADA, it seems like it’s too much money. Well, maybe it is, maybe it’s not. However, you have a few options. It says NADA clean Book value is due and less exempt. We have a couple options. First of all, their website says NADA clean trade and Book value. However, the Vermont statutes, the actual laws on the books, tell you that you can use some other value guides if they’re accepted on some older vehicles, on some trucks, on some alternate vehicles. You can use other guides. Now, NADA still might be less, but you can look at the other guides if you believe the vehicle’s value is less than NADA value, you can submit an appraisal form. Well, that’s one of the things that we prepare a lot for our clients, is this appraisal form because they want to come in with a lower value. So be aware, you can do that.

Tax Credits and Special Vehicles
Then you have some other options. If you are claiming a tax credit for a vehicle registered to you out of state, send a copy of the registration certificate. This normally doesn’t apply, but you may have already paid some taxes for this vehicle that you get a credit for. And here’s your tax rates. Tax rate basically is 6 percent across the board, except for short-term vehicle rental, which is 9 percent, but everything, ATV, auto, boat, motorcycle, motorhome, trucks, 10,000 pounds in over or under, all other vehicles, everything is 6 percent.

Special Vehicles and Maximum Tax
Now, there’s a couple things from this table which are very, very helpful. First of all, on some larger vehicles, 10,000 pounds or more, or other vehicles which are, you know, kind of specialty vehicles, there’s a maximum tax of $2,000. So you might max out your taxes.

Conclusion and Additional Information
Also, it tells you what type of vehicles you can register. People ask all the time, can I do an ATV? Yep, it’s right here on the classification. Motorboat? Yep, you can do that too. Now, you notice it says motorboat, it’s not kayak, canoe, gotta have a motor. Motorcycles? Yep. Motorhomes? Yep. Trucks, doesn’t matter if it’s above 10,000 pounds, 10,100 actually, you can register it. The taxes where people get tripped up, you may believe that your vehicle is not worth that much and you don’t want to pay that much tax. You have two options. You can fill out the Vermont appraisal form or you can look at another title method that’s not through Vermont that maybe doesn’t have tax. So if you want to use the Vermont method, you have to pay them their tax. Their law says you have to use book value. If you don’t think you feel like you want to pay book value, that’s fine. Look at another method. Maybe buy the title, maybe lean title, maybe magistrate title. There’s other methods. You’ll see them on our website that maybe don’t have taxes, but they may have something else you don’t like or use the Vermont appraisal form, which we provide when we do the order. Vermont can make it their determination. Maybe your vehicle is worth less than the book value.

Additional Instructions and Limitations
So that’s an overview of the Vermont process as of December 2022. We’re doing this in advance of 2023. Remember that there’s other instructions you need to follow. You need to have a bill of sale. You need to have a proper vehicle. You can’t have one that’s salvage or parts only or junk or things like that. You have to have a legitimate vehicle. And there’s other limitations we’re going to talk about in another video about military vehicles, these former military surplus vehicles that are now something that could be a problem for some applicants. Hopefully, that helps. Check out our website, we’re glad to be of assistance.

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Automotive Media Content

Hello, if your organization needs professional content with regard to automotive documentation and automotive expertise, our company Title Assets can provide content for your website, your blog, even for your videos in a multiple of media formats.

Expertise in Automotive Titling and Documentation
We have experts that are trained in automotive titling and automotive documentation. We can describe processes for your viewers or your visitors such as what you see on screen for vehicle title documents.

VIN Decoding and Verification
We also have the ability to discuss subjects such as VIN decoding or VIN verification.

Licensed Insurance Brokerage Services
We have a division that is a licensed insurance brokerage, so we can discuss things like deck pages or insurance coverages on classic cars. One of the things that happens on classic cars in many cases has to do with vehicle documentation, and we have divisions that can handle that as well.

Content for Various Media Formats
So whether you need a blog post, a newsletter, or video content for your website or for a YouTube channel, feel free to reach out to us. We’re glad to provide free content, whether it’s branded or otherwise, for our partners that have media companies or publications that need an expert that’s documented in the area of automotive documentation, automotive titling, or insurance that might be of value to your viewers or to the readers of your various media publications.

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Carvana Title Problems Indicator Of Larger Problems?

Look, we promised to try not to keep beating this dead horse with Carvana, but there are some interesting developments. Even though we’ve been touching on it every week or so and we think that’s the last you’re going to hear of it, there’s more.

Stock Performance and Decline
Here’s the thing: Carvana, even though it had fallen from 300 plus down to 50, then to 30, then hovered around 20 for a while, took an even bigger nosedive last week. It went down from the mid-teens (15, 16) down to eight point something. You can see their chart here. This is a one-year chart. It was up 300; now it’s down, you know, in the eights.

Reasons Behind the Decline
Why is this? What’s going on with Carvana? We’ve talked about before what some of the risks might be. What’s the automotive industry component of this? What is the automotive structural documentation part of this? Well, every aspect of their business is in decline: their top-line sales, their net profit, their profit per vehicle, their expenses are up, and now they have some debt obligations to take into account. Their gross profit is off more than a third, and there are a few aspects in play.

Title and Registration Issues
We’re going to talk mostly about the documentation part of it—the title and registration part of it. When you have a major automotive company like Carvana, or any large dealership, that has chronic documentation problems, that in itself is a canary in a coal mine. Look, every dealership can run into a title problem. We deal with this all the time with vehicle titles. We do titles for dealerships, auctions, lenders, financial institutions—all the time. Anybody can run into a title problem. It’s not that nobody’s immune to it, but normally it’s an exception to the rule. A dealership might have one or two title problems a year; a bank might have a few title problems a week if it’s a large financial institution. For a public company the size of Carvana to have ongoing title issues and chronic title problems, that means something.

Nature of Title Problems
It doesn’t necessarily have to be nefarious, like they’re selling stolen vehicles or they’re not getting titles from lien holders or they’re not paying off cars. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that, but it does mean that one area of their business—managing title paperwork—is not being executed properly. That’s just one small area. There is marketing, sales, finance, and then you have title paperwork. Title paperwork is not the most complicated part of a dealership. It’s not the hardest to do. It doesn’t require the most people. It’s actually pretty straightforward. The rules and the processes for doing car titles are established. You can read the requirements at the DMV checklist. You can get instruction from the titling division in the state. There’s no mystery to it.

Complexity of Other Areas
Sales, on the other hand, has some mystery to it. Marketing has a lot of gray area; in marketing, there’s a lot of art versus science. So, if a company is not doing well in sales and not doing well in marketing, you can kind of say, “Well, they’re at least trying. They may not be great at it, but there’s some gray area.” If the one part of retailing motor vehicles, which is car titles—something very specific and very etched in stone—is not being executed, that’s a management question. How do you not have the ability to execute something that is very clearly defined within a company, a small part of that company, and something that every dealership gets right for the most part? Even dealerships that fail financially usually get their titles right.

Speculations and Hypotheses
Now, there’s been a lot of speculation about why that’s the case. Maybe they didn’t hire enough people. Well, Carvana has a lot of employees. Maybe they’re just unorganized. Well, that’s a problem. If you’re unorganized in that area, that kind of indicates that you might not be organized somewhere else. Maybe it’s something more nefarious. Maybe there are problems with these titles. Maybe there are problems with liens. Maybe there are floor plan loans that are not being paid off fast enough. Again, we’re not accusing of anything, but we’re just speculating on what could be the reasons without conspicuous or transparent reasons from Carvana why these title paperwork problems are still happening. You can only speculate, right? You don’t have a reason to know what the actual fault is inside the company.

History of Title Problems
And it’s not something that just started. This has been going on for several years. The first complaints about Carvana’s car title paperwork problems were at least as far back as 2020. Sometimes you can go back and find some in 2019. That’s two or three years ago. If you can’t solve a title problem in two or three years, maybe it’s not solvable. Maybe it’s something chronic within your business that you cannot solve. It’s probably not just a numbers game because bigger companies obviously have more problems, but it’s happening in all of their operating areas. All the states that they operate in have had some title problems—some minor, some major. Some of the states have shut them down. In fact, this week another state shut down Carvana’s license because they didn’t get titles out fast enough. There are some people still waiting more than a year for titles for vehicles.

Market Sentiments
Again, not to beat a dead horse or kick somebody when they’re down. We’re not trying to disparage Carvana. We don’t know if they’re a good company or bad company. We do know that a lot of people in the financial side are betting against them because their stock has gone down. People that put their money where their mouth is with their opinions say that their opinion is, “We don’t like Carvana. We’re selling the stock down to eight dollars and below.” One of the large financial research companies put a one-dollar stock estimate on the price of their shares. They say their stock could be worth a dollar. Basically, it’s nothing.

Concluding Thoughts
Some of it has to do with the headwinds in the economy: inflation, interest rates, car prices, many other things. But when you have a part of your operation that’s relatively straightforward—it’s not simple, you know, car titles is hard to do, but it’s straightforward, it’s easy to define and understand—you can put people in a room, tell them exactly what to do, there’s no question about it, and that’s not getting done, that might indicate that they’re not running a tight ship, right? That there are other parts of it that are loose. And in an environment like we’re in, with inflation and interest rates and vehicle market upheaval, if you’re not running a tight ship, you’re probably not going to survive. Even if you are running a tight ship, it’s going to be a struggle. If you’re not running a tight ship, it might make it even harder or impossible to dig yourself out of such a hole. Allegedly.

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Are Court Ordered Car Titles Easy?

Here we are once again with another in our series about vehicle court order titles. This is a very popular subject for our Channel and for our title division where if you have a vehicle that was purchased without a title, what are your options? Well, in some states you can do a bonded title, but there’s a downside to that. You have to purchase a shitty bond which sometimes is one and a half times the value of the vehicle. You may be able to do some other types of contacting prior owners and getting lean releases, but in most cases, a court order title is the most direct, powerful way to go.

Lack of Set Procedures
Now the problem is, in most counties, they don’t have a set procedure for this. They don’t have a set set of forms. However, in about 15 counties in the country, there is a package of documents that are provided with instructions, and we like to show you those so even if you’re not in one of those counties, you can see how the process works.

Example from Kansas
So here is a perfect example of a set of documents. It happens to be in a county in the state of Kansas about what they call a quiet title. That’s what they call their court order title. They call it quiet title, and The Quiet Title statute talks about determining title or interest in property and they’re talking about title with the Department of Motor Vehicles, so there you go, title to a motor vehicle. How does it work if you are a person who purchased a vehicle without a title and the last owner isn’t available? That is a reason. So it says often because the initial owner of the vehicle did not sign the title when handing it over, and the new owner can’t find the title to fix the problem. From time to time, it’s because the vehicle is wrecked or abandoned.

Abandoned Vehicles and Other Issues
Here’s an example of abandoned vehicles, just possible reasons. So anything that has a title problem, and here’s where they talk about the basics of it. A quiet title action can be used to clear up ownership on any vehicle which title is given by the state of Kansas. It can include a car, motorcycle, travel trailer, manufactured home, so it’s important to see that it could also be a mobile home.

Steps Before Filing
The first step before filing any action is to make sure the vehicle is not stolen. This is very important. You want to make sure it’s not a stolen vehicle. This is another example of something we’ve talked about before. You can check if it’s stolen on NICB, gives you the link right there. For NICB, it tells you a very important disclaimer. It says you can do this by checking on this free website provided by the National Insurance Crime Bureau and NICB VIN. This doesn’t guarantee the car isn’t stolen, but it’s a good start. We talk about this all the time. If you are looking on any of these online VIN checks, Carfax, NICB VIN Checker, VIN audit, whatever it is, they have some information, but it’s not 100%, especially when it comes to liens. If the vehicle is reported stolen, you won’t be able to file a quiet title action and obtain ownership. That’s obvious. It’s one of the reasons we tell you to do this because, Norm, if you file for a court order title, in this case called Quiet Title, you’ll get a title as long as the vehicle is not stolen.

Checking for Title
If you don’t have a current title, you should look up whether a Kansas title has been issued. That helps you know which direction to go. It’ll also tell you who other parties are. The person filing the case is the plaintiff, that’s you, that’s the person who ultimately wants to have their name on the card. That’s the plaintiff. Here is the Civil Information Sheet that you fill out for this process, a bunch of check boxes. You put in the plaintiff’s name, defendant’s name, and they already have this filled in for you. The defendant is the Kansas Department of Revenue. That’s who issues titles. They already have it filled in, so that’s helpful. If there are any other defendants like lien holders or prior owners, you put them here. I have a lot of places for that, and it tells you what you’re trying to do here is the Civil Petition. The plaintiff is you, plaintiff blank, claims against defendants involving a car motorcycle VIN number. Plaintiff U. Joe is a resident of County Kansas residing at it tells you the wording for the court order title. Plaintiff requests judgment as follows: to issue a new certificate of title for property in the name of the plaintiff. That’s what you’re asking for.

Documentation Requirements
Normally they’re going to require you to provide some documentation about how you purchased the vehicle, also some documentation that you tried to contact the prior owner. You put an ad in the newspaper, you did an Affidavit of Service that you did these certain things. This is the affidavit to obtain service. The reason for showing you this is because most counties don’t have these pre-made documents. There are 3,611 counties in the country. There’s only about 15 that have any kind of pre-done paperwork for a court order title. In fact, most counties, if you walk in and say, “I want to do a court order title or a Quiet Title,” they’re not going to know what you’re talking about because it’s not a predefined type of case for them like a small claims case or a divorce case. So you have to do all the work. However, you can use these templates. You can cut and paste from this to make up your own documents.

County Variations and Assistance
Now every County’s a little different. Some counties might want the wording different, some counties might want the plaintiff different, but at least if you have something you can file, they can tell you what to fix. If you go in empty-handed with nothing and say, “Hey, what do I fill out?” they can’t help you. They’re not allowed to do this because they consider it legal advice by a government agency. But if you go in at least with some paperwork filled out, prepared, and it’s wrong, they can tell you, “No, this is wrong. You have to fix it.” And a lot of times it’s trial and error anyway because the clerk or the magistrate might want it different every month to month as they develop their procedures.

Conclusion and Takeaways
This is a good example of a court order title. They call it quiet title. A couple of takeaways from this video is, in most cases, your county is not going to have this. They’re not going to have these paperwork examples for you to use. You’re going to have to fill it out on your own. Now our website will have some examples you can use. The other takeaway from it is that it’s enough of a process that some counties are creating this. They give you instructions. We’re on page four right here, four of 16. The instructions are the first five pages. What to do for service, what to do for submitting a case, what the filing fees are, hearing date finalized, it gives you all the details. So the instructions are important. Just having these forms by itself isn’t enough. If you had these forms but didn’t know the instructions, you’d be out of luck. So make sure that you read through some example instructions from some County. This particular County in Kansas has it. There are a few counties in Ohio that have it. Get an idea of what the instructions are. We have videos that will give you some instructions as well. We also have a title service if you want assistance with this. We could do that, but keep in mind that not every County calls it the same thing. Some call it court order title, some call it magistrate title, some call it quiet title, some just call it a petition of ownership, some call it a writ of mandamus. Forget about the language, the wording, just do the process that matches for what your county is. If you have any questions, you can reach us on our website. We’re glad to be of assistance.

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