$1000 Car Payments Are The New Normal

High Car Payments: A New Norm?
You can sleep in your car but you can’t drive your house — why would somebody pay a thousand dollars a month for a car payment? Do you have a thousand dollar car payment? Let us know in the comments what you think about a thousand dollars a month for a car payment.

Rising Costs and Long-Term Loans
According to Axios, thousand dollar car payments are very common now. Car payments look like mortgage payments. Well, that’s not true. They look like what mortgage payments used to look like. Now, mortgage payments are three thousand dollars, not one thousand, because the interest rates and the prices are higher.

Increasing Percentage of High Payments
According to the article, twelve percent of buyers who finance their new vehicles in June have payments of at least a thousand dollars. That’s up from seven percent in ’21 and 4.6 percent in 2019. Look, that’s double just in two and a half or three years. And we’re talking about long-term loans — 36 percent of borrowers had loans 73 to 84 months. That’s six, seven years. Gone are the days of three or four-year car loans because new car vehicle prices are averaging forty-seven thousand dollars.

Understanding the Math Behind High Payments
So why are car payments that high? How do you get to a thousand dollars a month? Well, it’s not that hard. If you want to calculate the payment on a motor vehicle, use the number two. Use a factor of two. What does that mean? Whatever you’re borrowing, whatever the car cost, multiply that number times two, and that’s your car payment. So if you have a fifty thousand dollar car, times two is a hundred thousand. Take the first four numbers — that’s a thousand. That’s it. You can figure out a car payment on any car very quickly.

Considerations on Affordability
Now, that’s figuring about a five percent interest rate on a five-year loan. So if you’re doing longer terms, the payment might be a little lower, or if the interest rate’s higher, might be a little higher. But the easy way to make a car payment is times two. Just multiply times two.

Moral and Financial Questions
So a thousand dollars a month really isn’t that surprising if cars are fifty grand. A fifty thousand dollar car is gonna have a thousand dollar car payment for five years. The question is, now that’s just the math part, that’s not the right or wrong part. The question is, is that right or wrong? Should you be spending a thousand dollars a month on a car payment?

Comparing Costs: Car vs. Home
Well, in order to have a thousand dollars take home, you probably need to make 1400 before taxes a month just for that car payment. Right? That’s 350 a week just for your car payment. That doesn’t account for insurance, gas, taxes, any other things that go into it. For most people, by the time you add up all the expenses for a new car, you could be talking two grand a month by the time you figure insurance, taxes, and gas for that car, or close to it. It’s a lot of money.

Shift in Economic Reality
How does that compare to a mortgage? Well, a mortgage payment on a house in 2017, an average house was two hundred, two hundred and fifty thousand with a three percent mortgage, you could be a thousand dollars a month for a house a few years ago. Now, you’re probably going to be twenty-five hundred a month for a house. But in three short years, four short years, a thousand dollars went from buying you a house to live in to a car. That’s a significant difference.

Financial Strategy: Old vs. New Cars
What does that mean? Well, if you have an older car that has no car payment, you’re saving a lot of money. You might be saving fifteen, twenty thousand a year. You might have to spend a little more on maintenance, but as long as it’s a pretty reliable car, may not be the worst thing in the world. What about if you have a car with an existing payment that’s three hundred or four hundred or five hundred? You might want to hang on to that car because when you trade it in to get a new car, you could be facing a thousand dollars.

Engagement and Feedback
What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear your comments about what is your reaction to seeing a thousand dollars a month. Have you shopped for a car lately? Have you seen thousand dollar car payments? You know, it used to be that you saw ads on TV and in the newspaper for car dealers advertising no money down, one ninety-nine a month, no money down, two hundred a month, whatever for a car. Those days are gone.

Market Realities and Consumer Accessibility
And they would have thousands, hundreds of cars on the lot. Now there’s not cars in a lot. What most people say is that although there appears to be a steady stream of affluent consumers, most consumers, the new car market is growing increasingly out of reach for most consumers. The new car market is out of reach. Same thing with houses. Who would have thought that a new car was out of reach for most consumers? That means used cars are the wave of the future. Maybe electric cars.

Visit Our YouTube Channel: For more insights and discussions on various topics, consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Click the link:

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.

Visit Our YouTube Channel for more insights and discussions on various topics. Consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. Click here!

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.

Visit Our YouTube Channel for more insights and discussions on various topics. Consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. Click here!

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.

Visit Our YouTube Channel for more insights and discussions on various topics. Consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. Click here!

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.

Visit Our YouTube Channel for more insights and discussions on various topics. Consider subscribing to our YouTube channel. Click here!