Nothing like free money to boost sales

By Peter Boockvar - April 20th, 2010, 3:37PM

There is nothing like free money and maybe a softening of lending standards to get people to buy things again. Edmunds.com is reporting that March 2010 saw a record number of automobiles purchased with zero financing. The total of 22% of transactions exceeded the previous high of 21% in July 2006. The stark difference though of course is the total number of vehicle sales between the two periods. In March 2010 the SAAR was 11.77mm (highest since Sept ’08 ex clunkers) and in July 2006 it was 17.07mm.

PERMALINK
Category: MacroNotes.

Comments

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

2 Responses to “Nothing like free money to boost sales”

ashpelham2 Says:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Lots of brand new car tags rolling around here these days, in central Alabama. Lots of ‘em. Maybe this economy isn’t as bad as we think it is .
lalaland Says:
April 20th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Yeah but what does it say when you only sell 2/3 the cars you used to with free money when there’s no free money for anything else?

Free money used to be a competitive field – you could get free chinese crap (credit card rewards) or expensive chinese crap (whatever else you purchased with your 0% apr for 6 months). Also there were homes (liar loans and other home mortgage products) and home atm’s (refis).

Now the auto industry has a lock on free money (except the FHA and even those are tightening) and they are still selling 2/3rds less cars? Sad, really, the state of the auto industry. Bicycle sales remain skyhigh btw…