I have been thinking of getting a new minivan because my old camry is getting really old, and things are starting to break down. With my friend’s help, we both each bought a new 2007 Honda Odyssey. Before tax and fees, we paid roughly $23,900 for the car, which has a price of $24,584 from carsdirect.com, an invoice price of $25,846 from Yahoo, and a MSRP of $29,330.
Why did I choose this car? I have been extremely busy at work, so I simply relied on my friends’ advice for the choice of car. In fact, I only spent part of the last 3 days shopping for the car. Because my friend told me that both Toyota and Honda have a promotion going on, with manufacturer rebating the dealer about $2000 if a sale is made before the end of September, dealers have more rooms to go down in price. And with Honda, you can easily request price quotes via internet at the honda.com website. So it made the price comparison much easier. At the end, my friend was able to solicit 3 different quotes all within $100 of each other. With the housing market slowdown, the inventory at dealers is definitely significant. Price concession is certainly easier, especially for 2007 models.
Certainly car prices have been going down after adjusting by inflation. I’ve paid almost the same amount for my old camry, some 10 to 15 years ago. And now I’m paying about the same price for a minivan. The power of technology brings deflation, and improves life quality. Relative to housing price, cars are getting quite insignificant these days.
P.S. I will adjust my net worth by the amount that I’ve spent on the new car through a period of a month or two. I will be putting a value of $0 for my cars, since I consider that is money spent already.
