I put 15K down and pay a minimum of $30 over every month. Interest rate is 4.9%. Payment is $265 a month for 72....I intend to pay it off early of course.

 

I'm young, but I believe the best modo to follow would be "money talks and bull **** walks". If you want to be taken seriously by the bank, as big of a down payment as you can put would be best. That's what I'm doing at least.

 

If that's what it takes to be taken seriously, then you wil HAVE to do it. It won't be a choice. If you have the choice, can afford the higher payment, are responsible enough to not over extend yourself and you qualify for a lesser rate, put as little down as possible and use other people's money.

 

When I got my first loan by myself, my finance manager told me I was going to have to put something on the line for the bank to approve me. I was thinking of paying my previous co signed loan off before handing in the car instead of having the dealer pay it off. The finance manager told me the bank would rather take me putting 3k down, instead of using my trade in as my down payment because it made me look more serious about the deal.

Now as time goes on eventually if the credit stays good he should get offers like 0 down and 0 percent. The way I flip my cars I am looking foward to my credit being that strong lol.

What's wrong with a 10-20 percent down payment even if you got the above mentioned offers?

 

There's nothing "wrong" with it per se. It's just the general idea is if you can take your money and invest it at a greater rate than your loan interest, you should. It's pretty easy to beat 0%, so if you can afford the monthly payment with 0 down, go for it. You'll have more money in your pocket at the end of the loan period than if you were to put a larger down payment.

The sad truth is, people don't invest the money. They just go out and spend it. Probably on mods for their Mustangs.

 

there is another thread running on more or less the same topic (financing and downpayments)

https://themustangsource.com/showthr...=481207&page=3

it gets more interesting when you consider the current trade-off of rebates versus low cost financing . . . if I could get the rebate AND the 0% financing, I would go for that for sure . . . but when it's one or the other, the total of payments is almost a wash; and then the "time value of money" comes into play . . . meaning money that you pay in the future is worth less than money you pay right now, so even if the total payments for the 0%/60 is about the same as the total payments with the rebate, I might still go for the 0%/60

 

Unless you pay it off early or trade it in or it gets totaled.