A question for buyers and sellers in the s2000 marketplace. How much are lending institutions willing go on an S2000? I am especially curious about those 10 year old examples with, say, 25K miles on them. Such cars are typically priced well into the $20s, but how much of that can a buyer borrow?

Back story - I am in the tire kicking phase of acquiring an s2000. Although I am a cash buyer, I like to understand the loan value of a car and what it will be 5 years down the road when I might wish to sell it. There isn't a huge pool of buyers for small 10 year old sports cars. If you add on top of that a price north of $20K and a requirement for a (mostly?) cash purchase, the pool of potential buyers becomes miniscule. The smaller the pool of buyers the more protracted the sale and/or the lower the price.

I just sold my last oddball car (193 units sold in the U.S. during 2 full model years) and it was a bit of beating to move it. Not really looking to repeat that experience.

 

My credit union doesn't really care what car, or how old it is:

"Finance up to 100% of Kelley Blue Book retail value or the purchase price, whichever is less"

So really, any car would do providing I have the credit.

 

It varies by lender. You need to do your own research.

 

You can rule out US Bank. They won't finance any car that is more than 6 years old.

 

I got a $15k "same-as-cash" buyers check at 1.65% when shopping for my S2k from RBFCU, a local credit union. I told them the model of car I wanted and the age range, but wasn't constrained to using the check on a specific vehicle. Financed the whole purchase with no down payment. I had great credit and a very low expense to income ratio.

 

Thanks, that's helpful, and it illustrates the challenge I see. Picking a random example, there's a very nice 2004 with 9K miles advertised in the for sale section of the forum for $25K. The KBB private party top condition value of that car is $19,250. Where I live, you'd need about $26,750 to close the deal, including sales taxes, registration, etc. So you need someone that has both $8K in cash and is willing to borrow the maximum amount possible on a 10 year old car. Note that I'm not advocating KBB is right or wrong on the price; the market is the market. But if KBB effectively controls what can be borrowed to purchase the car and that amount is substantially less than the sale price, it makes for a much more difficult sale.

Yeah, once a car is too old to be financed I guess the price will drop quickly because the only market is cash buyers.

 

It's tough because insurance will only pay so much for the car IF you crash it or it is written off. If your loan is worth more than insurance will pay out, it is tough for the banks to get their money out of you.

Having said that I did find a bank that financed it with a reasonable interest rate and it was 20k+ that was borrowed for a 2000 AP1 with only 32,000KM two years ago.

 

Skank of America is good for this. Will lend up to 10 years old. Must be clean title obviously. I used them. Borrowed $20k at 3.05%. For 60 months. No other lender came close. This was in June of this year.

 

I financed mine with State Farm. They won't finance if the car is 2005 or older but I got lucky because mine is a 06. APR is about 7.xx% though.

 

I financed my MY04 through bank of america. They wanted to give me only $15k for it, but I told them it had an oem hardtop so they increased value to 18k.