Thursday, May 21, 2009

You want to buy a car, NOW ?


Thanks to the new PM effect and various new policies in place including the RM 5,000 rebate, almost ALL of my Average income friends are Really interested to buy new cars.  Although soon they find out a lot of inconviniences because there are too many rules about the RM 5,000 rebate which make stuff not that practical but now friends still want to buy new cars no matter if he can gets the rebate.

If you also have a property 
that you can refinance
you should seriously think about
 refinancing your property 
to buy that car
 instead of getting a car loan.

Car Loan rate is 3.5% now.  Following the rule of thumb that car loan rate is 1.9x house loan rate, the 3.5% car loan is almost more than a 6% house loan.  With today's BLR-2.X offer, your house loan is most probably serving at 3.X% only.

6.X %  to 3.X % is a HUGE difference for crying out loud !

There are even some level term loan offered by insurance companies at 4.75% now, which is still so much BETTER than the 3.5% car loan ( which is 6% ) no matter which angle you look at it.

Despite the fact that car is the biggest personal finance killer in Malaysia, and if anyone buy a car NOW by taking a CAR LOAN while having the choice of refinancing his property .... Please ... at least share with me here why you do it, why do you want to spoil your own personal finance plan while I am already feeding you nice food near your mouth ?  Why do you still split it out ?

I will start with the most common excuse, "I scare income tax will find me if I pay my car in full as if buying it with cash!"

True concern but only valid for those illegal drug dealers etc.  If you Really have a property that can get Approval from banks to refinance, there is Absolutely no concern at all on tax filling.  Upon enquiry by tax department, simply submit your house loan documents and declare no other income whatsoever un-declared in the past.

Assuming all people start to do exactly what I share here, there is only one person they will go after - me!  They will blame me for causing them and the banks to lose so much more income.  Bank may start reducing the amount they lend to a property, they will ask if you are using the extra money to buy a car and then they may deny your loan application in future!

But I doubt that will happen at all, truth for the past thousands of years show that human just like to stay in their own shell even if it has been hurting them for so long, they get used to it and they will just refuse to walk out even one step to the more comfy zone.

What ?  You want to buy a car nOW !?