When The Dealer Asked: “Who the Hell is this Broker?”
Anyone who has bought from a car dealership knows they are not shy about pushing their finance credentials.
But anything less than a slam dunk application often leads to a dead end.
This is exactly the situation our customer found himself in.
Our customer had his heart set on a 2014 Subaru WRX from a dealership in Brisbane.
He had negotiated the price ($23k) and let the dealership’s finance team get to work.
After trying multiple lenders they just couldn’t get the deal done.
After being turned away, he stumbled across our Instagram content (check us out @gusto.finance) and decided to give it one last shot.
The Challenge
At first glance, the application looked ok and met the criteria at a number of lenders:
- Credit Score: 580 (Mid-range).
- Credit History: A missed loan repayment from 6 months ago while he was overseas.
- Employment: Casual with 1 year tenure.
There must have been a problem elsewhere that the dealership didn’t spot.
After careful examination of his finances it became clear that the lenders had misinterpreted his earnings.
The earnings of a casual employee will fluctuate between pay cycles. This is normal and easy to account for.
However, if you take a long holiday and your earnings are zero for that period then year-to-date earnings could understate your longer term average salary.
We knew our customer had been overseas for a month and that his monthly earnings were much higher than the YTD average that appeared on his payslip.
Lenders like to be conservative in their estimates and had been using the lower figure, concluding the he could not afford this loan.
A quick phone call to explain the situation, and some proof of the time away, and those estimates were adjusted to a more accurate number.
The Result
The loan was approved and an excellent interest rate secured (11%) for the credit profile and age of the vehicle (12 years old).
This is an outstanding turnaround from a flat out rejection, to a very competitive approval, all on the same day.
We received the application in the morning and the customer was driving away that night.
When the customer returned to the dealership with the finance sorted, the dealer was stunned.
They actually asked the customer: “Who the hell is this broker? We thought we tried everything.”
The Takeaway
Sometimes a perfectly good application is denied due to an oversight or a lack of context.
If you apply directly to a lender, you rarely get the opportunity to challenge their assumptions.
And as we saw here, even dealerships can miss the details if they don’t truly understand the policy.
It pays to deal with the experts.
Another great result from the team and a happy customer driving away in his new wheels.