Hey everyone!
I was thinking of buying something under $25k to rent it out on Turo and Kia Forte and Sportage are at the top of the list in Seattle/Tacoma with 268.0% and 262% Annualized ROI.
there are a couple of Kia models and Hyundai as well on that list https://turo.com/us/en/carculator
Seeing the prices of used kia being nearly as much as new cars, I was thinking of getting a new vehicle but also I've hear plenty from Scotty about Kia reliability .
Could it be that they just paid Turo to come up with these magic ROI numbers?
Well, any good advice would be highly appreciated, thanks all!
I want to do this to get a newer car and have Turo help me pay it off and later be my side income, you know.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Rewrote it.
Well it's a crap idea.
The page you've linked to is clear that the 'Average annual earnings' figure "doesn’t include your vehicle down payment, vehicle loan payments, or business expenses like cleaning, parking, maintenance, damage claims, depreciation, or other costs" - So in other words, the 11 grand figure is crap.
Even at the rate they're implying you need the thing to actually get leased and "work" almost 3 years. Being honest - it's gonna get absolutely destroyed mechanically, worn out, (or even stollen / totaled) in at a maximum 2 years.
On another corner of their website they have a so called. "calculator" - It shows you fancy graphs and other crap, but when you look into it - oh boy...
After ignore the bogus numbers they offer and punch in some more realistic ones (as much as they allow)
(25k car, 20% down, 6% interest, $80 monthly cleaning [max the allow], car parking left default, assuming car maintenance and repair costs of $55 a average month throughout it's life [being very optimistic here], lets say you only spend $70 on insurance [good luck finding coverage with that], and high depreciation)
And half of these, maxed out, as still lower than what you realistically have to put in to make a car RENT-ABLE.
They wrote that a "year 5 vehicle sale" should return you $12.6k, and c'mon it ain't gonna the Forte's value drops like a rock it might be $9k if it's nice. $80 is like 2 car hand washes, and it may need more then that,
AND THEN TEHRE ARE EXPENSES THEY DON'T MENTION.
What they offer is THIRD PARTY insurance that "Doesn’t include exterior wear and tear reimbursement" and "None of the plans include reimbursement for interior wear and tear" - and REQUIRES YOU TO HAVE YOUR OWN INSTUANCE.
There's no way to make any money off it with a Forte or any smaller Kia.
Also this involves a lot jerry rigging and running after owners who've done small damage, got a fine, etc.
Realize that companies like Hertz have these things cost optimized. They're buying cheap, maintaining cheap, they have the cheapest insurance, they have an elaborate system to make sure their cars are booked as much as possible so they can offer the low price of $80 a day - it's almost impossible to compete with professional fleets.
As someone who's pretty familiar with the business, I can assure you - it's not worth competing against the big companies.
Well if you buy a brand new key I generally last for a bit of time but you might want to rethink your turtle idea. They're very liabilities. When you rent a car. You're basically competing with car rental company. You could be sued of something bad happens. People rent cars. They knock the crap out of them. Material company takes a large chunk of the money for themselves. I personally have had bad experience with turo I would not advise get involved in that
always appreciate the wisdom of users on this forum! thank you both!
I have two Kias. I like them both but I have to admit they are all plastic and stuff is constantly breaking. I baby my cars and I do most of the repairs myself. I have found a lot of plastic trim pieces that broke cheap on ebay. You don't want these as rental cars. The customers don't care how they treat rentals. So when the slam the glove box and break the latch or grab the door handle and break it off it's on you. They will end up trash in no time.
