Let say you are buying a vehicle to rent out to others on a leasing platform like Car Next Door, Drive My Car etc
Without considering the dodgy stuff that happens on those platforms and renters wrecking the car
What type of vehicle would you assume to be rented out the most?
4wd so they can take it to the beach..!
Obviously the shittiest smallest car but then I would still be worried about it..
Just rent whatever car you've always fancied driving. Don't buy a car specifically to rent on places like that, unless you can find reliable cars really cheap somehow.
It's not for them, it's to rent out to others….Why would they get something they want to drive if they're never driving it?
I wasn't sure what they were asking.
Small will be the cheapest to purchase, likely the cheapest to maintain and can fit the least in it.
A dual cab or van is just asking for people to trash it using it for work.
People mover will probably get kids eating/throwing up in it.
Luxury car will be expensive to maintain and fix any knocks/scrapes etc.
The small car (in my mind) will get used as a quick run about…more than likely still given a hard time but cheap to repair should the need arise.
All that said, I still wouldn't do it.
Couldn't he treat the interior with some spray that lets vomit easily wipe out. Or buy a car that can be hosed down, there must be some out there.
I don't think it's very common in people movers…can get entry level dual cabs and the like with vinyl floors.
There are products that will make the fabric water/vomit repellant but it's more having to clean it up yourself. If you can avoid the whole situation, isn't that a better option?
He could just invest in Uber or something, let them have their contractors do all the vomit cleaning on the fleet of cars you've invested in. When Uber buys all self driving cars they will be putting car rental places out of business anyway.
That’s not a good reason to buy a car. Buy one that suits your needs.
You might be lucky enough to get some money back renting it out, but it’s likely not really worth it. It’ll be the rental platform making the money, not you.
I would think small cars or people movers (7-8 seaters).
I've previously used car next door to rent an 8 seater to drive around family friends. It was a premium Kia Sorrento I think and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. And no, I didn't trash the car.
But as others have said, it's weird if you're going to buy one just to rent out. I think the cars will have to be pretty new as well.
A cheap single cab ute for people to use for moving stuff. Not much outlay, doesn't need to be super clean and they are really useful when buying / moving.
High Yield Investment car
The only people that makes money out of platforms like this are those at the top e.g the founder, VC, direct employees of the platform.
The people at the bottom with tangible assets are funding those people's lifestyle.
My understanding is that these platforms will provide the owner with some extra cash, they're not going to be "profitable" for the owner. It's not a business opportunity.
This. I looked into it a while back. I can get a car for nearly nothing, maintain it and repair it myself for nearly nothing, and it still isn't profitable.
There are surplus of rental vehicles out there due to COVID, not the best business idea.
Let say you are buying a vehicle to rent out to others on a leasing platform…
Nah, I would've done my maths and realised it's not worth it. Not even close! 😒
Any Delivery Van in an inner suburb in Melbourne. There are thousands of renters with people moving every weekend wanting to save money and DIY
If leasing the cars is a financially feasible plan, the Car Next Door etc would be buying the cars and leasing it themselves.
Think about it, they have the capital to buy and service as a fleet and it raises the market value of the company, and they cut out an entire party from the supply equation.
They don't because buying a car to lease out under the format above is simply not financially feasible.
Interesting point at some point it must be financially viable otherwise Budget, Thrifty etc wouldn’t exist. As the market works though, hiring a car is expensive if the company needs to own and operate the vehicles.
It’s indicative of the whole gig economy. The company outsource the equipment and lots of the risk under the guise of earning you money with your stuff, when you wouldn’t otherwise be using it.
The reason this sort of stuff is cheap is because while Budget etc charge as much as the market will bear to make a profit, Car Next Door pay the operator as little as possible to make a similar profit.
Budget, Thrifty etc
That's a different model entirely though. They have a depot and you go to them. Car Next Door, Rent My Car etc are decentralized.
Leasing out a car you already own and may use occasionally may be viable for some but in the case of OP, he is talking about buying the car for the purpose of leasing it.
Completely agree that gig economy rentals are not viable.
Budget, Thrifty etc
You left out Hertz.
One good thing is they cover car insurance for you ;)
Years ago, when I was younger and much poorer, it was holidays straight after the HSC and my mates and I decided to try learn something new. We couldn't afford to pay a driving instructor by the hour, so we thought it was a good idea to go hire a manual car from Budget/Europcar, etc for $50/day between us to take it to a carpark at night where one of our other mate's taught us. We practiced with the car until the early hours of the morning and then continued in the afternoon. I have no idea how much damage we may have done to the clutch/transmission of the car. But we returned the car "looking" exactly the way we got it.
I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't be the only ones wtih that idea, except nowadays with platforms such as Car Next Door, the cars are much easier to find and get access to. If it's not the gearbox, it could any other one of a million things that can be abused such as constant flooring, launching, etc that can do some major mechanical damange. There's no way to work out who did what because sometimes problems don't appear straightaway.
Therefore, the cost to repair can only come out of the owners pocket because mechanical damage is not something that insurance covers.
I hired a manual Hyundai Getz and took it to a racetrack for a day. I don't think hire cars have a very good time.
hahahahaha! wtf 🤣
@bobbified: Was under 25 at the time so couldn't rent the z4 :( All my friends had their cars, but I had sold my fast car at the time, so had to make do with what I could get haha.
The chances of things going wrong with people treating the cars poorly and then denying it ever happened, I wouldn't even want to risk a Chery or a Geely to Car Next Door.