I’ve just come across what’s likely the worst car deal I’ve ever seen. The owner of a Ferrari SF90 supercar, $200,000 underwater, wants to trade it in for a $68,000, three-year old Corvette C8. It’s a mess on both ends.
The mind boggling deal comes to us by way of Tik Tok user Alex, aka @movingmerch, a car salesman with Earth Motor Cars in Carrollton, Texas. In a recent post, he’s shown speaking to a man by the name of Jason who owns a Ferrari SF90 (the owner was ok with being recorded) who wants to trade it in for something else. Why on earth would anyone want to get rid of a 986 horsepower hybrid supercar that’s able to hit 60 mph in less than three seconds and hit a top speed of 211 mph? Because he is totally screwed.
Jason explains he’s trying to get rid of the SF90 by trading it in for a 2021 Corvette C8 that Earth Motor Cars has listed for $68,762. He says that the payments on the SF90 are getting to be a bit much for him and he’s looking to get as close to his loan payoff amount as possible; or even the full pay off amount, which would be nearly impossible. He says he owes “a reasonable” amount on it. The amount is far from reasonable: Jason says he owes a little under $700,000, specifically $690,000 and some change. The look on Alex’s face says it all before he remarks “oh man.” It’s a massive amount to owe.
Jason says he bought the car in 2021 for $770,000. For him to still owe nearly $700,000 over three years later tells us he probably got a really crappy APR. Alex says he has to be honest with him, that there’s no way he could get close to that amount for the car. He tells Jason the number he’s thinking of starts with a four, which Jason interprets as meaning that he’ll get $400,000 for the SF90. Alex clarifies that he means that he’ll give him over $400,000 for the car, a number Jason still doesn’t like. If you’re paying attention and doing the math, this means Jason has over $200,000 in negative equity on the SF90. He tells Alex that other dealers have been giving him similar numbers. He’s so screwed he says that he had to take out a loan to cover his rent.
It seems he’s in the situation he’s in because of a job and income change. Jason says back when he purchased the SF90, he was making $30,000-$40,000 a month. Now he says his income is around $10,000 $15,000 a month though he doesn’t exactly say what the change was. He says he put no money down on the SF90 and his payments are $10,000-$11,000 a month. He remarks he should have never bought the car in the first place and he’s right. Even making $40,000 a month, that’s $480,000 annually, meaning the SF90’s purchase price was over 62 percent of his annual income.
Alex explains to him the market for the SF90 and gives him examples of others he has seen going for under $500,000 and tells Jason he’s probably not the only person in this situation. Unfortunately there’s nothing that Alex can do to help him out of that $200,000 hole because he can’t roll that much negative equity onto another car like a C8. Alex then asks Jason why the Corvette and Jason’s answer is nearly as wild as this situation: he says he just wants another sports car to drive because he has to “keep a certain kind of image.” Image is the last thing this man should be worrying about.
Alex says there really isn’t anything he can do to help him and says he’s got to call some friends who are more knowledgeable about situations like this. Before ending the call, Alex says the one thing he can do is a voluntary repossession of the SF90 rather than letting it get repoed, something Jason seems open to doing. Whatever Jason does regarding his SF90, this is a screwed up situation. It also goes to show that even those that you may think are doing better off than you are may be in a life altering, screwed up situation.