Book Excerpts / From Chapter 7
The Anatomy of a Dealership
For too long manufactured home dealers have tended to regard their customer base as not only the least creditworthy, least informed and least educated but also the most easily manipulated and most susceptible to high pressure sales techniques. Historically their assessment may have some statistical basis in fact, and their low-brow, fast-pitch, close-the-deal-now sales strategies may still work in many regions of the country. But this sign-here-now tactic can spell big trouble, and you should not tolerate it.
The principal tip off that you’re being gamed by this kind of approach is the pressure during your very first visit that the sales person will exert on you to “write up” a contract and get your signature before you leave the lot. The contract (or purchase agreement or loan application) can have a lot of “to be determined” written in the blanks where hard numbers will come later, but the idea is to get you locked in to some kind of deal, any deal, with that dealer, even if its one you eventually walk away from (and even that may not be easy). Chapter 11 goes into this practice in detail—please be sure to read it....