Band Rental Programs
Two main types of Instrument Rental Programs
Rent-to-Rent
Rent-to-Own
In this program you to pay rent for use of an instrument. There is not option for you to use that rent to purchase the instrument or any other instrument if the need should arrise. If you decide that you want to purchae an instrument you either end up paying full price for one or signing up with a company that provides purchase options with their rental prograsm.
This program also allows you to pay rent for use of an instrument. The difference is that in this program you are allowed to build up a rental "equity" in the instrument you have chosen and you will eventually achieve ownership of the rented instrument. Many programs also allow you to transfer some or all of the rental "equity" that has been built up into better quality intermediate or professional level instruments.
Rent-to-Own 101
Most musical instrument dealers get their pricing from the same source, the Manufacuturer. We refer to this as Retail Price or MSRP. When you rent-to-own an instrument from a music retailer you are usually buying at full retail price. While this may be more expensive than just purchasing the instrument, you have options that can give you piece of mind such as maintenance plans, paying in small monthly payments over time, or the abiltiy to return the instrument and "walk-away" from the agreement and not having to try to re-sell an instrument and risk loosing 50% or more of your investment.
Question:
Answer:
If every music store charges the same retail price, then how do I know when I'm getting the best value?
The answer falls in what that store does with your money. In a simple Rent-to-Own plan 100% of your rent goes towards purchase, but not every music store follows that rule. Some stores only allow you to accumulate a pre-determined amount forcing you to "buy-out" your contract at some point in time, while other stores may only apply a portion of your monthly rent towards purchase, both methods increase the total number of payments and ultamately the total cost of ownership.
The chart below outlines the purchase of a new flute through three differend music stores rental programs. As you can see, all of the programs begin with the same Retil Price, however, are far from the same when it comes to cost of ownership.
The savings say it all....