To mactually drive off a dealers lot with a NEW car for no more than $25000 is going to limit you severely in the real world. Nissan Versa comes to mind and that's about it. You will be challenged to find any NEW Toyota for that $25k limit in the real world. Entry Level Kia, Mazda3, Entry level Hyundai. Possibly, not likely.
It is physically impossible to get an actually good vehicle under 25k from a dealership. I have been looking at cars and shopping for a few months now, add 10K to what ever price you see online, MINIMUM. If you can't pay a 10k premium, don't even look.
Showed up to a dealership for a 35k car, the mark up was to 45. Showed up for a 45k car, mark up is 55k. Watching new corollas get marked to 30k is a joke. Can't wait for the car crash, housing crash, the whole 9 yards. Hope they all hurt too, they deserve it.
Went to pick up a car that was clean title, single owner, 28k miles, v6, 3 years old. MSRP was 38. They wanted 28. After all the "optional" cough not optional cough 2500 in add on's, and 2000$ in fees, put the car at a whopping 32.5k. Argued about the addons, saying thats illegal to add if it says optional, they obliged and took it off. Fine, I was okay with the price, drove 2 hours to look at it. Found a crappy cover up job of a wrecked rear end, bondo everywhere, messy trunk, could tell they just fixed it. Got underneat the car, tags were hanging off the aftermarket exhaust. Sure, "one owner no accidents clean title". What a waste. they dropped the price like 1000$ I said the issue isn't the price anymore but your shady practices.