At first blush, car leasing seems like a grand idea. After all, you can get more car for the same monthly financing payment. Who wouldn’t want that? Well, there’s a lot more to weigh between financing and leasing than simply getting more car for your buck. Although, that is the primary reason people lease.
Numbered among the other reasons people lease is the thrill of that new car smell. Some folks simply like the idea of driving a new car every two or three years. Leasing also streamlines writing off your vehicle as a business expense at tax time.
Another reason to lease is that sometimes the carmakers offer really sweet leasing deals that aren’t available to those financing a car purchase. Repeat leasers also always have a car that’s usually under a factory warranty. And finally, when the lease expires, you don’t have to negotiate a trade-in value or go through the selling process. You just hand over the keys and walk away. Easy peasy, right? Well, usually. Read on.
A car lease is basically a long-term rental for a contracted number of months. Unlike financing a car purchase based on you eventually owning the car, leasing is like a long-term rental. You are still locked into the deal for a contracted number of months and a monthly payment.
However, instead of paying down a loan and building equity, you are paying for the car’s estimated lost value (depreciation) during the term (length) of the lease. You are paying for that and the interest on the money borrowed to underwrite the lease.
Arguably the key concern when considering car leasing is, on average, how many miles you drive yearly. According to the United States Department of Transportation, most Americans drive a total of 13,476 miles per year.
Signing a lease binds you contractually not to exceed an established mileage limit. That limit, or mileage cap, is averaged out over the number of years in the agreement.
Depending on the lease, agreements range from 10,000 miles per year to as many as 15,000 miles per year. Whatever the limit might be, the leasing company will penalize you for every mile above the limit. Generally, that penalty can be between $0.12 to $0.30 per excess mile. At $0.30, that works out to $300 for every 1,000 miles over the limit. It can add up.
Yes. As with a financing deal, you can save yourself money by negotiating down the car’s selling price you are going to lease.
When you finance a car, you must also pay for the money you are borrowing. What you pay is called interest, and it’s displayed as a percentage (2.5%, 3.0%, and so forth). You need to know the rate of interest you will be paying. The higher the interest rate, the higher your monthly payment.
When you lease, you must also pay for the money the lessor used to buy the car. In leasing, however, the interest is called the money factor. It’s calculated and displayed differently (0.0010, 0.0023, and so forth). How in the world do you know what the interest rate is on a lease, right?
To translate the money factor into a form more easily understood, just multiply it by 2,400. So, 0.0023 x 2,400 = 5.5%. We know: Why don’t they just say that?
The leasing company expects you to maintain your leased car carefully. That means following the maintenance schedule outlined in the owner’s manual. The good news is, many new vehicles come with some sort of free maintenance plan.
At the end of the leasing period, an agent of the leasing company will inspect the vehicle for any damage beyond “normal” wear and tear. Determining what is normal is entirely up to the inspector. If the inspector decides any damage is beyond normal wear and tear, you will be charged for it.
You are responsible for insuring your leased car. The leasing company dictates the amount of coverage you must have for the vehicle. Determine what those amounts will be and contact your automobile insurance agent to establish the annual premium before you lease.
It bears repeating: A car lease is a binding contract. The leasing company sets the monthly payments based on the length of the lease established in the agreement. If for some reason — any reason — you want or need to bail on the lease early, there will be a penalty for doing so.
At worst, that penalty may require a balloon payment to cover the remaining outstanding payments. You can’t just return the leased car or sell it to pay off the leasing company. It’s not your car, and you have no equity in it.
Market conditions these days make it possible to negotiate with a dealership if you’re planning to buy a car. Or, because the used car supply is tight, dealerships may be more willing to make a deal to get you out of your lease early.
Brokers with auto lease transfer companies like swapalease.com can also attempt to connect you with a deal that lets you sign over the lease to someone else.
Before you make any choices, weigh all your options to determine the best option for you.
As with financing a car purchase, a leasing company will use your credit score and history to determine whether or not it will lease to you. Roughly 83% of new car leasing during the first three months of 2021 was to borrowers with a credit score above 660. This is according to the national credit bureau Experian. It also found that the average credit score for leasing during that period was 734.
If your credit score is 501 to 660, you may be able to find a lender willing to lease to you, but expect to put down a hefty down payment. Also, you can expect to be tagged with a higher-than-average interest rate.
It has always been true that leasing generally requires better credit than financing. When leasing, you have little or no skin in the game. All you stand to lose if you stop making your lease payments is whatever down payment you made.
You don’t now and never will have any equity in a leased vehicle. You are really renting it, remember? Leasing companies know you have little to lose. Consequently, they tend to be pickier when evaluating lessees rather than buyers.
RELATED STORY: Can I Buy a Car with Poor Credit History?
Whether you lease or buy and finance your next car, you will be obligated to make a monthly payment. In most cases, both will also require some amount of money upfront. When financing, it’s usually a down payment of some sort.
With leasing, you may have to put up a security deposit, the first month’s lease payment, a fee for arranging the lease (acquisition fee), a down payment, or some combination of those. In either case, there are also car title and registration fees.
Because you are only paying for the estimated depreciation while driving the car and not the entire purchase price, monthly leasing payments tend to be lower than financing payments. It simply means your money will go farther leasing a car than financing one. A lower monthly payment is the top reason people give for leasing. It isn’t the best reason, but it is the most common.
Another perk of leasing is the freedom to drive a new car every two or three years with no strings attached. A side benefit of having a new car every few years is, you probably will always have a vehicle protected by the factory new car warranty. There may even be a free maintenance warranty for a portion, if not all, of the lease. And, every couple of years, you can have a car with the most up-to-date technological advances.
At lease end, you don’t need to worry about the hassle of selling the car or negotiating its value as a trade-in. You drop the keys on the lessor’s desk and walk away.
Leasing is better geared to writing off the cost of driving on your taxes if you can deduct business expenses.
Here’s some excellent news: If you still like the car at the end of the lease, you can buy it. Because the leasing company estimated what the car would be worth at the end of the lease (the residual value or residual), they may have guessed wrong.
If they underestimated the car’s worth at the end of the lease, you could cash in by buying that car for less than the current market value. It’s the smart thing to do in a tight market when supply struggles to meet demand.
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Yes, the idea of driving a new car every few years with the benefit of always being under warranty is tempting, as is that lower monthly payment. Sadly, though, it means you will never build any equity. What you pay for with a lease is the depreciation. A car will lose roughly 35% to 40% of its value in the first three years. At the end of the lease, you won’t have a thing to show for those two or three years of payments.
Typically consumers sign a closed-end lease. There are also open-end leases. The difference is discussed in What Are the Types of Leases? in the section below. Closed-end is the type of lease covered here.
Driving a leased car is like counting calories to lose weight — every mile driven counts. Every lease comes with a mileage limit. It may average out as low as 10,000 miles per year, although 12,000 miles is more likely. You may be able to find a lease with a yearly cap of 15,000 miles. There are even some more expensive high-mileage leases on the market.
You’ll pay more per month but may avoid getting slapped with a mileage penalty at the end of the lease. That penalty is usually about $0.25 per excess mile. If you do a lot of driving, that can really add up.
The leasing company will hold you accountable for anything beyond its definition of normal wear and tear. You will be on the hook for any repairs the lessor deems over and above normal. Suddenly, with the excess mileage fee and damage fee, returning that leased car isn’t the easy-peasy experience expected.
Leasing is also like joining a street gang. Once you’re in, you’re in. Suppose some change in your life creates the need to get out of the lease early? Good luck. You may find yourself faced with owing a balloon payment equal to the outstanding payments on the lease. At the very least, you will have to pay some sort of stiff penalty. There are online companies like swapalease.com, brokering deals between people who want out of a lease and people willing to pick up a lease. But, such brokered deals will cost you, too.
The top advantage to buying versus leasing is that the vehicle is yours when the loan is paid off in five or six years. There will be the value you can cash in by selling or trading it in as a down payment on another car. It’s an asset. Of course, you can always decide to drive it until the wheels fall off. No payments for another five years or more is a pretty good perk. Especially when you consider by year four, the repeat lessee is paying for the depreciation on a second new car and still gaining zero equity.
Getting out from under your car loan is much easier than breaking a lease. As long as the lienholder is paid off, you can sell or trade in your car at any time.
Particularly if your credit is a bit sketchy, you may want to put down a larger down payment of around 20% if you want better odds of getting approved. That would be $5,000 on a $25,000 car. Leasing would allow you to keep at least some of that up-front cash.
Depending on the length of the loan, depreciation, and the way interest is calculated, you may owe more than the vehicle is worth until the last year or so of the loan. By that time, the car warranty may well have expired, too. Not only do you have to continue making payments on a 5- or 6-year-old car, but you may have to pay for any repairs out of your own pocket.
You can draw some fairly strong contrasts between leasing and financing. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Short term, a lease will cost less. In the long run, however, two leases will cost more than buying one car. And, at the end of five or six years, the loan will be paid off, and whatever value the car retains will be yours.
Here are some other stark differences.
Leases aren’t one size fits all. The leasing concept doesn’t vary, but the contract details do.
A closed-end lease is the most common form of leasing. Sometimes called a “walk-away” lease, it sets firm terms, allowing the lessee to walk away at the end of the lease. All variables like the length of the lease, monthly payments, and the mileage cap are established in the leasing contract. As long as the contract terms get met, the lessee can just drop off the car at the end of the lease. The lessee also has an option to buy the vehicle at a pre-determined value.
An open-end lease is a bigger gamble for the lessee, who is accepting more of the risk. Typically that lessee is a commercial enterprise or business. The leasing company still sets a residual value and the monthly payments. Luckily, open-ended leases usually have more flexible mileage options than their closed-ended lease counterparts. However, unlike a closed-end lease, it’s the lessee taking the hit if the residual value at the end of the lease is less than the vehicle’s actual market value. The lessee must pay the difference.
Also called a one-pay lease, this is a lease in which you pay the entire run of monthly payments upfront. There are two primary reasons for going this route. One, it usually reduces the interest or money factor rate. You wind up paying hundreds less than if you were to pay monthly. Two, if your credit is questionable, a single, up-front payment may motivate a leasing company to take a chance on you.
You may find carmakers offering leasing specials of odd durations, 39 months, for instance. But, generally, leases are for 24 or 36 months. You can, however, find leases out there for longer terms. As with financing, the longer the term of the lease, the lower the monthly payment. That difference, though, may not be much.
Even when you finance a car, the higher the mileage when you sell it or trade it in, the less it’s worth. The difference with leasing, the lessor factors in a specific number of miles when estimating depreciation. Over the course of a lease, the allowable mileage or mileage cap might average out to 10,000, 12,000, or 15,000 miles per year. Exceeding the mileage cap reduces the car’s value at the end of the lease. This is why a leasing company will charge you a predetermined penalty for each mile over the cap. Be sure you know the per-mile penalty before signing the lease.
Say you haven’t found a replacement vehicle, and you are at the end of your lease. Is there a way out? Yes, most lessors will gladly extend the lease on a month-to-month basis or for a fixed number of months. You will have to continue making the monthly payment. Also, in the case of a multi-month extension, you may have to sign another contract.
We have been using some reader-friendly shorthand in this guide, but here are the formal leasing terms you should understand.
It is possible to lease a car for one year. But, why would you? A car depreciates as much as 30% by the end of the first year. Because your monthly payment is based on depreciation, that one year will be wildly expensive. You might do better with a long-term rental car. It’s worth checking out. Another idea you could try is a club. These are offered by luxury car club leasing companies and sometimes by manufacturers. The clubs allow members to drive new models for short periods of time. They usually include insurance and don’t require a long-term contract.
Yes, you can lease a used car. In fact, most dealerships offer leasing incentives on their certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicles. These are gently used, newer model cars with factory warranties and other CPO benefits.
For the most part, the process of shopping for a leased car is about the same as shopping for a vehicle you plan to buy. Research is the key. Other steps to take include:
Find a model that retains its value. Some brands of vehicles simply retain more value as they grow older. Brands like Subaru, Lexus, Jeep, and Ram tend to retain much of their value through the years. When you buy a vehicle, value retention is important, but not until you sell it or trade it in. Value retention in a leased vehicle is important because the more value a leased vehicle is expected to retain, the lower the monthly payment.
Here’s a list of questions to consider asking the dealership or other lessor before you leap.
