Thanks for pointing this out. I’ve sent out a few emails to a few different places—Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, and some other Honda dealerships—trying to get ahead of the negotiation a little more aggressively (closely following the advice in this very helpful thread—ie, making an initial offer for the monthly payment I’d like to make). We’ll see how it goes—I have a feeling that given the current status of inventories, no one is going to feel very pressed to cut me a deal.
The issue with buying is that I actually only need a car for a couple of years, so buying a brand new car outright is not really appealing to me (I’ll be returning from St Louis to NYC, where I don’t need a car and where car ownership is expensive and inconvenient). So I’d really like to avoid buying a new car if possible. My plan at the beginning of this whole process was actually to buy used—but given how inflated used car prices are right now, I turned to leasing.
Again, I welcome any advice - thanks for everything people have offered so far, it’s been so helpful.