Been a while but this forum was pretty helpful when I got into my lease in 2019. Got a 3-yr lease on a 2019 Honda Accord Sport allowing 12k mi/yr, paying ~$250/mo with lease-end buyout price of ~$16k. Lease ends soon. With the car market in it’s crazy state, kinda stuck now on what to do. Options are:
Trade in the car to dealership and get a new lease. I was hoping to go this route, but got a super-lowball offer from the dealership. They are selling the same car for ~$30k but only offered $20.5k on the trade-in, which would get me in either a 2022 Accord Sport at ~$400/mo + $2,000 down for 10k miles/yr or a 2022 Civic Sport at ~$290/mo + $2,000 down for 10k miles/yr. Offer was insulting tbh and makes me want to not even bother dealing with them again. I get they have leverage now, but that won’t last forever… hopefully.
Buy out the car and try to sell it myself to private party or buyout company (one of them has offered $23.5k for the car sight unseen). This would get me the most out of the trade, but leaves me still needing a car hah.
Buy out the car and keep using it until the market settles down (if ever lol). Was never my plan to buy the car at end-of-lease as I never wanted to deal with owning a car again, but I guess it’s not a bad option now.
We are also needing a second car for the GF so was ideally hoping to turn the positive equity on the trade into down payments on two leases (i.e. two Civic Sports) with reasonable monthly payments, but that seems difficult in current market conditions. I had previously thought that would be possible based on ‘specials’ that were shown on dealer websites, until I learned that Honda requires them to advertise them but the dealerships don’t actually honor any of them (lol wtf?).
Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far, and any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m not a big car guy, just need something that’s reliable, reasonably priced, and looks halfway decent. Open to all suggestions!
You can explore selling it to a different dealer than can buy it out, but honestly, buying it out and driving it until the market stabilizes is probably your best bet.
FWIW - I have a 2019 Accord LX with 11k miles. Was offered 23k as a trade in (no repair needed-California) to a Honda dealer, and it has a left fender dent (3-4k to repair).
Accords are worth more now since there are none, and dealerships are asking a lot for used ones.
Thanks for the response! That’s what I was thinking too re: buying it out and driving it until the market stabilizes, just wanted to check here with the experts in case I was missing something.
Thanks. Mine has more miles than yours, but still under 10k/year average over the soon-to-be 3 years and in good shape other than a door ding and some curb rash from the GF. So sounds like the $20.5k was definitely a super-lowball then lol. I know they need their margin and I know they aren’t going to start with their best offer, but it really felt disrespectful to be as low as they were.
Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, dealers here are currently quoting roughly $30k on new Civic Sports lol. Whatever they show on their website turns out to be BS once you actually talk to them. Tough pill to swallow when the ‘downgrade’ car costs more than the current one did when brand new only 3 years ago hah.
Hah yeah, limited options here for sure. Are dealers in Cali doing MSRP, or close to it? Could always buy it in Cali when visiting family and pay the thousand bucks or whatever to ship it here if that makes sense.
Try Car Max or Kelly Blue Book and see what they will also offer non Honda Dealerships will give you more than they offer on your trade. If not keeping it for now is the best bet and then selling it off-market which will give you more than a trade it will. I plan on doing the same thing in terms of the buy-out, I have a 2021 Accord Sport, and it’s worth more now used than the MSRP 2 years ago when I leased it.
My 2019 Hyundai 3-year lease became due earlier this year and I went through some similar thinking. Here is what I concluded:
If you really want to “sell” the car you leased, sure you can try the few different options that have been suggested (or just take the buyout company offer at $23.5K), but this is only useful if you DO NOT NEED ANOTHER CAR. If you need another car at this time, either buyout your lease and keep the car or be prepared to pay top dollar if you want a new car.
When “selling your lease” to a third party, note that most company financing arms are not allowing that these days, and it may require you to first buy the car out and then sell it. Offers from the third party companies tend to fluctuate based on demand, so be prepared if your offer once you have purchased the car and the title is in your name is different from the 23.5K (could be higher or lower).
So, option (3) is you best choice by far if you are looking for the best value. I ended up buying my 2019 Hyundai Ioniq lease and expect to keep the car for 2-3 years (maybe longer?)!
Thanks, that seemed to be the only option that made sense and I ended up buying out the car a few days ago. Hope the market gets back to normal soon so I can sell it and go back to leasing lol!
That’s fine. My buyout price was at pre-craziness level, so still plenty of cushion. What can I do with the equity right now when I still need a car lol?
Over the next 3 years the civic will cost at LEAST 11k to lease (~290/mo x36) and Im being very modest. The $290/mo + 2k down lease includes your equity as well most likely. So you’re basically out 17k to lease a car you don’t own.
OTOH, say you can sell the accord for ~22k and worst case market corrects to pre-pandemic level, i can bet that your 60k miles 6yr old accord will not be worth less than 5k which it would have to be to basically be at the same out of pocket as the civic lease.
Better off keeping the accord with lower depreciation and will not drop in value as much as spending ALOT on a lease
