Nearing the end of my BMW lease and have a few questions for the experts here. I believe I have some equity in the vehicle, residual is $37k and it looks to be worth around $44k.
A few questions:
I know I can sell it to an autonation dealer and avoid the tax - can I do the same with a BMW dealership?
I am still a couple of months out from the end of the lease - looking at my payoff docs it looks like the total payoff is the residual + outstanding balance + some fees + taxes. As I continue to make payments the total payoff will decrease, so ideally I’d wait until close to the end to sell the car. Is this logic correct or are there other factors I should consider? I know used car valuations can fluctuate but it seems selling it 2 months early would be leaving ~$1500 on the table (my remaining payments) is that approximately correct?
If I extend the lease, is the residual reduced by the value of whatever additional payments I make?
In 2 months time, after you make your last payment, your payoff amount will be roughly equal to the RV on your lease contract. How does the RV compare to the trade offers you’ve received on your car?
And your trade in value can and will change month to month, it’s definitely not safe to assume that won’t fluctuate over the next 2 months.
Basically if you have equity and a good offer on your car now, there’s no reason to wait another 2 months, assuming you have an equally good deal on a new car lined up.
It’s like taking money from one pocket and putting in another. You will make more payments to receive more return at the end. If you have $7000 equity sell it tomorrow don’t wait.
Residual is 37k and current payoff (not including tax) is 38k. Offers I’ve received are 44-45k. I have one payment left. Assuming my offers don’t change much then I would essentially have the last month “for free” right?
I am likely going to order a new car which will take a bit of time to get delivered just trying to figure out the timing. Sounds like I should pull the trigger on a new order now assuming I don’t see anything in stock that I want.
We’ve got around 22k miles on it. I’m not exactly sure how this happened either, but I just looked it up and the original MSRP was about $71k so maybe I benefited from them raising their prices (a similar new one is approx $76k).
Let’s say your payoff is $37k today and offer is $44k. You will receive a $7k check.
Two months later assuming your offer is still $44k, you monthly is $750, $500 goes to payment and $250 for rent charge per month (I am making these up you can check your contract and adjust) if you make two payments your payoff will be reduced by $500x2 and end up being $36k. You will receive a $8k check.
Yep, perfect sense. I actually only have one payment left (thought it was two when I posted earlier), so the difference is not great. If I find one in stock I like I’ll take it now and otherwise I’ll do a new order and hope for the best on the equity when it is ready.
Unless you intend to buy it out you should have already sold it. If you haven’t already try Driveway for a quote. They are lithia so they can run the sale through one of their bmw dealerships.
So, the comments saying I should have sold it earlier turned out to be correct because the value I can get for it has dropped around $2500 compared to mid November. Oh well.
One question, I went to take it in to the place I was selling it last night, and the deal couldn’t complete because they said that the DMV has not recorded BMW as a lien holder on the vehicle. They are looking into what they can do. Does anyone know why that could happen or what to do about it?
