Civic lease -- buying service or broker?

So after considering various options, I decided to lease a 2021 Civic. I would take a 2020 too, if the deal was significantly better. All I need is “a car.” I liked it when I test drove it. and I know there are some good deals out there.

But even after having gotten the MF and residual from Edmunds for my zip code, I don’t trust myself to get the best deal available – and I don’t have time to deal with it either.

So I would like to ether hire a broker to do this for me, or else there is a buying service I have used for cars in the past (I have used them for purchases but they also do leases). For a few hundred dollars, they solicit and pre-negotiate the best deals they can get from dealers in the area, and send them to the customer, who can then call the dealer and accept the deal the customer likes best. In the past, they saved me a decent amount of money (and time).

Any sense which of these options might be best? And if a broker would be best, can someone recommend a broker that deals with Hondas, in the DC/MD/VA area, and has a good reputation? I looked in the Marketplace section, but there was not much about Hondas in the DMV area.

Thank you.

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You can go with a broker, but why not give it a shot yourself.

We always recommend the following method before you ever contact a dealership. If you do all of the work up front, you’ll have a stress free dealer experience and set yourself for success.

  1. Read Leasing 101 (Blog | LEASEHACKR) to understand how to calculate a lease payment and the variables. Monthly payment is an output, not an input!!
  2. Pick a specific vehicle that you want to target
  3. Gather the current MF, RV and incentives from Edmunds forums for your zip code
  4. Research the LH marketplace and other deals that have been made recently on your vehicle - what was their pre-incentive discount? How did their lease terms differ?
  5. Plug your numbers into the LH calculator (CALCULATOR | LEASEHACKR), and use a pre-incentive discount similar to what you have seen
  6. Create a target deal, this is what you’re trying to negotiate to. You can try different terms, selling price discount, etc. and see how your monthly payment is affected. It is also possible that different trims of your vehicle may have different MF and RV (i.e. this is very common with GM), so make sure that you look into that. Come up with a set of inputs that give you the output that you want - your desired monthly payment.

With a target price determined, you now have a deal to pursue and compare dealer offers against. More importantly, you have a solid foundation to work from.