Early Buyout of Acura MDX Lease

so far the best on RDX I have seen is 31995 on lease and 33600 on purchase. All the number before loyalty incentive. This is SoCal.

The buyout is correct. When we were looking at it the lease incentive was ~4k more than the buy incentive. Lease incentive was around $7500 vs buy incentive of $3500.

So if you had the cash it was better to lease then buy it out after the first month. After the all the fees you’re still up $3k.

But if you don’t have the cash to payoff the car, or need a loan to finance the payoff, it’s probably easier to just finance the car outright.

You think so? Just curious why…

I’m glad this topic came up because I leased a 2018 BMW 330e (MSRP: $57k) two months ago. And I was curious what my buyout price was after first month’s payment and it was only $42k (roughly 26% off).

BMW’s 60 month finance APR was 2.9% then and my my local credit union is offering 2.74% APR loan with other perks.

It seems like if someone wanted to buy a car, it’s better to use the lease incentives (which is usually higher than the financing incentives) then immediately buyout…

I’m starting to think the same way.

I was just saying on the assumption you normally get better financing for buying a new car from the dealer. And maybe you’d need to get a used car loan rather than a new car loan?

If you can get that low of a rate from a credit union, then it would make sense to lease/buy out with the loan from the credit union.

OK… I finally have some real numbers to share!

The payoff number I see on Acura Financials is $38901 with 35 payments remaining. Here are some other relevant numbers:

MSRP: $52695
Negotiated sales price: $39595 (includes all incentives except the $1k royalty which is applied as cap cost reduction)
Gross cap cost: $40190
Cash paid at signing: $1262 (first payment + DMV + tax)
Cap cost reduction: $1000 loyalty

Based on these numbers “Buyout = Gross cap cost - Cash Paid at signing”. This means that by going the lease-then-buy we can take advantage of the larger lease incentives BUT we loose out on the $1000 royalty. Still comes down to 25% off MSRP for purchase which is pretty good IMO.

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Your calculation for buyout doesn’t make sense.

Should be more like buyout = cap cost - $1000 rebate - depreciation portion of first month’s payment

The details may need fine tuning, but basically what we’re all seeing (from Acura and BMW) is that we can take advantage of amazing lease incentives from the OEM to reduce the overall capital cost of the car.

Then one month later we can turn around and buy the car out at this low lease incentive driven price.

On average it looks like a great way to get another 5-10% off MSRP.

Credit Unions are a great source of extremely aggressive financing. Your CU or a Home Equity LOC could be used to finance the buyout if necessary. If HELOC you could also potentially deduct the interest (need to check that).

It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it’s not really if you have good credit or cash to buy out the lease.

Finally when I was at the Acura dealer they asked me to wait two months before buying out the car. I vaguely recall they said “hey please make the first 2nd payment before buying the car out”. They gave me some BS excuse about how it takes a while for the lease to be processed and show up in AFS’s systems. I suspect the real reason is that if a customer buys the car out too soon, then the OEM and the captive recast it as a sale and charge the way the dealer is compensated whereas no such true up exists after a few months from the sale date.

This has turned out to be a really informative thread. I plan to use this technique the next time I “buy” a car or truck.

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Now see if you can get them to offer a larger cap cost discount in exchange for a marked up MF

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The reason they ask you to wait until you make the 2nd payment (three payments including the first payment due at signing) is because the dealer makes profit on the selling money factory if it is above buy rate (referred to as a reserve). The reserve is paid to the dealer typically with a caveat, that the deal remain funded for 60 to 90 days. If the loan if paid of before that time, the dealer gets charged back that money from the lender.

The above reminds me of another point. If you ARE leasing first, make sure that the dealer is NOT marking up the money factor OR if they are, then make sure they discount the car just as much to make up for it.

@Irongunner yup agree 100%

One thing not taken into account in this thread would be sales tax. If your in a full sales tax state you essentially woube be paying double tax. If your in an total lease payment state you would be paying sales tax on all lease payments plus buyout?

How would sales tax be calculated in Maryland, New York, or Michigan? Which would be the cheapest? Thanks!

hello,
I leased an 2019 RDX base last week. The sale price was 29225 with all the incentives incl loyalty. I logged in the Acura portal to get the pay off. I see pay off as 29025. I paid my first month down along with tax, registration (995 total).

So, If i had to buy this vehicle it would be 29025 + first month payment. Then I need to register the vehicle that adds sales tax.
Lease to Buy is the way to go for anyone thinking off. I am looking for credit union to finance this. I am working on this.

@krispy thanks for the info! I’m looking forward to trying this out on an upcoming Jeep Wrangler Unlimited lease/purchase.

Sure.
By the way, does anyone know about 10 days rule for lease buy out on california DMV sales tax ? I read from the below article that if i sell car with in 10 days of lease buy out I dont need to pay tax.I am planning to buy another car for my wife. If thats true, I can register this lease buy out car in her name and I can buy another one ? This way I avoid sales tax. Is this legal?

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/reg_hdbk/ch11/ch11_18

You may not need to pay the tax, but then wouldn’t she need to when she registers it, so it’s the same?

Aren’t family transfers are excluded from sales tax in CA? I might be wrong. please correct me

SOMEBODY needs to pay sales tax dude. There is no loophole.

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got it. Thanks. I was so curious how that will work.