(From Fannie Mae’s guidelines)
Lease Payments
Lease payments must be considered as recurring monthly debt obligations regardless of the number of months remaining on the lease. This is because the expiration of a lease agreement for rental housing or an automobile typically leads to either a new lease agreement, the buyout of the existing lease, or the purchase of a new vehicle or house.
There could be variations on this with other investors (and portfolio lenders), but the GSEs are the big dogs.