Getting equity from current lease when leasing a new car

Have a friend with a 2019 Mazda Cx 5 Touring, 22500 miles, lease is over, on an extension. She’s looking at a Hyundai Kona SEL, saw dealer lease offer 36 months 10K miles 213.24 with $3899 not including dealer fees. The Mazda on Kelly Blue Book in good condition is worth $23-24K. My question, how much equity should she try and get pushed into the new lease Appreciate any feedback. Thank you!

Separate the transactions to start. Check and see what all the third parties are offering

Don’t put your equity into a new lease.

Whether you should even lease in the current market is another question.

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Thank you, John. I’m in Florida which I’m told is a is a dealer state. When I tried to buy my car at the end of my lease Hyundai Finance told me I had to go to the dealer to purchase. They tried to charge me thousands to buy my car. Luckily, I found TRESL and they bought the care from Hyundai and got me a loan for less than $500 in fees. She wants to go from Mazda to Hyundai, I don’t think Hyundai can buy the lease unless they have Mazda dealership also?

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She’s on an extension now. I suggested she buy it with a loan from TRESL and watch the market? Appreciate the feedback!

It varies by manufacturer. The first thing she should do is open up her mazda financial portal and see if she can buy it out directly.

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go to AUTONATION they can buy out almost every brand. They offered me 4.5K more than any other dealer would offer.

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Thanks for the feedback!

She was already told she needed to go to the dealer. Thanks for the feedback!
Did you put it into another car?

You can still get quotes from third parties as if it’s financed, to see what fair market value is, in order to negotiate its trade-in value.

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See also post #2 :wink:

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DOH! U2Fast.

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Buying the Kona is a better idea than leasing it.

That being said, don’t ignore the advice in this thread. Value the Mazda based on multiple offers from the links posted

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Not OP but does the same principle apply if I’m financing the new car?

I understand that in the event the car is totaled the down payment on a lease is lost but I assume this makes no difference on a financed vehicle so I thought about rolling in my equity into the new purchase.

With a lease the answer is “it depends” but with financing you own the car. So you’re entitled to all the insurance proceeds less the exact amount of the loan balance at the time.

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If it is Florida and the lease is through Chase then she can buy out the Mazda or sell to a third party without fees.

I am going to do the same this week, simply bringing a check and odometer one page statement (available on the chase auto loan site) to the local Chase bank branch.

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Why? In the good old days discounts were common, mf was low and we had mostly zero equity in our lease return. What we have today are lower to no dealer discounts or incentives, higher mf (which will only increase as the interest rates will keep climbing) but in return our current vehicles keep their value. As demand for cars decrease and supply increase dealer discounts and incentives on new vehicles will increase and as a consequence the used car market will cool down and our equity in our used cars will decrease. I see no difference in using equity to replace the good old discounts and incentives to get a reasonable monthly lease. You will almost never get both.

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Confirmed. Went to Chase bank branch in person. In and out in less than 20 minutes. No adders, no Mazda dealer $2-3K adder games to buyout your own car per the lease contract, surprisingly easy…

Bank rep handled all the logistics, verified lease buyout amount (which matched exactly from my call to Chase earlier in the week) and even prepared an overnight envelope to send out to the Chase Auto center in Texas. I dropped off signed odometer statement for the Mazda 3, buyout check (RV + sales tax with no adders).

For fun a local Mazda dealer quoted 2.5K in dealer adders when I went in for oil change service. $799 inspection, $899 or 999 dealer fee, $400+ electronic registration fees and a few more hundred additional for licensing fees. They hounded me knowing that I was coming in for the service on buying out my car, trading in for a nonexistant new car or having me buy out the car while in person.

The Sales rep/mgr played dumb when I noted that I had called Chase for end of lease buyout amount and was told that I can buy it directly through them with no added fees. “I’ve never seen that happen in over 25 yrs in this business.” Within 2 hours, including lunch and a few errands, was able to pull off an incredible 25-year miracle with Chase Bank in 15 minutes…

Bottom line. If you have a Chase Mazda lease and want to buyout or get your equity from a third party, deal only with them not with your friendly Mazda dealer. NEVER mix a purchase and buyout transaction.

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By any chance would anyone have any insight on buying out a Ford Expedition in Florida that was leased from an Autonation dealership? I’m contemplating buying a used vehicle and using the positive equity as part of the down payment. I realize this is off topic but was wondering if anyone has encountered this.