How to Purchase Lexus at Lease End? Advice?

My 2020 Lexus RX 350 lease ends in 60 days from today. I’m located in CA.

Leased through Lexus Financial

MSRP was: $59,975
Car has only 9,500 miles. I had a 27 month lease with 10k miles/year. So, way under mileage.
Put $0 down when leased. Payment is $540/mo.

Lease end purchase price is: $39,000.
Vroom offered me $51,000 online today. (About $12,000 equity.)

We like the SUV - no problems. This SUV is being used as a family vehicle and the way used car prices are now, I think it will be hard for me to find another comparable SUV for less than $50,000 anyway. So, my initial though is just to buy it out and keep it for another 2 years and potentially sell it for $39,000 , if market stays up.

I called the dealer where I leased it from, he said they charge $995 dealer fee + tax + DMV + Doc fees in order for me to buy the car. Roughly $1,500 in dealer fees + Tax. So, that’s going to push the price up to approx. $43,500.

  1. Do I have to go through a dealer to purchase? Anyway around the ~ $1.5k dealer fees?

  2. If I sell the car to Vroom , would that save me the $3k in sales tax? Of course, then I’d have to go look for another vehicle, which may end up costing more than $50k+, so not sure if making $12k is worth the hassle, since I’ll just pay that back on the next car.

  3. any merit to selling to Vroom and taking that $12k profit and putting it towards a purchase of a new or lightly used car?

Thanks

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Assuming they used Toyota / Lexus Financial.

  1. Log in your portal and pay there instead of going through a dealer.
  2. Yes you save the 3k in tax. But you are looking at it the wrong way. You are making 12k, which then pays for your new car (well maybe 20 months of it). You have a lease now, so the 50k thing is not a number to use.
  3. Used cars are horrible right now. So no merit.

So, you think the best option is to sell to Vroom, make the $12k? Then use that towards a new lease?

No the best option is to hang onto your current car and extend it for 6 months. But you didn’t give me that option to suggest.

Other than that, you can go to a dealer for the new car, see if they will give you $51k for your car and you can get another car without all the 2 step hassle.

Ahh, well I’m open to ideas!

Can you explain why I should extend the lease for 6 months? What do I do at the end of 6 more months?

Well, for one, you get to use up that expensive registration you just paid for for year 3 of your lease. It also gives you more time for the market to determine what it’s going to do.

More importantly, short of a bit of rent charge, extending doesn’t take away any of your options or cost you much of anything vs buying it out now.

Thanks, I didn’t think of this idea yet. So, 6 more months of payments at $540/mo = $3,240.

If I buy the car after 6 months, the lease purchase should be roughly $3k less? In essence, making no difference whether I purchase now or 6 months later. Am I right in thinking that way?

A little less as there are some interest involved but yes the buyout is less after making some payments.

But same thing, if you have LFS you can sell the car direct to a dealer without buying it out.

Yah, it largely comes down to what the money factor is as to how much of your payment goes to lowering the buy out.

Rent charge and monthly tax don’t go towards it

Not sure why you’d wait when you have a previously unimaginable amount of equity that will expire at some point.

No one knows if it’s next week, next month or next year but the arms race between Carvana, vroom, etc that leads to these high bids cannot go on forever. When that competition is over, your equity will shrink accordingly.

Using up the unused portion of your Reg fees is chump change compared to that.

You can get the sales tax back in a properly timed transaction (10 days between receiving title and selling the car IIRC) only in California. Or just sell directly to the highest bidding dealer and make it even easier.

Buy your next car, brand new, and choose something that was known for holding value even before COVID.

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This was exactly my thoughts when I made OP. I fear that eventually, that 12k will go away and I’ll kick myself for not grabbing it.

If I decide to cash out the equity, it seems Dealer will be easiest option to avoid sales tax.

But then, what do I buy next? The next car will likely be over MSRP. Perhaps, I may be better off just buying the car and keeping the Lexus, as it stands to hold it’s value rather well.

Did you try the brokers local here and see if there is a replacement car you can get at MSRP that you like?

Holding value well means depreciating slowly, relative to its competitors. RX is a champ at that, which means it will be worth $30k when an equivalent Acura of the same age/miles is worth 27k and a Infiniti is worth 24.

But when the arms race ends the Lexus will never be worth anywhere near $50k+ ever again.

If you like the RX just buy a brand new 2022 RX with that money.

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It’s a Lexus, so extending the lease doesn’t prevent any of that. The lease can still be sold at a moment’s notice, etc, it just adds the flexibility to keep the lease while finding a new vehicle.

I like this idea, but wondering if the depreciation would be LESS on my current 2020 RX350 vs a new 2022 RX350?

It seems like it would, but do you think my numbers make sense? Or is it a toss up either way?

Current 2020 RX350: (only 9.9k miles, way under mileage)
Buy for $43k including tax+fees. In 2 years, let’s assume it will be worth $30,000 (about 50% of MSRP on year 4/5).

Loss = -$13,000 net depreciation cost

vs.

Sell 2020 and Buy Brand New 2022 RX350: (pocket $12k cash in equity)
I buy for New 2022 for $64,000 (msrp 60k), in 2 years, it will be worth $45,000 (75% of MSRP)

Loss = -$19,000 net depreciation cost , but we can add back $12k equity from 2020 car sale, so lowers to: -$7,000.

-$7,000 for 2022 vs -$13,000 for 2020.

The highest bid could evaporate.

I’m not worried about the equity changing based on the RV or anything else from the lessor’s side. It changes from the bidder’s side.

I think what Max may have meant, is that the possibility that Vroom may drop the offer from $52k today, to $45k 2 months from now.

Carvana offered me only $42k today. So, Vroom is $10k above that.

If the used car market continues to stay heated, yes - I think I could still get a $52k offer from Vroom/Dealer…but, it’s a real possibility that they change their offer amount based on demand/supply for my specific vehicle.

The new RX being 64k… is that because of taxes or a markup on the selling price?

What does a new RX lease look like with max MSDs? Does the math make more sense to do that?

A 72 month loan payment on $64k is $960+/month.

My point being….keep the $12k and use for refundable MSDs.

Lease it for ~$700/month. Save an additional $9,000 on a 36/month lease (compared to financing $64k).

I’m just going off what the 2020 cost was. $60k MSRP + tax + dealer fees. I’m seeing 2022 MSRP around $55k to $60k range also.