Have been a following along here for a few years and love the forum. I used a broker on here back in 2020 to lease a brand new 2021 Audi SQ5 that is quickly approaching its lease maturity date in next 2 months. I have currently extended the lease to the maximum 6 months. After doing some research on here and external sites, I was hoping to get a bit of advice on my situation.
The Audi has been great, however I am highly anticipating to move into a new job in next 12 months, which will have a fully paid company car so I will not need a personal vehicle. I will need an interim vehicle for the next 12 months and would prefer a midsize luxury/sport SUV.
From what I can tell from my research, my SQ5 likely has about $3k in equity for a KBB dealer trade in price vs. my price for lease buy out. Wanted to get thoughts on if this is realistic to pursue?
Should I approach my local dealer to see if they would buy back the car? Maybe I can roll some of this into a new short term lease?
From what I can tell, most dealers aren’t offering 12 month leases on new cars or if they are, the deals are so bad due to the depreciation phasing.
It’s also clear to me now post covid, that it seems impossible to get a decent midsize luxury SUV for 1 percent rule with minimal DAS. I was able to get 1 percent rule on the SQ5 with minimal DAS due to a broker here
I would be willing to pay a bit more for the convenience of my situation above with the company car, but something leads me to believe this is still the most cost prohibitive option even if I was able to capitalize on some of that positive equity in my current lease to roll into a new one
I’ve also been scouring Swap a Lease for a while now, and know that is a recommendation from many on short term lease options. However, many of these lease deals are very, very poor. I know some can be negotiated for cash incentives. upfront etc
Based on the above, would you recommend pursuing the dealer route to see if I can capitalize on some of this equity and is it realistic to secure a short term lease form them without getting taken advantage of? Should I leverage a broker for this situation or would most brokers not be interested given the addition of the lease turn in
Or am I better off turning in the car, and not dealing with the dealers and just trying to find something on swap a lease that I can live with.
I’d be willing to pay a bit for convenience in the situation if a broker is the best approach as I’m pretty busy, but also want to get a fair deal.
Step 1: Get a few real offers from Carvana, CarMax, etc. to see how much equity you might have, if any. KBB trade value is just an estimate.
Step 2a: If you do have equity, then shop you car to all your local Audi and VW dealers. You can only realistically sell it to Audi/VW dealers or a dealer group with those in their network.
Step 2b: If you don’t have any equity, then just schedule your lease end inspection and prepare to turn your car in when the lease is up in 2 months.
Step 3: Keep the shopping (and transaction) for your new car completely separate from everything above. If you find a good shorter term lease on a new car (or something on SAL) then great, but whether you have any equity and sell your SQ5 or just turn it in shouldn’t have any bearing on that.
Kbb also tends to lag the market by a few months, so when things are really volatile, like they have been for the past few years, KBB can be way off reality.
Look in the Marketplace for short term leases on EVs from Mercedes, Ioniq and Nissan. For example 18m on Nissan. You missed the Audi Etron GT 12m lease boat last month though. That would have been perfect for your situation.
During the golden age of leasing (2011 onwards) until chip shortages, the “1% rule” meant you were overpaying.
So it’s a useless guideline. You’re either overpaying or way off from reality. Or maybe it’s correct once in a while just by sheer coincidence like a broken clock.
So going forward forget that rule and monitor the market ahead of time so that you don’t miss what may have been the perfect deal for any given situation.
