Can anyone chime in on if I am missing anything from the analysis below? I have a car I am going to sell with total proceeds of about $15k. I am now looking to lease or buy a Mazda CX5 and comparing the two options.
With the current lease deals on CX5 Select 2.5 models, it looks like monthly payments would amount to ~$350/month for 36 months (which gets us close to $15K). On the other hand, if I were to buy the car outright at (for simplicity) $30,000 with $15k down at a 0% rate I will be paying about ~$400/month over 36 months.
At the end of the 36 months, with a lease, I will have the option to buy the car for lets say ~$20,000. Lets assume in 3 years I can sell this car for about $20,000. That means with a lease, I will have put in about $15K into lease payments, can buy the car for $20,000 and sell the car for $20,000, meaning that the $15K I put into the lease is dead in the water and would get no money out at the end.
If I buy instead, I would have put $15k in at a downpayment and another $16,200 in for loan payments. Then I can sell the car for $20,000 which means I am getting out $20,000 at the end of the loan term.
Just by nominal value of the dollars I can get out of the car at the end of both the lease vs finance term, I would go with finance because there is money to be taken out of the system with buying the car. Am I being too simple with this analysis and missing something here? What would you guys do.