I am in the middle of my first lease purchase which is a 2021 BMW X3, lease ends in approx. 18 months. We are in the process of moving in the next few months from Chicago to Texas. I am ahead on miles and not sure of my options. Just based on curiosity, Carvana offered to buy the car for $3k less than my buyout offer from MYBMW financial. I also know that BMW financial isn’t going to let me get bought out by a third party so I am stuck.
Ideally, I’d like to find a way out of this car without a loss hopefully so I don’t have to deal with driving it cross-country. We have one more car that is fully paid off so Im leaning toward buying a used car once I make it to Texas, even though I know I will probably get fleeced on that.
Has anyone been in a relocation situation before? What is the best financial decision in the market? Should I finance a buyout and then sell the car privately?
Chances are if you got it 18 months ago, you likely still got a better deal than you can hope to get now and you can worry about the mileage once you get closer to lease end by keeping it and either drive it to TX or ship it if flying in?
I’d just keep it for now, personally unless you will be in a situation where you won’t need the car at all or will have company provided transportation.
I can tell ya for my 2018 bmw 330xi–i am well below my mileage 23k used out of 36k and lease finishes in 3 months; everywhere i lookied i was getting 5k below buyout price.
but ya, i would agree with IAC’s advise.
Curse of the old body style on that one. Seldom do I see a Fxx car do much more than break even on a trade in, still better than before this crazy market though!
Driving or shipping the car sounds much more cost-effective than eating the negative equity on the X3 just to get destroyed on a used car in this market.
Why not put it up for lease assumption? Since you got it 18 months ago, the payment should look pretty attractive in today’s market. Might also be able to get $$$ from the new lessee.
Don’t know how carvana quoted you 3k below because I am leasing a 2019 X3 and have 20k miles on it an carvana quoted 7k more than the buyout, not that I can sell it to carvana but very surprising that they came under buyout for you.
I would suggest keeping your car.
Shipping to Texas would be around $1000
Registration would be around $200
And you can ride this tough market out in 18 months (hopefully)
I was in a similar situation sometime back and I kept my car.
That sounds about right for shipping. I would just take a long weekend and drive it, Enjoy the Ozarks and some great BBQ (if that’s your thing) on the way down.
Did you try other places besides Carvana? I went with Rodo recently: Carvana dropped their offer on my car (not a BMW), which left me scratching my head (was still positive equity, but thousands below where they were a month prior). So, I expanded my search, and was pleasantly surprised with how strong Rodo’s offer was. I am sill waiting to hear the lease is paid off (I am within the window, so not a bad thing as yet). Some of the process felt less ‘safe’ than when I went with Carvana, but so far, I am pretty happy
