You are correct, you won’t find many brokers directly in the Midwest, but you would have to look at the Brokers here that will either ship to you for a fee, or you will have to fly in to pick up and drive home.
The Point of the Broker is to get your discount off of MSRP that you need. You will get this by just asking wheras when you contact your local stealer they won’t give you any Discount off of MSRP because their “light” on inventory.
Also the Broker will be able to give you the same National Lease programs (RV/MF) for your Zip Code.
So by spending $1,000-1500 you may end up with a 13% discount off of MSRP.
You can then check your prospective deal on the Lease Calculator to see if that is what you can pay.
if you need a better deal, then the only hope is to find the unicorn or desparate dealer.
‘Detailed’ calculations are easy with calculator on this site. Spend some time studying how to use it as it will greatly increase your understanding of leases/payments/variables, etc.
I’ve done a lot of research via Edmunds to get some semblance of a starting point but would appreciate this community’s feedback in an attempt to narrow down my focus. I don’t have 1 specific vehicle that I am interested in, but rather looking for a vehicle at a relatively low cost that has features that I like (leather seats, blind spot monitoring, etc.)
I’d love to know which manufacturers or models have better lease support right now or which manufacturers and models will dealers be more likely to discount. I’m in the midwest (Illinois) and have found it difficult on this site to find deals in the marketplace to help benchmark.
Is the Edmunds estimated lease payments a good source of information? The information does not seem to line up with posts on the forum. Anecdotally, as an example, I found a ‘23 Volvo XC60 B5 Ultimate ~$58k MSRP that Edmunds says the lease payment with $0 down should be $753. In looking at Bendetto’s Volvo sheet a similar XC is $609 w/o MSD. A broker on this forum has a G70 base (MSRP ~$41k) advertised for $399+tax and $2000 DAS - nowhere close to Edmunds.
I’ve collected the RV and MF for all of the vehicles above but other than Edmunds I haven’t found any information on suggested selling price / discounts off MSRP - that’s one of the missing pieces of information I need to continue my research. Any suggestions on where to find that?
Below is a breakdown of what I’ve found in my search. All pricing below assumes 36 months, 10k miles and $0 down payment with all taxes and fees.
I haven’t had a car since April 2020 and do not drive much so the list is a mix of cars I really like Volvo XC60, BMW 330xi, Subaru Forester and then some that I thought would be affordable sedans. I am 100% open to looking at other vehicles but would like to learn how to find the pertinent information to continue my research.
The programs are all about to change, but what is “leasing well” are what is discussed in Ask the Hackrs and Shared Tips & Deals. Beyond that your constraints will narrow the list to check:
some EVs lease well, many don’t. Most people focus on the Federal credit passed as an incentive, but the MF are high and some charge a buyout fee, some don’t allow buyouts. you have to evaluate all parts of the lease. A few homely luxury EVs come with enough cash in the frunk/trunk to lease well.
Most PHEVs lease horribly: higher MSRP / low RV / high MF / incentives can’t fix the rest. The 4xe family is a common exception.
Some ICE vehicles lease ok, most names you used to think of as “value” brands got expensive, and aren’t bad choices but make much more sense to finance
Maybe this is beside the point, but do you even need to lease or purchase a car? Do you drive so little that simply renting a car when needed might be the cheapest option?
That’s a good question - wife and I have been able to share 1 car for 3 years but we’ve hit the breaking point where kids are in different activities, I’m doing more driving. It was a good while it lasted but time is now for a new car.
Do you think you’ll hit whatever the minimum mileage limit is for cars you’re looking at? If not, it might make more sense to buy one of the cars you’ve listed that has a good chance of holding its value (Subaru, Hondas, possibly the Acura).
Philosophically speaking, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to view this as a first car purchase and take the anxiety of lease-end excess wear/tear charges out of your busy life. Certainly none of the prices make it worth it. It would be very different if we were back in the good OL’ days of sub-$100 Malibus or $200 cars in the Camry/Sonata segment.
Out of the cars in the short list, any Subaru is always a good one to finance because they hold their values so well, especially in the snow belt.
You could also consider the Hyundai Elantra and Tucson with their 0-0.9% finance APR.
The minimum mileage limit? On our current 2020 Subaru Forester Touring lease we’re at 25k miles on a 36/10k and the lease expires in Sept. That vehicle is shared by my wife and I and we’ve taken in from IL to FL three times. Prior to the pandemic I was usually turning in leases 1k-3k under miles. I think in this new normal I’d still be short a 36mo/7.5k a year lease but not by much.
I hadn’t considered buying a car. I’ve actually never bought a new car before. My first car purchase was a used Infiniti G20 and since then I’ve been leasing and pre-pandemic I found leasing easier to navigate. I’d target 1% MSRP for monthly and was generally able to attain that.
I’m a fan of leasing because I keep the car in great condition, like to get a new vehicle every few years and do not want to deal with any mechanical issues.
The first place to start in learning how to effectively lease is to forget this bs 1% rule and look in to how to actually work out if something is a good deal or not.
Can some explain to me why the lease formula (taking msrp/purchase price/money factor/residual value) actually matters? Since the msrp and purchase price are essentially made up numbers and are unrelated to the market rate of the car after the lease, why do those inputs actually matter from a buyers perspective? It doesn’t take into account what the dealership bought the car for, what incentives it’s getting and whether it needs to get rid of the vehicle from a supply perspective.
That is what I’m asking. I’ve search deals-and-tips, marketplace listings, Edmunds, this forum and can’t validate the information for a starting point.
Let’s narrow it to my favorite bunch, not the settlers.
BMW X1
BMW X3
BMW 330xi
Volvo XC60
Genesis GV70
Genesis G70
Kia Telluride
I’m just looking to find a starting point, a range if you will, of pricing pre-tax. Even just what average discount off MSRP is. I know how to get RV, MF, lease incentives and use the calc but the deal people post are all over the place and the edmunds lease estimates are nothing like what brokers are posting.
For example (with BS numbers for illustration)
BMW X1 - target $550 pre tax $0 down or target 7% off MSRP
BMW X3 - target $600 pre tax $0 down or target 5% off MSRP
BMW 330xi - target 510 pre tax $0 down
Volvo XC60- target 600 pre tax $0 down
Genesis GV70 - target $725 pre tax $0 down target 3% off MSRP
Genesis G70 - target $475 pre tax $0 down target 9% off MSRP
Kia Telluride - target $800 pre tax $0 down target 1% above MSRP
That made up info would tell me look at G70 over BMW3, rule out Telluride and look at XC and X1/3 over GV70. I’ve tried searching deals-and-tips, marketplace, edmunds and I’m not finding what I’m looking for.
First and foremost, ignore edmunds. The only useful information you will find there is mf/rv/incentives for vehicles. All of their info about what a good deal is is useless.
The shared deals and broker listings here are a good way to work out what an achievable dealer discount is for a vehicle. Its up to you to take that target discount and filter it through the rest of the leaving variables as they apply to your situation (which is why one cares about all of the parts of the leasing equation) to establish what a target deal looks like.
From there, you reqlly need to compare total cost of ownership against purchasing costs to work out the value offered by leasing for the cost delta.
