Background:
I am new to even looking at leasing. I grew up being taught that leases were just for people who can’t afford how much a vehicle cost, they were rip offs, and to avoid them at all costs.
About me:
I don’t care about cars really. For flavor, I drive a 2012 Sentra right now.
What I like is a great deal. I’ll drive an Accord or a CRV or a Miata if it is the best deal.
EV vehicles would not be particularly easy to charge.
Where/What should I be looking at if I have the the time, financial ability, and credit score to get the best deal? This could be a certain make/model, a certain vehicle class, etc. What is the best way for me to get something that would be a great deal / good experience.
Financial:
830 credit score
Don’t care what DAS or even one pay amount is, as long as overall it’s a good deal.
Could probably buy/lease any time in the next year.
I am currently reading through LeaseHackr and Reddit to better learn how to negotiate leases, all of the terminology, etc. But, in addition to that, if anyone could point me in a good direction for specifically what I should be looking for as far as vehicles go, I would appreciate your help.
First fork in the road, can you have an EV and if so, do you want to have one ? In general the best lease deals are on EVs right now so if you want one/ can tolerate them, that would be the place to start.
Then you would decide what class of car do you want, a car or a suv, how big
I can’t give you a definitive answer to the first one. An EV would not be convenient but it would be possible. I guess the way to answer it would be that if the deals were close at all, I’d rather have a hybrid or even ICE, but if the deal was much better, I could make EV work.
As far as class, it doesn’t matter to me. I would not choose a giant truck or SUV in isolation, but I don’t really have any preferences. For me, cars are just about the utility of getting from point A to B. I’d probably choose something with at least 4 seats, but even that isn’t a requirement.
They are not, so you’re gonna have to make a choice.
If you want the crazy lease deal to amaze all your online busdies, you need to pick EV.
If you are married to ICE or hybrid, you’ll still find decent deals on that type of car, but “slick deal” wise nowhere near comparable to what you can get on an EV currently.
But not all is lost: own a Camcord for 6-7 years and you’ll be surprised at how low the annual cost was. That’s as close to a brand new gas car hack as it gets rn
Okay, so it sounds like EV is significantly better. Let’s roll with that. Where would I go from there? If the deal is good enough, I can make an EV work.
That’s one of the first things that I did after reading some of the intro stuff.
But, I am looking for some help narrowing it down for my personality type. Are there any brands that tend to be best, or class of EV that tends to have the best deals? Or, is every deal just a unicorn?
I gave you 3 examples of cars leasing well right now — if you see anything better go for it.
Hypothetically asking is just a waste of time IMO. No, there’s no more pattern than BEVs leasing way better than ICEVs. You should have a good sense of what a good deal is from the Marketplace and Signed Deals & Tips but beyond that it’s subjective. Some people want the lowest payment period and some want the lowest payment for a given set of parameters and some people want a low payment relative to an arbitrarily high MSRP, even if the payment and insurance premiums are higher. There’s no universal definition of a good deal; if there was, we would all be discussing that one thing. You need to be able to make up your own mind with an informed decision about what’s a good deal and once you find something that meets your personal criteria then you need to be able to act decisively.
You have until Tuesday to take anything under August programs, even less if brokers stop accepting new orders to close out their existing pipeline for August.
I think what I was hoping for was something like, “Well, Honda has really strong demand so there incentives usually aren’t great, so usually it’s hard to find deals with them.” Or “Doesn’t really make sense to lease with economy vehicles, you get the most value out of luxury.” Etc.
But, it sounds like beyond EVs being much better than ICE, not much more beyond that.
All the programs change every month, so the answer will be different in a few hours. You’ll see deals advertised here in the Marketplace almost immediately after the programs start updating. You’ll see discussion here in the forums as people start to put together their target deals.
Generally: what is popular/desirable doesn’t lease well. Most PHEVs aren’t leasing well. Wagons almost never lease well. Zippy sport hatchbacks (GTI/Mazda3 Turbo) rarely lease well. Minivans rarely well.
A number of examples don’t lease well until they do/did: expensive lot anchors like luxury sedans, Range Rover PIN deals (RIP), V60 Polestars (memories) , WRX (fireproof to kindling), SQ5, eTron GT, Taycan (CPO Porsches more generally )
Recently some of the least expensive utility has come from Ariyas, Blazer / Equinox EVs, Honda Prologue, F150 lightnings, Lyriqs, BMW EVs, Ioniq 5 / EV6 and a few EV9s, some Genesis EVs (enjoy the sales experience of a vending machine-related death). Still cheap at the slow end of charging curve have been the Subaru and Toyota EVs.
Even if you are only shopping what leases well, eventually you have to bring your own preferences / constraints.
memories) , WRX (fireproof to kindling), SQ5, eTron GT, Taycan (CPO Porsches more generally 
)
EVs, Ioniq 5 / EV6 and a few EV9s, some Genesis EVs (enjoy the sales experience of a vending machine-related death). Still cheap at the slow end of charging curve have been the Subaru and Toyota EVs.