Depends on the car/finance company. I just sold 2 to them - On the Honda, the payoff included the disposition fee - On the Lexus, the payoff was the same as I received on their website.
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Thanks! I have a Toyota RAV4.
As of equity offer, it is more than my original capitalized cost and I can sell it to Carmax with profit. However it sells in the market for 2K even more than that.
But still I need advice from you guys.
My RAV4 is OK and I am happy with keeping it. But I feel like these days are more in favor of who SELL the used cars as they are priced way more than their value. My Concern is that when these days are over and back to normal, the used car prices will plummet back to the level they would be like there was no pandemic effect.
So if I keep my car for another 3 years before selling it, the depreciation might be way more than the depreciation of a 2021 model after 3 years (hypothetical 35% for RAV4).
Do you guys think I am better off selling my used RAV4 for a newer model considering the financial losses alone? Obviously the newer model has many feature upgrades as well to be added to the equation.
Just sold my 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe SEL to Carmax today (07/05/2021) for $4900 over my buyout.
The process couldn’t have been more straightforward took about 2 hours of mostly waiting around and than they issued the check.
For me this even sweeter because my lease had probably $2500 worth of damage that I would of had to pay for upon lease return.
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2017 Acura MDX Base, 26,000 miles. The used car market is still crazy. Just did a lease buyout with Carmax for $28,800–that’s $5000 over the residual value on a near 4 year old car. (I netted $4700 after AHFS $350 turn in fee). The whole process took less than 90 minutes. It should be noted that there was a fresh paper note taped to the check-out window about certain finance companies not allowing lease buyouts–I neglected to take a picture,sorry.) I would recommend you call CarMax and your lessee before heading over to the lot, though on the phone and at the store they both said no problem with Acura/Honda so far.
I compared offers from Vroom, Carvana, and Rodo also; Carmax was best by a $200 over Carvana. Rodo and Vroom were offering $3k and $5k less, respectively.
THE CRAZY PART is that both CarMax and Carvana’s offer increased over $1,000 since I checked prices in May. So my vehicle appreciated despite aging two months and acquiring 2,000 miles. Nuts.
My initial lease was a $0 Due At Signing, $372/mo = tax 7500 miles for 36 months deal, which I extended. So, factoring in the Carmax ‘rebate’ of $4700, my final lease cost over 45 months is $12,000 or a fantastic $266/mo! (Only maintnenance cost was a couple of oil changes).
Thanks for all of the tips in this and the other threads.
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Even the new car market is not really good at present. So, you need to see how much a new car sells for, and how much do you think that will depreciate to in 3 years. If the depreciation is the same or less than your current car, go ahead. Now, if you are in california, you can do the lease buyout and sell to someone in 10 days without paying tax.
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Just a heads up in case someone finds this helpful: Apparently Carmax has a policy they won’t buy a car within 30 days of title issue date (I was told this is for them to allow time for potential issues to arise post title processing)… essentially some CYA on their part. Found this out yesterday when i went in to sell my car and was waiting for the check …
This was very frustrating for me personally since i had to complete my own buyout from US bank in order to sell and get my equity since they were quoting dealer payoff 7k above mine… had to wait close to 2 months from buyout initiated (i.e. check sent to bank) until title in hand and now I’m told I need to wait yet another few weeks. Carmax pricing during that 2 month period stayed mostly same but dropped 1k from last week to this and now I’m told i need to wait another two weeks… Really hope it does not drop further!
As a data point I’m in TX and vehicle is a 2019 Jeep grand Cherokee …
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Do you want to try Enterprise Car Sales for a quote? I had a good experience with them and they don’t have such a policy.
How legit is this???
Sold my X7 with carmax today.
Quote was higher than Vroom, carvana never got back to me.
Only gotcha with carmax is, BMWFS wont speak to carmax directly, so when carmax calls BMWFS, you need to ask the rep from BMWFS to email the quote to the rep from carmax, since they wont even give the dealer payoff amount to carmax, even if you give them the authorization to do so.
Easy process, no sweat!
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Long story very short I purchased a new '19 Tacoma Limited In Jan of '20 for an OK price, this was before I found lease hacker. A few months after that purchase our (12 year old) second car got totaled in a storm. We decided to go with just one vehicle since you know Covid.
Fast forward to a month ago, it became clear we needed a second car again so I leased a Sonata. Now I had a lot more truck than I needed as it went from the primary vehicle to the “work” truck. So I decided to see what I could get for it.
Vroom only offered me about $30,500 so I didn’t have high hopes but I went to CarMax anyway to see what they would say. They came back with an offer of $41,400. I had to jump on it. Here are the numbers.
Sticker: Can’t remember
Price paid: $38,395
TTL and fees: $2,272
Total paid: $40,667
Now I got a loan on this car so my out of pocket for fee’s and loan payments (including interest) was:
14,172
CarMax paid off the loan and cut me a check for $12,527
I had the truck for 17 months with an actual cash outlay (14,172 minus 12,527) of $1,645.
So I affectively leased a Taco Limited for less than 100 bucks a month for 17 months. You could do worse. I am now going to get into another Taco but a base trim SR for a whole lot less, 10K ish less sticker. This frees up the cash for my new garage 
Edit: I forgot to put in the mileage, Just short of 13,000 at the time of sale.
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Sold a 2019 GLC lease to CarMax today. Originally started with Carvana, but after not hearing from them for multiple days after submitting documents, I decided to check out other quotes and I’m glad I did, because CarMax came in at almost $3k higher.
Process was simple. Arrived without an appointment and they were able to accommodate. Immediately had someone take photos of the car from all angles and waited about 20 minutes to finalize the quote. They were able to honor the quote I received online. After, a phone call to MBFS to get the dealer payoff, paperwork signed, and a check was cut for positive equity of nearly $9k. Overall, in and out in about an hour and a half. Longest part was being put on hold by MBFS.
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Had a Mercedes GLB250 4matic that I just sold to Carmax. Had the vehicle for about 12 months but really just didn’t like it all that much. Had 6700 miles on it and had gotten offer from caravans for $38,600 and another from vroom fro a little less. So imagine my surprise when Carmax gives me an offer of $41,000. So walked out with a check for about $2,000 and got rid of a vehicle 24 months early that really just didn’t wow me!
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I would not have shared this if I my self was totally surprised with the turn of events. My Mazda 3 lease was coming to an end in October. My original intention was to return it early so I can save couple of payments. But then I just casually browsed this forum to find out the deals people are getting. When I saw folks were selling their leased cars and making money out of it, I said let me try. Here is what I got for 2018 Mazda 3 with 15,000 miles on it.
Carmax offered me online $17,800 for the car, while Caravana, Vroom were in the $16K range. When I took my car to Carmax they said they will pay $18,000. Along with that they were also able to get a $700 off of the payoff that they passed on to me. I walked out with a check for $5,745. I am super happy with what I got as my original intent was to just save the two last payments.
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And now you are leasing another new car or holding that $5k check until the used car and flip leasing bubble ends???
For now holding on to the check and buying some time for the bubble to end. Also, with WFH, I can get away with one car…
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With Chase or TFS?
Chase. Don’t know TFS, but Carmax can’t/won’t work with Mazda Capital
Had to be Chase as TFS only recently took over (within the last year right?).