I will never leave LH then, but I almost never do anyway.
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A toggle in our calc would be suhweet.
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Looks like leasehackr owns financehackr.com
I haven’t financed in a while, but isn’t it a more straight forward calculation?
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It absolutely is. There’s far less need for one vs the LH lease calculator.
For finance, I have a simple finance calculator made in excel, but there’s plenty online available too.
Yeh, i’ll second that motion! it would benefit individuals who wanna map out a lease vs finance calculation for themselves side by side. … and other calculators do exist but some of those don’t factor in post sale rebates, taxed vs non taxed incentives, etc. @littleviolette wondering if it’s a quick little add on or would it take quite a few man-hours to throw one up?!
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Right. But why go somewhere else when you consider a LH broker offering, for example? Also, I’m sure that it can be as fancy as LH lease calculator (see above).
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Yea I hear you, probably not too much lift to code one in here. I was more speaking to the likely lower demand for it given that it’s already something that’s widely available. The lease calculator is more of a unique advantage. That said, I’m not saying don’t do it. I think it’s always a great idea to have more features and capability here.
I think the key is to provide a unique LH perspective that is useful to our readers through the finance calculator. There were plenty of lease calculators that predate ours, but ours draws users because we built our calculator around the our own approach to leasing (though quite a few sites have copied our lease calculator format since).
I would be very interested in your thoughts on how we can build a finance calculator that would add value to our community. I do think that having a sharable lease v finance comparison is a good start (though we need to brainstorm further under what metrics we are comparing them). Open to more ideas!
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Well we have a leasehackr score, why not create a financehackr score (when things get back to normal). Pulling depreciation curve data from a reputable meta source would help provide a lens for normal people attempting to buy and finance a car, and provide a lens into how equity could potentially progress over time, in comparison to finance payments (interest and principal). OBV that’s much more complicated than the current iteration of the LH score, which works of the RV.
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Maybe start scraping for rates and offer different lenders. Some may require 0 down, some may ask for 80% LTV with lower rate.
When i am trying to decide if i want to finance or lease, the analysis I do is to run the finance numbers, assume a sale price on the purchase after 3 years, and compare total cost. Ill run those numbers assuming i sell at the lease rv, below the rv, and above. Id love a calculator that started to break down the numbers loke that for comparing against a lease. The value in a finance calculator on leasehackr is for comparing it to a lease beyond just the monthly payment… i can find a finance calculator that does that anywhere.
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Well it would be beneficial IF FinCalc could pull national/regional offers for the brands and automatically populate the APR but still give user the option to change it (in case they go with a diff bank or their credit score disqualifies them from that specific offer).
How often have we seen leases posted here where some poor schmuck has signed a horrendous 3 yr lease where it would’ve served them better to have just financed it in the first place…(Didn’t someone recently post a Porsche deal where the lease pmts after 3 yrs was 85% of the total car value?!)
Some cars such as the CLS, A8, 8 series, and almost all Porsche’s don’t lease well and are better off being financed and I think if the consumer see a comparison it might steer them in the right direction.
Totally don’t have a WIP sheet for that 
Exactly, but the question is where do we get the values to guesstimate the values assumed. I’m sure there is some data out there that’s avail (behind a paywall I’m sure), but current market obv has that messed up.
I disagree on the first three - all three of those should be leased as the real-world RV will usually underperform compared to the MBFS, AFS, and BMWFS set residuals (that last one especially) and MF usually will b a calculated loss in relation to what you could finance for. Most Porsches will benefit from purchases - I concur, but we have seen some great Audi 8 series and BMW 8 Series (M and non M) deals.
When i do that analysis, i always go off of the lease rv as a starting point.
For our better understanding:
How many of you use a finance calculator? If you do, which one is your favourite and why?
What do you usually use a finance calculator for (if you do)? Do you use it to calculate your monthly payment? To estimate the total cost of ownership? To compare lease v finance? Or to see the cost of cars you can afford via financing (reverse calculation)?
What do you usually use a finance calculator for?
- calculate your monthly payment?
- estimate the total cost of ownership?
- compare lease v finance?
- see the cost of cars you can afford via financing?
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Sorry, deleted someone’s vote. I forgot to enter multiple answers for myself lol
I use Penfed or any other bank’s calculators.
I don’t need a finance amortization schedule like many auto calculators, but I’m usually comparing lease vs finance.
In a finance calculator, I want to be able to load cost to finance (cash price), finance rate, term, tax rate, and see monthly payment AND at each 12 month interval the total paid/total interest/balance.
Separate (lease vs finance) if I could plug in some outputs from each calculator manually, I want to see at 12/24/36/48 month points for each: total paid out of pocket, how much went to tax, how much went to interest, what’s the balance due.
I don’t need it to handle infinite permutations, but on a 60 month finance show me payment and taxes/interest each year.
When I use that to compare to a 36 month lease, show me the payment/total OOP/taxes/interest at each interval.
I usually just setup a spreadsheet — a standard format would be nice.
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I’d estimate that roughly half of the deals I’ve done this year from LH customers ended up financing when it came time to sign. Definitely not something I was used to seeing since joining this group.
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That’s why there is an idea of LH Finance calculator 
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