[mjr24]

Originally Posted by rich5741

Why does every lease vs own discussion devolve into a “everyone who leases can’t come up with a down payment” vs “everyone who pays cash doesn’t know how to invest”? With interest rates as low as they are and assuming you are not in a state that applies double sales tax to lease payments, leasing in a pure apples to apples comparison allows lots of flexibility. At the end of the lease, you can buy for the residual, or if the value is substantially less than residual, just trade for a equivalently used car for less money and you’re ahead vs if you just bought the car outright when it was new.

The difference and why general “advice” from “experts” is to not lease is because very, very few people who lease do so to buy the car at lease end or trade to a used on at the end of the term, they most likely keep trading into new cars every 3 years, which is ALWAYS going to be more expensive than buying and keeping a car for longer than that.

Lease vs buy, at least in this environment where the rate difference is tiny (when I did my lease in early 2021, the rate difference was only 25bps) is really a decision on new car vs long(er) term ownership. To each his own.

toddwalton your approach is the reason I call my previous car my quarter million dollar Lexus GS. I bought it back in 2009 for cash - no financing, wrote a check for the full purchase price. Sold it for $5K when I got my X7 earlier this year - $55K loss vs $250K gain if I’d just dumped those $s into even a vanilla index fund. Oh well.

Before I get flamed - yes I realize that’s not the exact math since i would have made payments anyway, last 10 years is a historic bull market, etc etc, but you all get the point.

There are absolutely valid reasons to purchase versus lease. I am not disputing that. If you are going to drive for 7-8 years, then by all means you should be purchasing. However, if you have a business, there is ZERO reason for buying over leasing (unless, again, you just don't know what you are doing)....especially if it's an expensive car.

Personally, even if I didn't have a business....I don't think I would buy. I drive 20-25k miles a year and I go through cars quick. I'd be out of warranty in 2 years and eating maintenance costs if I purchased. With a lease, I turn it in at the end and I'm done. If I drove 50k miles when my lease was only 20k, I pay my mileage penalty and am out of it....even if, in reality, the car is worth $15k less due to the mileage.

I'm a big techie, too.....I cannot drive a car with old tech and even a 3-4 year old car has old tech in it.....6-8 year old guys have really old tech. It's why I have never considered a Maserati or Bentley or even Range Rover up until their 2019 updates. Dinosaur tech in those cars.