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18 months into lease

3K views 11 replies 6 participants last post by  TahoeSun 
#1 ·
It's 2018 m2 black sapphire. DCT. No moon roof.
13,200 miles

What's the best thing to do with the car. Put aside any caveats. If I need it. Family. Etc.

Keep it? If I do I'm considering flipping it for little profit. I seen used car prices on M2. Buyers really paying low 50's?

Ride out the lease. Turn it in.

SwapAlease it? Maybe receive small down payment?
If this route then just get into a short lease.

Others?

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#2 ·
Buying your car off-lease is no longer the bargain it once was. There's a thread on this in Ask A Dealer.

Leasing a BMW usually works out to the about the same cost as keeping one four to six years. If you have a short automotive attention span, continue leasing. I doubt the new M2 will be out in another 18 months. So, buying you leased M2 or upgrading to the new M3 might be options, where leasing the next M2 might not be.

BMW has limited M2 production to prevent cutting into sales of M3's and M4's. The M3 is now out of production. The M4 will soon be out of production. Until the new M3's and M4's are out, the will no longer be an incentive for BMW to limit M2 production. BMW could drastically ramp up M2 production with the click of a mouse (due to their highly automated factories). If they do this for the last year or so of the current M2's production, expect dealer discounts and drops in the values of used M2's. I had one of the first E46 M3's, being at almost the front of the waiting list. The car did not depreciate anything in the first year. But, by the end of the second year supply had caught up with demand, and the car depreciated normally (about 20%).

I'm going to tell my BMW salesman that if there comes a time when he's willing to split the difference between MSRP and dealer invoice on the current M2, he needs to give me a call. I'm also going to tell him that otherwise, I'll stop by and show him my new Carrera S in a few years.
 
#3 ·
Buying your car off-lease is no longer the bargain it once was. There's a thread on this in Ask A Dealer.

Leasing a BMW usually works out to the about the same cost as keeping one four to six years. If you have a short automotive attention span, continue leasing. I doubt the new M2 will be out in another 18 months. So, buying you leased M2 or upgrading to the new M3 might be options, where leasing the next M2 might not be.

BMW has limited M2 production to prevent cutting into sales of M3's and M4's. The M3 is now out of production. The M4 will soon be out of production. Until the new M3's and M4's are out, the will no longer be an incentive for BMW to limit M2 production. BMW could drastically ramp up M2 production with the click of a mouse (due to their highly automated factories). If they do this for the last year or so of the current M2's production, expect dealer discounts and drops in the values of used M2's. I had one of the first E46 M3's, being at almost the front of the waiting list. The car did not depreciate anything in the first year. But, by the end of the second year supply had caught up with demand, and the car depreciated normally (about 20%).

I'm going to tell my BMW salesman that if there comes a time when he's willing to split the difference between MSRP and dealer invoice on the current M2, he needs to give me a call. I'm also going to tell him that otherwise, I'll stop by and show him my new Carrera S in a few years.
 
#5 ·
You will loose your ass. keep it or swap a lease.
 
#6 ·
I say ride out your lease, turn it in, walk away, and start fresh.

If you have a good lease, it's probably bad in terms of buyout price. The factors that make one good make the other bad.

Swapalease, in my opinion, is the land of the desperate. To my inexpert eye, as much as 2/3 of the listings there appear to be made by people nervous about something they will face when they turn in the car, and they're trying to get someone else to take on their problem. Mostly it's high mileage but could be worse. If you happened to throw any $ at your lease to buy down the payment, forget about anyone making you whole.

I assume you're on a 36 month lease; you're pretty much halfway there. Enjoy the car.
 
#7 ·
Find out what your lease payoff is per month for the coming 3-4 months.

You can always negotiate the "buy" price from any lease. The buy price will depend on the wholesale auction price of your car based on similar/like cars being sold at auction.

You can sell your car to a buyer, knowing your buyout price, and if you have equity, you can turn that into cash on the actual sale price versus payoff price.

I am in the market for a used M2, but black exterior isn't my fancy, living in NorCal where the summers are hot.

If you want advice on how to do all this, you can PM me. I've done this with leases in the past but I no longer lease; just buy used and own for a few years.

Personally, I wouldn't pay the $50k people are asking for used M2s. There's a market value to every used car and that's what I'll pay for a documented and maintained car. The value is in the eye of the buyer and a well papered car has value to a real BMW owner.

BTW, I have bought two E93's in AZ over the years and that's my go-to state for used BMWs. Small rock chips, yes, but very clean cars and reasonably priced IMO.
 
#8 · (Edited)
You can always negotiate the "buy" price from any lease. The buy price will depend on the wholesale auction price of your car based on similar/like cars being sold at auction.

You can sell your car to a buyer, knowing your buyout price, and if you have equity, you can turn that into cash on the actual sale price versus payoff price.
I may be misunderstanding your post. The financial mechanics of a lease make it so that the buyout price at any point during the lease would be ridiculously higher than the vehicle's worth.

The nature of a balloon payment approach - essentially what a lease is - is that the car itself pays off the balloon payment on the return. The lease payments are little more than interest payments against the value of that balloon amount at the end (I am simplifying). But BMW knows they can resell the car as CPO on large margins, so the residual (balloon) value of the car is inflated to varying degrees, based on how much BMW needed to move the car at the point in time when you leased it, which made your lease price lower but makes the payoff higher.

In other words, little to no chance you find a cash buyer for your lease buyout in the midst of the lease because the buyer could buy a non-lease equivalent of your car for much less.

Am I missing something?
 
#9 ·
OP last posted in July so must have figured something out.
 
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