Overhaulin'

Planning to buy our car when the lease is up at the end of the month - can we negotiate?

The payoff price appears to be better than what the same year/make of car would go for if purchased used from a dealer. The company sent a letter detailing the payoff amount, we would need to mail a check in that amount to them in order to purchase the car. Since this price is written into our lease, I thought it was non-negotiable...but, is it negotiable, say if we were to go to the dealership for financing? I am not good at "bargaining" or car buying, I would like to approach the dealership with confidence, so any tips would be appreciated! (Or, would it just be better to go a bank or Capital One for financing of the payoff amount?) Also, is this considered a "lease buyout?" - lease buyout loan rates on the Capital One website are higher than used car loan rates!

Public Comments

1. I don't think this would be considered a lease buyout, you're just exercising your lease purchase option. Typically a lease buyout means you're buying someone elses leased vehicle before their lease expires, which is a pain and requires a lot of paperwork, which is probably why the rates are more. It's not completely uncommon for your purchase option to be better than market value, it just means you paid more for the initial lease (its based on original value - residual value plus a few bucks to make it worth their while to lease the car to you) they obviously figured the residual lower than reality. Chances are you won't have any room for bargaining, but you can certainly get a loan that suits you to pay off the purchase option ammount.
2. Why would you negotiate with the dealer? They do not own the vehicle. The bank that leased it to you does. So you must deal with them not the dealer. If the buyout offer is lower than the "residual value" (the original buyout price listed in your contract), then they usually won't discount further. But you can always still try. No, it's not considered a "lease buyout" but rather used car sale.
3. I dont think you can negotiate, I think that is done when you first lease it. Yes it would be alot better just to buy out from an out side sourse.
4. Call up to where the vehicle is leased through and see about negating the price. The dealership that I work at, that is what we tell our customers that are leasing. If you don't want to keep it, the dealership can buy it out for you.