I've Got My Lease Options: What's the verdict?

[Awaz]

The money factor is very high right now when I asked my dealer told me: 0.00410 which is 9.84% APR. But interest rates on high-yield savings accounts are also high right now, mine is 5% APY.

If I lease the car for three years, then I get interest on the money that I would have otherwise paid to Porsche on day one. I put together a spreadsheet to help me understand lease vs buy cost and for me I estimate the net lease cost will be ~$4,500 more than the cash buy.

I’ve attached the spreadsheet and exported PDF for how I came to this conclusion.

Now I’m weighing whether the benefits of the lease providing me options are worth $4,500. Without Porsche’s $7,500 lease incentive rebate, I would not be leasing.

The question is also can you really get full 5% interest on your savings account?
And also on 5% interest earned, you would be paying tax as well, I presume?
So, I imagine your saving is more than just $4,500 with cash buy

 

[ericf]

The question is also can you really get full 5% interest on your savings account?
And also on 5% interest earned, you would be paying tax as well, I presume?
So, I imagine your saving is more than just $4,500 with cash buy

Currently my savings accounts are paying 5% Interest. Fair point on the earned interest being taxed.

 

[krissrock]

Not sure of your lease details. However in my case the lease numbers even with the ev $7500 credit were unacceptably high!! I am assuming due to resale value or depreciation. Making me changing my mind and instead I decided to buy my new macan ev turbo!

i don't really have a lease deal yet. haven't done any financial papers... But the lease>buy out was the plan for the 7500 credit to bring the price down. I was thinking, even if i had to make a couple months payments before paying it off, it should be less than the 7500 i would save vs buying outright

 

[Ratings]

i don't really have a lease deal yet. haven't done any financial papers... But the lease>buy out was the plan for the 7500 credit to bring the price down. I was thinking, even if i had to make a couple months payments before paying it off, it should be less than the 7500 i would save vs buying outright

I picked up my Macan 4 on Thursday 9/19 and it’s AMAZING. I leased, 37 lease factor, 39 months, $90,757 Sticker before $7,500 credit, $1,405 per month, zero down, 7,500 miles a year and 850 credit score! Have fun! Whoop whoop! Residual Value $52,472

 

[tmrqs]

Not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade - and truly enjoy the cars!

But these lease “deals” are not that: they’re a money suck if one intends to buy the car at the end of the lease, even with the $7.5k credit.

If one can buy cash (not finance) and intends to keep the car at the end of the lease - do yourself a favor. Buy it right away. I’ve laid out the math several times already.

 

[Daniel15]

The money factor is very high right now when I asked my dealer told me: 0.00410 which is 9.84% APR.

This is something I've noticed with Porsche specifically. Other brands have significantly lower money factors.

To compare with a similar-ish car, the 2025 BMW iX has a similar MSRP, a money factor of 0.00026, and you can easily find lease deals for around $800/month. There's a pre-negotiated deal for the iX in California on Leasehackr right how - $96,775 MSRP, $699/month with $0 down.

A Porsche dealer I was chatting with estimated it'd cost around $1600/month with a decently sized down payment for a Macan with a similar MSRP, and it seems like brokers generally don't deal with Porsche.

I think the Macan is a better car, but I'm not sure it's 2x as good as the BMW. Realistically my choices between the two cars are to either lease the BMW or buy the Porsche with cash.

For EVs, I'm leaning towards leasing given how quickly the technology is moving...

Currently my savings accounts are paying 5% Interest. Fair point on the earned interest being taxed.

Are you talking about Wealthfront? They haven't passed on the 0.5% fed rate cut yet. Expect it to drop to 4.5% or below within the next week or two.

 

[fsabek]

I picked up my Macan 4 on Thursday 9/19 and it’s AMAZING. I leased, 37 lease factor, 39 months, $90,757 Sticker before $7,500 credit, $1,405 per month, zero down, 7,500 miles a year and 850 credit score! Have fun! Whoop whoop! Residual Value $52,472

For me 15000 miles a year with 3000 down and perfect credit was $2500?-!month!!!!!

 

[krissrock]

Are you talking about Wealthfront? They haven't passed on the 0.5% fed rate cut yet. Expect it to drop to 4.5% or below within the next week or two.

i was getting 5% with PNC earlier this year...its 4.5% now

 

[krissrock]

I picked up my Macan 4 on Thursday 9/19 and it’s AMAZING. I leased, 37 lease factor, 39 months, $90,757 Sticker before $7,500 credit, $1,405 per month, zero down, 7,500 miles a year and 850 credit score! Have fun! Whoop whoop! Residual Value $52,472

do you have the lease terms you could share? like the fine print?
nothing specific to your deal, but is there anything in there about early buy outs/returns?

 

[MFitz]

Not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade - and truly enjoy the cars!

But these lease “deals” are not that: they’re money suck if one intends to buy the car at the end of the lease, even with the $7.5k credit.

If one can buy cash (not finance) and intends to keep the car at the end of the lease - do yourself a favor. Buy it right away. I’ve laid out the math several times already.

Agree.

 

[krissrock]

ok, so my SA was able to send me a lease agreement to view... and yeah, i'm not sure how this is supposed to work in my favor. unless the lease agreement is for a month or two, terminating early doesn't look to save you any money.
(1) i interpret as payments missed, if any. Past due
(2) there's gonna be some, whatever they are.
(3) this would be the price of the car minus any payments made and such
(4) this was "n/a" on the lease i was shown
(5) so this would be whole lease amount? gotta be kidding...

so i guess my next question to my SA is: what is a single payment lease?

I've never leased before and trend may continue...

 

[ericf]

ok, so my SA was able to send me a lease agreement to view... and yeah, i'm not sure how this is supposed to work in my favor. unless the lease agreement is for a month or two, terminating early doesn't look to save you any money.
(1) i interpret as payments missed, if any. Past due
(2) there's gonna be some, whatever they are.
(3) this would be the price of the car minus any payments made and such
(4) this was "n/a" on the lease i was shown
(5) so this would be whole lease amount? gotta be kidding...

so i guess my next question to my SA is: what is a single payment lease?

I've never leased before and trend may continue...

It’s not the whole lease amount. Notice (6) unearned Rent Charges. About half of the lease payment is rent charge, so you’re not paying the lease interest for all remaining payments in the lease — this makes sense, otherwise it would crazy.

 

[PSPJames]

I haven't leased in a long time, but I think this is a standard lease agreement. If you buyout early, assuming your account is current, you would pay the residual value plus the remaining payments, minus the rent charge (so the remaining depreciation). So if you lease the car for $100k, your cap cost is $90k and your residual is $60k, if you buyout the lease early you should be paying $60k plus the remaining base payments (depreciation, not rent). I called PFS and they said there was no fee to buyout the lease early. I told them I wanted to lease when I picked up the car in December and pay it off in Q1 of 2025.

 

[krissrock]

It’s not the whole lease amount. Notice (6) unearned Rent Charges. About half of the lease payment is rent charge, so you’re not paying the lease interest for all remaining payments in the lease — this makes sense, otherwise it would crazy.

ok so in the example i was given, the Rent charges were about 16k, and the total payments would have equaled about 24k...

so if this person were to turn it in early and buy, they'd probably still owe the difference of those? Since it would be toward the front end of the lease, this number would still be in the thousands?

 

[tmrqs]

I haven't leased in a long time, but I think this is a standard lease agreement. If you buyout early, assuming your account is current, you would pay the residual value plus the remaining payments, minus the rent charge (so the remaining depreciation). So if you lease the car for $100k, your cap cost is $90k and your residual is $60k, if you buyout the lease early you should be paying $60k plus the remaining base payments (depreciation, not rent). I called PFS and they said there was no fee to buyout the lease early. I told them I wanted to lease when I picked up the car in December and pay it off in Q1 of 2025.

Until I see the actual numbers and crunch them, I highly doubt you’ll come out ahead with this move. Devil is in the details.