There you have it! It is a good time to get into the 08 Infiniti G37 coupe. You can’t really beat 0.9% for up to 60 months. You won’t find a money factor low enough to make leasing more attractive. I know most of you visit this side to lease, but sometimes, even I have to admit that it makes sense to buy. This is specially the case when you are dealing with an end-of-the-year “clearance” situation and the interest rate is much lower than the money factor. (You can convert the money factor into an interest rate by multiplying the money factor by 2400.)
Here’s a scenerio:
- Infinti G37 Journey Sport and Premium
- MSRP $41,515
- Sale Price $37,947
Using last month’s lease rates, a 36mo/15k lease will run you about $497 per month + tax, with about $1500 do at signing.
A purchase on the other hand, will cost about $621 + tax with about the same amount down, over 60 months.
Basically, for about $124 more per month, you OWN the car (once your loan is paid off). Last months lease rate charges an interest rate of about 5.16%, so buying is clearly the “smarter” financial move. Just make sure you can afford to make the payments. Time and time again, I hear of people who overestimated their ability to afford a new car and end up ruining their credit scores because of it.
I’m currently looking at getting into a new G37 myself. My heart was on leasing, but the APR for finance looks pretty good. Maybe I misunderstood, but I just want to point out that over the course of the 3yr lease, you pay $19392 (plus taxes). Meanwhile, you end up paying $23856 when you buy after 36 months. You would still owe about $14000 on the car at that point in time. That means that you would have to sell the car at about $18500 or more for financing to be a better choice, which I believe is more than doable in this case. If you were to do back-to-back leases, you would pay about $39000, but you would have TWO brand new cars over the course of 6 years. On the other hand, buyng a car, at the previosuly mentioned rate over 72 months, it’s like you’re paying $520 per month. However, if you decide to sell the car after 6 years, you’ll likely get about $12k for it. So in reality, after you factor everything in, it’s either paying $20k every 3 years for a brand new car (and not worrying about breakdowns or major maintenance), or $14k every 3 years (but be stuck with the same junk and forced to pay for repairs/maintenance). The whole thing with 0.9% is throwing my example off, but there’s always things to consider. So the choice is not always “clear.”
JC: When you do back-to-back leasing, you also have to consider the upfront costs such as bank fees, deposits, registration, etc…you are also assuming that the price will remain exactly the same for your next car 3 yrs later. That may not be the case. You may have to downgrade in order to keep your payments low, specially with cars getting more expensive every year.
But you do have a point here, there are a lot of factors to consider whether you lease or buy. If you heart is set on a specific car and great financing is available, buying is always the best choice. When it comes to leasing, we have to be more “flexible” with our choices because lease rates change from month to month.