Lease Swap Services
 

Has anyone here had any experience taking over a lease by using one of these services (like https://www.swapalease.com How was your experience? Tips, comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I would never!

Mostly because I've discovered that 99% of the people in the world don't know how to lease a car.
They don't understand money factor, residual, cap cost reduction, etc.

They also don't understand how to negotiate the best lease..

My point is, more likely than not, you are assuming someone else's bad lease deal. And even if they put money down, even if they give you a cash incentive to take the deal, more often than not, I can still wrangle a better lease payment from the dealers and get a new car, rather than someone else's, poorly leased, used car.. For around the same price.

That makes sense. I was thinking about it for a short term lease (1 yr or less). To test out the Z4 (I have an X5), w/out having to commit long term. On the sites I see monthly payments of ~$330 per month, dont know that I would be able to get that on a lease today (without being stuck in for 36 months).

All that to say, what do you think about using the service for short term leases?

Thanks for the quick reply.

My understanding is, people like, swapalease.
And if you're using it as a "short term rental" type of arrangement, I understand your motivation and it could probably be quite beneficial..

But just to be clear, when I lease cars, I get the sale price near invoice, then I make sure I get the buy rate on the money factor.

I help my friends buy cars all the time. Minute I step in, I save almost all of them a minimum of $2k. Cause I understand the talk and know how to negotiate.

So when I look at the leases with swapalease and people say things like "the original owner put down $1500 so I'm saving that much on monthly payments..." I have to retort, yeah, but they didn't haggle the lease right and that $1500 cap cost reduction isn't much of a savings if they are paying .0035 money factor (8.4% interest).. And that goes double if they only got $1000 off the MSRP rather than $500 over invoice or below..

I used swapalese.com on my '04 when I needed to get out of my lease.

BMW is one of the few manufacturers that lets a lease be "assigned" and the original holder of the lease to be free and clear once the transaction is complete.

BMWFS has the process down to a science, which is not to say that there isn't a lot of paperwork to take care of, but they're very good in handling the process.

Many people on the lease trade sites are anxious to get out and will offer cash incentives to have someone take it over, including paying the assumption fee to bmw.

The things to watch out for are mileage remaining at the time you take it over, some people don't update the mileage on the site, compared to what the lease allows.

Also make sure you check to see if there is a security deposit that must be assumed etc.

You should have the car carefully inspected to ensure that it wasn't in an accident, or that there isn't any paint/body/interior damage that you will be responsible for at turn in, because it will be your responsibility.

There are 2 other sites, leasetrade.com and leasetrader.com, you should check into the Terms and Conditions on all 3 before proceeding.


If you take care of these things, and are ok with the monthly payment, it's a no brainer.

I used swapalease this year to get rid of my 335 coupe (to make way for my 4.8 M-Sport). From a seller's perspective, it's fairly easy. I had 15 or so interested takers for my car (loaded, black/black, tint, in Chicago) and as was already stated, BMWFS made the process a snap.

WRT people not knowing how to lease, what's the difference? If you're in the market for a short term lease and the payments are right, what do you care if the original lessee is an idiot? There are tons of cars out on swapalease that have ludicriously low payments, likely because people put down huge cap cost reductions. So, you're getting the monthly benefit of their down payment without any of the cash outlay. I'm thinking about doing a short term on a convertible after I've seen how easy it was.

But on the flip side, some people do not know how to lease and put a huge down payment that actually may make leaseing then buying out the lease a GREAT deal.

/\ agree... i picked up a 330xi for 8 months, with 26k miles left to go still (took over at 12k miles, allowed to drive 36k miles), fully loaded with navi, sport, premium, and cold weather, all for just $380 a month. the guy paid me to take it over and this is what my payments come out to after just taking over, with no down payment.

My x5 way from swapalease. painless process and a great deal compared to getting it new. Came with way more options then what I would have opted for for a smaller monthly payment. And I get to move on to the next car quicker.....