I would buy it. It’s probably worth a lot more than your buyout is. It will say in your contract what you have to buy it out at. You could turn around and sell to Carmax for more.

It says ‘state of maryland, vehicle sales contract’. Nothing about a lease. It also lists a base price for the vehicle, a line about ‘lease excess wear and tear’, deposit, trade in allowance, cash due on delivery. Nothing else. Thanks for trying to help. I’ll call the loan place.

Are you looking at your copy of the Motor Vehicle Lease Agreement? Its a big long document (usually yellow since its your copy) and lists out everything included amount due at signing, monthy payment, gross capitalized cost and then an itemized section that shows how they calculated the residual value. The residual value is what you pay if you want to purchase the car. All of that is determined at the begininng of the lease. You must have this document - it has to be included in a lease. Its the document you sign to complete the lease.

What does it say at the top of the page of the document you are reading?

You say it’s in the lease. I have read it multiple times. Nothing is noted in my lease. My I take your point about calling the loan company. Thanks for your feedback (less the unhelpful comments)

Anonymous wrote:We are nearing the end of our 3 year lease (6 months from now) on a VW Atlas SEL that we love and still works for our family. This is the first time we have leased and it’s our only vehicle, so I’m looking for advice. We are trying to decide if we should buy it at the end of the lease or lease another vehicle. How do we know how much the dealership will charge us to buy it? Does that price change based on the market at the time, or is that something we should have negotiated already?

We are nearing the end of our 3 year lease (6 months from now) on a VW
- VW's are notoriously unreliable once they're out of warranty. It may be great now but expect it to break down at 60,001 miles. That's an exaggeration of course but not much of one.

This is the first time we have leased and it’s our only vehicle
- Okay so you've always bought before but this time you chose to lease. It's your only vehicle. This is opinion here but if we only have one car then I'd rather buy. Personal preference of course.

How do we know how much the dealership will charge us to buy it?
- The previous comment about my preference of buying a single family car aside, you should have bought instead of leased. That much is clear now. Your question shows your ignorance. And I mean you don't understand/know the paperwork you signed. It's so clear that you don't get it because you want to know how much the DEALERSHIP will charge. The dealership doesn't charge anything. They sold the car to a bank. That bank is leasing you the car. That bank OWNS the car. Neither you nor the dealership own it. A BANK owns it. The lease terms should show how much they'll charge for it if you choose to buy it out at the end of the lease. You shouldn't even need to take it to a dealership, you should be able to call the bank that owns the car directly and ask them if they'll allow you to finance the lease buyout amount over the next 2-3 years. If they don't then you can pay cash or use another bank for a loan. The only issue that may arise here is that the car may actually be worth more than the buyout amount so they may not want to loan you the money to do a buyout given the current used car shortage.

Does that price change based on the market at the time, or is that something we should have negotiated already?
-Again, that's in the lease. If your buyout is lower than the current value then you could actually take it to Carmax or some similar place and they'll pay the buyout amount and give you the difference. For example, if the buyout is 22k and the car is worth 25k, they will spend 22k to the bank that owns the car and give you 3k. Find out what it's worth vs the buyout amount before making any other decisions. In a normal market they inflate the buyout amount so that you lose a lot of money financing it but we are in a crazy market right now.

It should be in the lease agreement as its residual value.

We are nearing the end of our 3 year lease (6 months from now) on a VW Atlas SEL that we love and still works for our family. This is the first time we have leased and it’s our only vehicle, so I’m looking for advice. We are trying to decide if we should buy it at the end of the lease or lease another vehicle. How do we know how much the dealership will charge us to buy it? Does that price change based on the market at the time, or is that something we should have negotiated already?