Car Lease Depot: Auto Lease Assumptions, Transfers & More

Open-ended Car Leases

Be careful with open-ended leases as these types require you to actually purchase the car at the end of the lease. This could really hurt you if the fair market value of your car has dropped due to market conditions. Take Chrysler for example, people were returning their leases and then Chrysler simply was having trouble selling their larger vehicles because of high gas prices. Therefore they have almost stopped leasing completely as it is hurting their bottom line as some cars are hard to sell in this market condition. Imagine you have an open-ended lease and buy the car for $20K but the fair market value is $10K….that is a bad business decision. Make sure that the resale value of the vehicle you are about to lease is really strong and high. Normally this is not an issue for high end or luxury vehicle leases. However, one benefit is that an open-ended lease usually has cheaper monthly payments.