Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleBoy
Been reading a lot of posts on various forums and it looks like it depends on the lease contract, the state, the insurance company and the leasing company as to whether a person gets any overage from the insurance payout. In more recent posts (the last few years) people have reported some instances of their insurance company cutting two checks, one to the lessor for the payoff and one to them for the overage. Others have reported that their contract stated that the lessor will keep all proceeds so they didn't get anything.
As I stated in my first post, just not worth the hassle to deal with the possibility. You would have to run the numbers but in all likelihood there will be little to no savings anyways when making a down payment on a lease when taking into account the opportunity costs.
As far as BMW's are concerned, it is much better to just put the money towards MSDs since those will actually produce a fairly high return and there is no risk of losing them.
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To be clear, I'm not
recommending a lease down-payment, just saying it might be a worthy option. For your consideration: the current BMWFS base money factor is 0.0019, or equivalent to an interest rate of 4.56%. Most BMW lessees in the US are probably in the 25-35% marginal tax bracket. In order to offset the lease finance charges, you'd have to earn 6-7% pre-tax on funds that otherwise could be used as a down-payment. To get that type of return, there are also investment risks to consider. YMMV
Agree on MSDs, but that doesn't preclude a down-payment as well.