Stuck in your car lease? Not necessarily.
Filed under: Technology, Transportation
If you took out a car lease only to find that, with a change in your circumstances, your can no longer afford your lease , you may want to check out LeaseTrader.com. The ten-year-old firm is in the business of matching drivers in the market for a short-term lease with those looking to get out of an existing one. For its trouble, the company collects a fee, of course.
The process, which has been OK'd by almost all the car manufacturer's financing departments, works this way:
- Person A, the lease holder, posts the vehicle and details of the lease on LeaseTrader
- Person B, who wants to pick up a vehicle on a short-time lease, selects yours
- Person B's credit-worthiness is confirmed
- The vehicle lease is transferred from Person A to Person B. The buyer is not required to pay an down payment to the leasing company.
- Person A pays LeaseTracker $79 for the service and $149 for the transfer
While the average time between posting and transfer is 3-7 weeks, according to a LeaseTrader exec quoted in Advertising Age, the site is hoping to drop that significantly with a new marketing campaign. LeaseTrader claims that it has seen demand grow threefold as nervous drivers look to shorter term leases in an unstable economy.
A couple of caveats, however: people who find themselves with burdensome leases are often people who also don't understand how to negotiate favorable deals, so the lease you assume might be on the high side. You may also have to include a wide swath of the U.S. to find enough candidate vehicles; near my home, there were almost none. Extending my search to 1,000 miles found a number of them, but retrieving a vehicle from that distance would cost me something in time, mileage or shipping.
If you're looking for to get out from under your lease, or looking for a nice ride for a short commitment, this seems like an interesting alternative to consider.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-19-2008 @ 11:54PM
Jeff Onofrio said...
I have used this service about 8 months ago and it worked out great. I got a 2007 Chevy Avalanche with 24 months left on the lease and took over a lease from a fellow in NY through GMAC. Great deal and smooth process, if you want to know anything more about it feel free to contact me and i will be happy to go over my experience.
Jeff Onofrio
jonofrio@whatisyourRate.com
http://www.whatisYourRate.com
http://www.whatisFHA.com
http://www.reversemortgagelearningcenter.com
Reply
11-21-2008 @ 10:24AM
mike said...
wow.. give up on the united states!
Today Alabama senator Richard Shelby, an idiot in his own right(far right),, Said the car companies in America build the wrong stuff. They are dinosaurs and we should let them go! Hmmm pretty cavalier, I'd say! But let's take a closer look at Mr Shelby's motives... There are no US car manufactures in good ole Bama...However, The state, (and probably Mr Shelby) would love America out of the car biz.. why?? Mercedes, Honda, and Hyuandi all have huge plants in Alabama.. hmmm.. Wonder if the good senator has any land around any of these plants! Let's take a closer look at Dick Shelby's motives! If we were to follow this advice, Alabama would become Detroit. Our "Big Three", would be Mercedes, Honda, and Hyuandi. Do we see any self serving interests here in Mr Shelby? I would forward him my opinion, and invite him to forward it to his friends, but, alas, all of his friends speak German ,Japanese, or Korean! Let's write these irresponsible officials and tell them we are on to them! The ripple effect that a collapse from the auto industry would cause, would be unbelievable. The steel industry...the rubber industry.... transports.. local dealership personel. We must be a nation of producers as well as consumers...unemployed folks can't buy ninetendos! for more thoughts, go to... www.hubpages.com
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11-26-2008 @ 8:13PM
chris Fountain said...
No transfer with Chase, apparently. I was trying to take over a lease on a fellow's Subaru today and despite 20 years as a lawyer and knowing how to read English, could not get past Chase's insistence that they won't transfer leases", despite plain contractual language in their own lease agreement that says they will.
The leasee is leaving the US tomorrow so he will not be around to go after Chase. I decided the easiest way to deal with the situation was to just buy the car, which Im doing, but I'm still mad as hell at Chase. I'm including a link to my blog posting on this not because I'm trolling for readers (I blog on Greenwich real estate, not cars or leases) but just to try and get the wor out on the blogosphere that Chase violates its own lease contracts. Bad people, bad bank. Your tax dollars are bailing them out!
Reply
11-26-2008 @ 8:13PM
chris Fountain said...
Oops! Forgot the link - read all about nasty Chase.
http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/chase-auto-finance-sucks/
Reply
2-12-2009 @ 10:37AM
Rob said...
Always helps to find the best car lease.
February Lease ratings are out:
http://productreviewratings.com/2009/02/top-10-car-leases-february-2009/
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