Which is better, lease or buy?
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It depends on what's most important to you. All of us have different lifestyles and priorities — in cars and in finances. Car lease-versus-buy decisions must be made with your own lifestyle and priority attributes in mind. What's right for one person can be totally wrong for another.
LEASE - If you enjoy driving a new car every two or three years, want lower monthly payments, like having a car that has the latest safety features and is always under warranty, don't like trading and selling used cars, don't care about building ownership equity, have a stable predictable lifestyle, properly maintain your cars and understand how leasing works, then you should lease.
BUY - If you don't mind higher monthly payments, prefer to build up trade-in or resale value (equity), like the idea of having ownership, like paying off your loan to be payment-free for a while, don't mind the unexpected cost of repairs after warranty has expired, prefer to drive your cars for years to spread out the cost, like to customize your cars, expect lifestyle changes in the near future, and don't like the risk of possible lease-end charges — then you should buy.
- Typically, monthly payments on a lease are significantly lower than if you obtain a loan while borrowers enjoy greater flexibility in terms of ownership.
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