Originally Posted by
pheoxs
Lease per month will always be less than finance per month so if you save/invest the difference you can come out again. But it does depend on the interest rate and terms.
Let's say for example both are 3.25% because thats whats on Mazda's lease rate now. A top of the line loaded CX5 will be around 45k out the door so I'll use that because I kind of want one. (Obviously cheaper vehicles out there but also people sometimes go for fancier than that).
Lease 48 months @ 3.25% = 562$/month with a residual of 20k$
Finance 48 months @ 3.25% = 990$/month and you own it outright (I adjusted the % because their current finance promos are less, but trying to compare apples to apples)
Difference of 428$ per month. 428$ / month invested in a index fund which nets 6% return (Which is historically close to average, but significantly less than the past decade actually) would give you a final value of 23,154$ (with 2,610 taxable as capital gains at 50% of your tax rate so lets say 20% net is 522$.
So 23154 - 522 = 22.6k left over and you pay off the residual as soon as your lease is done and you have 2.6k$ left over in cash at the end.
Now thats with a 6% return, historically the S&P500 has increased 9.4% year over year across the last 5 years which would've netted closer to 4k in profit. Obviously at some point markets do drop and such so it is a riskier option. But if you can get finance/lease rates of 0-2% then you could even beat them just getting a basic 3% GIC