Do youbelieve it is better to lease or buy your first/next car? please tell me why.

l would say pay your car in full because that way you will not have to worry about monthly/bi-weekly/weekly payments and you will have money to pay your car insurance, Gas, car repairs, & etc..!

Hi,
That depends on the usage of the car, & how long u plan to keep it.
If u want to keep changing cars every 2-3 years, then leasing could be a good option. The advantage u have with leasing is that u simply turn in ur car after the lease expires. (Think of it as renting a car for 2-3 years). What u r actually paying for is the depreciation of the car. The payment is usually lower than an actual car loan. But the biggest headache on leasing is mileage. If u plan on putting more than 12-15k miles a year on the car, this will not be a good choice, because they will charge u for the additional miles. (the rate varies from 10 to 25 cents a mile). The car must also be in decent condition when u turn it in, otherwise they will also charge u for any damage. You will have the option of buying the car at the end, but then u will end up paying more for the car than what u could've paid for if u purchased it in the first place.
The advantage of purchasing a car is that the car will be officially yours when u finish paying it off. You're not necessarily worried about the miles either. And with a good finance rate, ur payment can be a low as a lease payment. And if u keep the car well maintained, u wont have to worry about having a car payment for the rest of ur life.
Hope this helps.

l believe in buying as a lease can leave u owing cash if u violate the terms of the lease (too many miles, dings, dents, or get out early).

l usually buy recent model cars from private parties. Not buying it new means that some other person paid the largest share of the vehicle depreciation. One of my cars l bought was a leased vehicle that the person had enjoyed really low lease payments; but, when they went to get out of the lease after two years they realized there were numerous penalties because of not fulfilling the full term & the fact that the car had more miles on it than the lease allowed. l actually felt a little bad for the couple when we settled up at the dealers lease department. l wrote a check for the agreed selling price & they had to anti-up another $5k to satisfy the lease buy-out. They said my offer (which was about true market value) resulted in them having less out of pocket expense to the leasing company. That is not a position, l would want to endure.

These days (tight credit) u may not have much choice. That ''only $199/month'' lease is for the very top rated borrowers. If ur credit is anything but stellar, that same lease may cost u $250 or even $350. (A lease is just a loan for part of the value of the car.)

If u plan on keeping the car (buying it after the lease term), u want one with very high retained value. It is seldom as high once the lease ends, so u could end up paying less than a straight finance.

(Paying cash for a car, if u can get a 0% finance deal, would be foolish. Use their money & let yours earn a little interest in the bank.)

It depends on a number of factors -- how often you normally trade cars, how many miles your drive, if you normally maintain your cars well, if ''ownership'' is important to you, and if your only concern is low monthly payments. Here ae a couple of articles that have more details:

http://firstcarguide.com/lease/lease-or-buy---which-is-better.html

http://leaseguide.com/lease03.htm

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