I've seen a couple of threads, but I think this situation is slightly different.

I'm looking at picking up a sporty car from 2013, current valuation is CHF45K and it's a private sale with the car currently being leased by the dealer. The lease began mid-last year. The seller wants a CHF10k cash payment and then I would then take over the monthly payments.

I'm assuming the 10K is likely the downpayment he put on the car right? Is it the norm to make a down payment towards the transfer of a private lease? Or is this where I'd normally have some negotiation room?

Post all the details:
Original amount of lease
Monthly amount
Residual
What the car is
Current KM
KM at start of lease
Annual KM allowance on the lease
Any damage to the car

And we’ll tell you why you are being ripped off

A 7 year old leased car?

Tom

It has to be a yellow 911 turbo manual with black interior.....wait, no way it's 45K

You have always some negotiation room. how successful you are depends on your skill and how reasonable your offers are.

All what maters for you should be the final and total cost including payment to the "seller", all the lease payments and residual costs at end of the lease. Also read carefully the leasing contract and which party has what rights at the end of the lease. In the worst case you will end up with no car as you have no right to get it.

There you go

Very close!

Thank you, this is helpful. I think my major worry (other than the 10K up front obviously) is the fact it'll be a toy car, therefore not used that much, and at the end of the 2 years they could just take it off my hands.

If it's a 2013, it will be around 10 years old at the end of the lease. 10 yr old boxster S today are between 28-30K in autoscout. Therefore the residual value of 24K is near the market value, maybe ask if it can be revised up a little.

Once I got a quote for a 911 and they calculated the lease with initial value of 80K and residual value around 26K. I joked that I would buy right away any 911 for 26K. Please show me all your cars at the end of the lease sold at the ridiculously low residual values. Of course they had none

As aSwissInTheUS mentioned, if the owner is not forced to sell you the car at the end of the contract (only an option), and you pay a lot of depreciation (low residual value), it's a ripoff.

8K km, it's a 2nd or 3rd car? Quite hard that a 1st car is driven only 8k km per year.

Just to keep joking, I bet 2 beers that it's gray or black

Nice car but 8000 km per year is really low. Would make sense only for a second car.

Yeah I do follow your logic, I think I'm better off either getting a lease directly from a dealer, or just saving up and buying it outright - or getting a loan...

It would only be a toy car, I don't need a car, I just like the idea of having something to play with in the mountains...

Haha, it's black!

Sorry, I forgot. When does the lease run to? Do you have the option to purchase outright or is it at the lessors discretion?

April 2022, and the lessor has the discretion

So with all those details, a few thoughts...

It looks to be on a 3 year lease. On the original lease the lessee would pay a total of CHF 49,640 for a CHF 49,000 payment. CHF 640 interest seems incredibly low.

If you are able to buy the car at the end of the lease, you will have spent CHF 42,330 on buying something which has a sticker price of CHF 45,000.

If the lessor does not allow you to buy the car at the end of the lease you will have spent 18,330 renting a car for 17 months.

In 17 months time that car will cost you more than CHF 24k to buy.

If the seller has listed it at CHF 45,000, I suspect the trade in price to be mid-late 30s. There is room to negotiate, if he doesn‘t have anyone else interested (probably not, as selling cars privately here is tough).

If it‘s a toy then 8,000km is plenty and you actually have headroom in that, as the current owner hasn‘t used it that much.

If you choose or are forced to give it back, you will be on the hook for any cosmetic damage, maybe new tyres etc

Personally, I wouldn‘t be looking to buy a sports car in November unless it‘s a super deal. I haven‘t checked the market for this car. How does it stack up compared to others? CHF 4K depreciation from a summer purchase to a winter sale 18 months later seems glacial. CHF 7k from purchase to the value of this deal is 14%. I don‘t think it‘s a great deal, but it needs viewing in the context of the market.

https://leasetransfer.ch/en/ad-detai...chfrm,4,search

There are no Boxsters on there but a Cayman looking perhaps more attractive at face value?

Finally, I don't want to be that person that says profit from the recently unemployed......anyway I said it The sporty car market will get a liquidity injection quite soon: UBS is closing 40 branches while CS may be ending 2000 jobs soon.

You really think that there will be a flood of sports cars hitting the market because retail branch employees are losing their jobs?

Also, the sports car drivers tend to find each other and I reckon less than one of my colleagues have one and that’s in the front office. I can’t see there being huge numbers hitting the used market. It won’t be like in 2008 or whenever when UBS took away the car allowance and there was a glut of Cayennes available.

No? I rode a 911 of the friend of a friend which precisely had that origin story: 2008 UBS crisis.

OK at least an MX-5 then?

Hey - thanks for the response, I think you've basically confirmed my fears. From a market perspective, it's actually priced at the lower end of the scale, albeit, only by 1-3k I would say.

Still that said, in everything you'd said, the risks are too high for what is essentially a play thing, I'd be much better off finding another example I could just finance myself and end up owning, rather than running the risk of not and just having an expensive rental.

I was initially thinking of one of these instead of a Boxster...