- Pay out the remaining twelve payments of $385. Total cost $4620. OUCH!
- Buy the car outright at its appraised value from Toyota. At that point, it is ours, and we can sell it for whatever we want. Nah thanks.
- Find someone else to buy out or take over our lease.
Neither of these seemed like that an idea, but our friend Jo suggested a website called www.leasebusters.com. People we knew weighed in and said that it helped them break their lease too. Unfortunately, this seems to be a service for people who *really* want to get out of their leases, rather than those who simply think they might like to. Consider:
- Listing fee of $295
- Many 2010 Toyota Corollas and Matrixes (Matricies?) currently listed at around $250/mo. This is partly because many listings offer incentives like covering a payment or paying the customer to take over their lease. By the looks of things, there is no way we'd be able to just get someone to take over our lease of $385/mo.
- lease transfer fees (never suggested what they might be, but...)
- inspection fees, security deposits, etc.
In the end, it looks like it might cost us upwards to a grand to get out of our lease. That might be fine if we were in a dire situation, or a situation that made this an otherwise worthwhile expense. Hey, it sure beats defaulting and owing over four grand.
But to spend that much money on going car-free? No, not yet. We just might wind up waiting out the lease. This is not to suggest that this process is over. It's just on hold pending new information or a change of circumstance.