Lease or Own By David Wygant

Do you prefer to lease or own?

Let’s get philosophical here for a moment: do you like to lease or own? Are you the marrying kind – where you want to go into the dealership, take a look at the opposite sex, check under the hood a bit, check the temperature inside, go for a nice long test drive and feel the skin – I mean the leather – all around you?

Do you want to own? Do you want to spend 30 or 40 years with the same person? Do you want to spend every single day with them, over and over, and build a family with them, build memories together? Do you want to buy amazing things together, take trips together? Am I painting a picture that turns you on? Or am I painting a picture that absolutely turns you off?

Are you one of those people that think spending the rest of your life with the same person is about as exciting as watching a Hugh Grant romantic comedy a thousand times? Are you one of those people that prefer to do everything just once?

Or you one of those people who want to lease with an option to buy? You meet somebody really cool, check them out a little bit, hang out with them, have some good times. You go for a nice, long drive on the highway, and then go back to the dealership two years later and turn them back in again – for a newer version. A sexier version.

Do you like to lease, or do you like to own?

I’m not going to tell you what I like to do – I’ve had relationships that have lasted two years, and six and a half years. You can look at the six and half year relationship as an own, because technically, you can’t possibly lease for that long – unless you’re one of those people who get suckered into those five year leases – the one where the car dealer sees you coming from a mile away and they get you a five year lease with payments as high as the guy who leased for two years. You end up paying for three of the cars during the course of the five years!

But let me tell you something: everybody out there has different versions of what they want. You may want to be a leaser, and you may want to be a buyer. But whatever you are, you need to find somebody just like you.

It’s perfectly acceptable to lease nowadays. I actually know quite a lot of people who prefer to lease rather than buying. I live in Los Angeles, and just about everything in LA is leased. Try to buy a house nowadays in LA: for a million dollars you get a tiny little house that basically you think you own. But in reality, you’ve put 10% down, and you’ve got an interest-only payment – you don’t own anything, you’re leasing your house!

You’re leasing your car. Cars are now between $20,000 and $100,000. That’s right, there are some people who drive the brand new $10,000 car, but most of us are driving cars that are $20,000 or more, because that’s how much most cars cost!

But whatever it might be, whoever you are, you need to determine if you’re a leaser or a buyer. As for me, I’m not going to tell you what I am. Why don’t we spend the rest of the day guessing in this blog what I am?

Do I seem like somebody that leases? Or do I seem like somebody that likes to buy? Or am I somebody who likes to lease with the option to buy? I might be into creative financing: who knows!

But let’s find out…