Buying vs leasing a car after bk

[teddy26]

Any advice on whether to buy or lease a car after being discharged from a bk? I know that we will be hit with a large %. Buying a car with a large % can easily turn "upside down", and we'd like for that to not happen. I heard from someone that a short term lease might be good as it is only for 2-3 years....yes large %, but if we pay on-time, it will improve our credit score. And at the end we can "walk away" and hopefully either lease/buy with a better %. They even said that a "down payment" isn't necessary ......you would just use a manufacturers rebate as the "down payment".

Any thoughts???? Of course, I know it just depends if they will lease to you or not.....but if they will, any thoughts?

[HHM]

Have you actually been approved for a lease? Generally, if your credit is bad, you can't get a lease. Also, you SHOULD NOT make a bad deal on a car now, just to improve your credit.

People end-up upside down in cars because they buy "too-much" car and do it the wrong way. There is no "necessity" to being upside down when you finance a car.

From a pure financial perspective...the best move you can make is buy a car that is 3+ years old. The worst part of a cars depreciation occurs in the first 3 years...when you lease, you are paying for the MOST expensive part of a cars life cycle...as such, it rarely makes financial sense to lease (or for that matter, to purchase a new car...although, if there are good incentives and you have a down payment, you can at least mitigate the negative equity).

Generally, to have the lowest cost of acquisition ([Purchase Price - Your Sell Price] / No. of Months owned), you should purchase a car that is 4 years old, and put 10%-20% down).