When you’re looking for a new lease, should you deal directly with a dealership or hire a leasing broker to do it for you? You might have heard conflicting bits of advice on the matter. Is there a better way to find a new lease? Keep reading to find out.
What’s The Difference?
A Dealer is the car company that owns the cars they are making available for lease and purchase. A Broker is an impartial “middleman” who works for the buyer to find the best deal available on a vehicle that the buyer wants.
Advantages Of Using a Lease Broker
Doesn’t having a middleman drive up the cost of the vehicle for the consumer? Interestingly, the opposite is usually the case. Since the leasing broker is independent, he is flexible to search for different types of vehicles at many dealerships to find the best deals. Brokers are also very knowledgeable about buying cars, know the market well, and are able to bargain the dealerships down to their bottom line.
In addition to providing cost savings, brokers do all the hard work on the customer’s behalf. All the buyer needs to do is describe his or her vehicle needs and their price range, and then let the broker do his work. Instead of spending hours of time and effort traveling from dealership to dealership and struggling through the difficult process of negotiating for the best price on a lease, the customer is able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of the broker’s labor.
Advantages Of Using a Dealer
Cutting out the middleman and dealing directly with the dealer means that the customer does not need to pay any additional fees to the broker. In truth, however, for most customers, the savings provided by using the broker outweigh the additional fee incurred.
Some brokers are not totally independent, which lessens the flexibility and benefits they can offer in the first place. Only trusted lease brokers should be used, and using an unknown broker might mean you need to do a little background checking to make sure they are legitimate. Calling around to local dealerships to ask them if they have heard about the broker is one way to establish a broker’s reputation.
| Criteria | Leasing Broker | Dealer | Advantage? |
| Cost of Vehicle | Usually less | Usually more | Broker |
| Additional Fees | Yes | No (but car usually costs more) | Dealer (slight) |
| Consumer Effort | Sit back and relax | Travel to dealerships and negotiate | Broker |
| Reputation | Varies | Are we really going to say that car dealerships have better reputations? | Tie |
Conclusion
For most people, it makes the most sense to maximize the benefit of using an independent broker to help you find the vehicle you want at the best price. However, if you’re an expert negotiator with a lot of knowledge about the auto business, then you might want to try negotiating directly with the dealership.
If you decide that leasing through a broker is the direction you would like to take, consider using VIP Auto Lease, an experienced, trustworthy company that can help you find the car that’s right for you.
