The leasing of automobiles and light trucks is more prevalent than you might think. Nationally, the average is 40% of all sales, Florida is 50%, and California is 70%! Why? Because leasing either enables you to drive a more expensive car for the same monthly payment as a conventional loan, or your first choice of car for considerably less money.

How does this work? First of all, when you lease a car, you are amortizing just the depreciation, not the full price of the car. Another way to look at it, is to figure out what your payment would be with a conventional loan, take what the projected trade-in value would be at the end of the finance term, divide it by the number of months in the term, and subtract that from the monthly payments!

Effectively, you are trading in your new car at the same time that you are buying it, and subtracting it from your costs! Unless you drive very little, and keep your cars more than five years, it does not make good sense to buy a car. It will depreciate, and in most cases, heavily.

If you want to know more about leasing, check out www.LeaseGuide.com. Al Hearn's site has the answers to everything that anyone could possibly want to know about automobile leasing.