to lease or buy

[blackiecat]

My corn on oakfield farm is nearly ready so its time to get some expensive stuff as I sold most of it when I started is it better to buy it use it then sell it or lease it use it then sell it which way loses the most money or are they both the same I need a big combine and baler I have £400,000 mainly from forestry and missions and eggs

[FarmerJimbob]

Leasing seems like throwing money away but actually its cheaper than buying if you intend on single use and selling it off as soon as you're finished. My general rule is buy motorised machinery, lease tools if buying not an option. Yesterday I had a load of potato harvesting to do (5 or 6 fields) so I thought for that amount of work I'd be better off buying and selling the Grimme Tectron rather than leasing due to the high hourly rate (I don't intend doing potatoes after this harvest). I worked out after I finished that I was wrong - I ended up paying about $20-30k more by not going the lease route for the 4.5 hours work. I think seasons moves the break-even point more in favour of leasing.

[blackiecat]

I would have thought leasing is cheaper as you don't want a combine standing in the yard plus other gear for 10 months of the year don't know how much you lose selling something you have used though

[fenixguy]

Leasing is cheaper if you're using the tool for less than one or two hours. Any more than that, it can be cheaper to buy then sell when you're done. I leased a combine once and it took something like 4 or 5 hours to harvest everything. Costed as much to lease it as what my crops sold for.

If you're playing with seasons, you can buy a piece of equipment and sell it for full purchase price if you use it for less than 30 mins.

[FarmerJimbob]

I would have thought leasing is cheaper as you don't want a combine standing in the yard plus other gear for 10 months of the year don't know how much you lose selling something you have used though

Depends how long you keep it for and how intensively you use it (obviously) hence tractors and harvesters quickly become much cheaper to buy than lease. I did discover the formula for depreciation vs lease for the standard game but all thats out the window with seasons, as you say gear sits around unused for a lot more time.

fenixguy - you might have been even worse off if you had bought & sold with that amount of usage, as per my experience above. It cost me about $120-130k (just on the harvester) to harvest 600k potatoes. Fortunately I didn't have to plant any of them though

[Robbh6]

I've just leased the Ropa beet harvester on my West Coast save game to harvest field 17.

I think that was a mistake if my maths are right.
Even though I managed to get 325,000L of sugar beets, but the price per 1000L (£119) means I've lost money.....

Think initial leasing cost was about £45,000. Not including the header.

Ah well. At least I have 7 fields of corn left to harvest to recoup some of that money.

[Robbh6]

I should also mention I've leased the largest Fendt Harvester for all my other harvesting which is 10 fields total.
Hope I haven't made the same mistake....

[FarmerJimbob]

For single field of root crops you really have to lease and work the smaller equipment in order to see a profit. However that takes a hell of a lot longer get the job done so if you were just doing it to clear the crop in a bought field (or get some crop to feed pigs) I'd say you've won overall! Buy the root crop sale point and get double or treble the price for your beets!

The harvester probably won't work out so bad on a lease option but it sounds like you're playing on hard so I suspect your profit margins will be fairly slim.

[IseOlen]

With Seasons, for rootcrops, just for once - best option is to buy big harvester, work like grazy for <30min and sell it before the price drops. All crops left in the ground - just plow them - not worth it.
With the economics engine the way it is - rootcrops are bad. Price drops just as quickly (%-wise) as with a lot more valuable crops but since yield is much better you probably cannot sell all in one go. I really-really hope with FS19 they change this. For example on some mod maps (PC only) the price is basically fixed for the whole day but limiting factor becomes silo space in the place of purchase. Feels more logical to me.

[FarmerJimbob]

^^Agreed. I usually get the root crop sale point mod and use conveyors to sell everything at 1 price. Would be good to have contracts with sale points in the game so you commit to sell x amount for a certain price rather than 1 trailer load at a time with for a decent price.

[Corstaad]

For single field of root crops you really have to lease and work the smaller equipment in order to see a profit. However that takes a hell of a lot longer get the job done so if you were just doing it to clear the crop in a bought field (or get some crop to feed pigs) I'd say you've won overall! Buy the root crop sale point and get double or treble the price for your beets!

The harvester probably won't work out so bad on a lease option but it sounds like you're playing on hard so I suspect your profit margins will be fairly slim.

That's funny you mention this. I want to buy one of larger fields in my seasons map to support my nearby dairy. I'd planned on this from the beginning. Well now its time to buy and I want my field to be planted to hay so I get a fully established field for next year. Problem is its planted to root crops.

I don't have the proper equipment to harvest this field. I must lease a lot equipment and invest time on it which I don't have at the moment. I don't think its worth it to harvest the beets. I could break it down and figure the math to it but that takes real life time which is also limited. If it doesn't get harvested by the AI today I'll plow it under.

[FarmerJimbob]

^^ Only good reason for harvesting the beets would likely be to support some pigs but even that is a flimsy case. If you're on seasons and you want the hay this year you're gonna have to plow it under anyway aren't you to give your crop enough growing time? I waited out an AI farmer with a field on Westbridge Hills (not seasons) for several cycles hoping he'd plant something other than root crops . . . he never did.

[Corstaad]

I'm on three day seasons and I was going to plant it mid fall to grass. I need it for next year. Won't it establish then be reset to default winter grass stage?

[Hairy Bob]

That should work fine. I would buy it with the crop on it, borrow the money for a harvester, get what you can with the free half hour then return it and pay back the loan, and just plough/cultivate the rest.
Alternatively, if you cultivate the lot in then this should give you a fert stage, it just depends how much time you have on your hands whether you bother to harvest some.

[The Dude]

Agree with a comment above that the pricing model has some loopholes. Which is fine to me as I liken it to hunting for a good deal. So I find myself doing the math much more than ever before.

In real life I would never lease anything, ever. But in this game with seasons on in some cases leasing make financial sense. One example
Small tool running for 2 hours with worker costs plus maintenance costs fuel costs etc.
Largest tool running it yourself for 20 min and done.

In the end to lease or buy depends upon your budgetary outlook. If it's short term (1 year) then leasing almost beats buying in every instance as there's few pieces that can pay for themselves in less than 1 year. But if your look is longer (4-5 years) then buying begins to make sense.

The biggest draw back to leasing is the consent back and forth to lease and turn in.