Before the forum was redesigned over the weekend, I posted about a lease price here in NY. Someone replied that they thought leasing was illegal in NY, and I never had the chance to respond.
I don't believe it's illegal, I think the issue is liabilty. As I understand it, here in NY state if I lease a car and injure someone with the leased car, the leasing company is liable. Most cars are now "sold" with basically the same numbers as a lease, with a balloon payment as the last "payment." The owner of the car, and the person liable, is now the "buyer," not the leasing company.
I masy not have all of this quite correctly but I think this is essentially the situation here in NY.
I was also surprised to see the Acura lease offer.

 

Oh, that's right. Most companies won't do actual leases because of liability.