The price? $38,300.

The dealer says they can sign a 39-month lease for $472 a month. The lease assumes the minivan will be worth $23,363 when it comes off lease. It will have suffered only normal wear and tear, and will have been driven no more than 12,000 miles per year. For simplicity, the deals assume no down payments and exclude taxes and fees.

He also offers them a 60-month loan for $664. How much would a 39-month loan cost? $1,018.

For many families, $500 a month is a lot of money. They could shift down to a low-mileage used minivan. But then what if the transmission died on the drive to Orlando? And how could they drive all those miles without the kids getting bored (or grandma suggesting a sing-along)?

They could run the numbers for a longer-term loan, but they'd have to get something close to an eight-year loan to get their payments close to $500. At that point, of course, they might be in the market for a transmission — or braces for Maria.

They would be driving upside down for the life of the loan, which pretty much would be the life of the car.

Lease rates for new cars have been growing, as new car prices rise and loan terms have stretched beyond 85 months.

Credit unions often avoid the lease market, in part, because it presents unusual risks or requires unfamiliar deal structures. But credit unions' increasing participation in indirect lending means they're in the same room with shoppers who lease. Avoiding leasing means turning away a chance to forge a bond with them.

Consumers use leases to obtain more than 30% of all new cars, as leasing becomes more popular for consumers in all risk tiers, according to Experian. Lease rates are up from 25% in 2012.

At the same time, new car loans are getting longer. The average term was approaching 69 months last spring, and some terms are being offered for up to 96 months.

Monthly payments on new cars remain near record highs: An average of $504 for loans and $412 for leases.

The eco-system of indirect lending has allowed the growth of leasing companies catering to credit unions since Terry Bowdler founded Credit Union Leasing of America in San Diego in 1994. When CULA was acquired in June by Westlake Financial Services of Los Angeles, it had about $1.5 billion in leased vehicles.

Fusion Auto Finance was founded in 2004 by CEO and majority owner Jim Calvert. At the same time, he acquired Novak Motors to serve as a retail outlet for off-lease vehicles, which now has dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Long Island areas.

Calvert had been handling leasing for the U.S. sales arm of Mercedes-Benz, and he brought with him other Mercedes-Benz employees with deep experience in managing different aspects of the leasing business.

They include Don Porter, vice president and chief operating officer and Chris Meagher, director of sales and marketing.

In 2007, Fusion and GrooveCar of Hauppauge, N.Y., formed a joint venture called CU Xpress Lease to allow credit unions to offer leases. GrooveCar provided the indirect lending platform, marketed the program to dealers, acted as a liaison on behalf of participating credit unions. Fusion acted as the titled owner of the cars through vehicle loans from the credit union.

The credit union owns the payment stream from the lease holders, but is shielded from the risks and hassles of selling cars as they come off leases. Before the lease is signed, Fusion guarantees that when the car comes off lease it will pay the credit union a set amount based on its estimate of how much the car will be worth.

If the car's value remains above that estimated residual value, Fusion profits. If the car's value falls, Fusion loses.

“Not every vehicle is a winner,” Meagher said. “Every residual value is wrong. The question is how they're wrong. It's a blend of science and art to arrive at residual values.”

CU Xpress Lease's first client was Teachers Federal Credit Union, also based in the Long Island town of Hauppauge.

Teachers ($5.7 billion in assets, 281,098 members) signed its first leases in 2008. With the recession, people who needed cars also needed lower monthly payments, Francis Collins, SVP of credit, said.

“Leases really took off,” Collins said. “It's grown exponentially since that time.”

Teachers funded $133 million in leases in 2013, $370 million in leases last year, and is on track for $377 million in leases this year. Last year leases accounted for about 70% of its indirect auto loan originations.

Meanwhile, CU Xpress Lease has a portfolio exceeding $5 billion and more than 100,000 vehicles.

Last year, Fusion bought about 22,000 vehicles as they entered leases to consumers, and is on track for similar volume this year, Meagher said.

“We're looking for clients who have an appetite for the business, who want indirect lending to be a big part of their lending,” Meagher said. “In the last few years credit unions have increased their share of indirect lending, so why wouldn't they share in that growth in leasing as well?”

In August, Fusion announced it had purchased GrooveCar. Meagher said Fusion will expand CU Xpress Lease into other market, including south Florida and southern California.

“With the right amount of resources and focus, all their businesses can be expanded exponentially, and that's what we intend to do,” he said.

CU Express Lease established a toehold in southern California last fall with Credit Union of Southern California ($1.2 billion in assets, 94,127 members). It's based in Whittier, Calif., and serves residents of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, where about half of new cars are leased.

Most of CU SoCal's auto loans are direct, but it has developed its indirect program and has been looking for ways to find more members and expand its portfolio, Stefan Parker, CU SoCal's vice president of consumer loan underwriting and loan servicing, said.

“We noticed we were losing a lot of sales to leasing,” Parker said.

Participating in leasing would have been difficult for CU SoCal without a guarantee of being funded a fixed price for a residual value.

“It's inherently risky at loan maturity, because if you're wrong on the value when the member brings back the car, you're subject to take a big loss.

CU SoCal was attracted to Fusion's model. It has the analytics to determine the residual value at each maturity and gives the credit union the guaranty, while allowing the credit union to use its experience evaluating buyers' ability to pay.

CU SoCal began making leases last November through a Honda dealer and now has about 50 leases on the books. Two more of its 25 active indirect dealers will be offering its leases by the end of October.

Michelle Hunter, SVP of marketing and development, said CU SoCal is monitoring its experience maintaining and building its relationships with members who arrive via a lease or an indirect loan.

“It is a tough nut to crack,” Hunter said. “I don't know of any other credit union that has successfully onboarded indirect members to become loyal and have that deep product penetration. But it is something that we're not ignoring but we are keeping an eye on, so we're not overly investing in a channel that really isn't going to garner any results.”

CU SoCal is still drawing most of its members directly. In August, for example, it gained 102 of its 1,251 new members through its indirect channels.