The ad is tantalizing, aimed at pulling you through the showroom door: a brand-new midsize sedan for just $199 a month, plus tax, after you’ve put $2,199 down.

For your money, you get a specific version — Model CP2F3AEW — of the base-trim 2010 Honda Accord LX on a three-year lease. It comes with an automatic transmission, a decent CD player, air conditioning, cruise control, remote locking, power windows and power mirrors.

Sure, the car is just another anonymous corpuscle in the traffic stream; the engine has a mere four cylinders, the steel wheels have cheesy plastic covers and the only leather in the interior is your wallet. But $199 is the chump change you get back after you buy something for chump change.

If the cut-rate Honda isn’t to your taste, you can find similar deals, on a national or regional basis, on similarly ordinary cars from Ford, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volks-wagen. (The Accord offer is set to expire on March 1.)

Yes, the killer lease deals are back. But it’s not quite 2005 all over again.

Leasing declined markedly last year as credit got tight and automakers cut their lease programs, though it has increased in the past few months, according to Joe Spina, an analyst who tracks the auto market for Edmunds .com. “And it’s probably going to stay at the same level it is now for a while,” he added. “But it’s not going to take off to where it has been in the past.”

Why lease?

One reason leasing has become more attractive is that as new-car sales have dropped over the past three years, the supply of high-quality used cars has also declined. With the supply down, the values of used vehicles, both at wholesale auctions and on retail lots, have firmed up and residual values have risen.

With higher residual values — the projected value of the cars at lease end — there is less depreciation for the lease to cover. That results in lower monthly payments.

Also contributing to the brighter leasing climate are low interest rates, the vast production capacity of assembly plants that build mainstream models like the Accord, automakers’ desire to keep those plants busy and their willingness to subsidize the leases (a $2,000 “capitalized cost reduction” on the Accord for example).

“We mainly focus our leasing on what I call our five main products: Civic, Accord, CR-V, Odyssey and Pilot,” said Steve Jaros, Honda’s assistant vice president for sales in the Eastern region.

Over the past two to three years, amid rising gasoline prices, uncertainty about new-vehicle sales and unstable used-car valuations, Honda and other automakers pulled back from leasing. “It made all the manufacturers rather conservative on where they were going to place their residual values,” Jaros said. “So we wanted to give time for the market to stabilize and gasoline to stabilize so we could get a better feel for where the market was going, and then slowly get back into leasing. And that’s what we’ve done.”

Read the fine print in ads for a special promotion lease, however, and a big change is apparent: High credit scores are mandatory. Forget hazy language about offers being contingent “on approved credit.” On its Web site, Honda reserves the $199 Accord deal to customers who qualify for the American Honda Finance Corporation’s “superpreferred credit tier.”

While there are other offers for potential lessees with less than glistening credit scores, the best deals are usually reserved for customers with scores of about 710 or higher.

Leasing remains, as always, subject to negotiations, just like buying a car outright. And it’s a negotiation between the customer and the dealership, not the manufacturer. DCH Honda of Oxnard in Oxnard, Calif., for example, recently advertised new Accord LX sedans for $179 a month. The dealership used Honda’s national offer as a starting point, but cut the car’s purchase price to lop off an additional $20 a month.

“We’re being competitive,” said Christian Allen, one of the dealership’s sales managers. “It’s a matter of doing something to attract customers. Very rarely does the customer coming in do exactly what the dealer is advertising.”

After all, alongside the $199 Accord LX lease, Honda is also offering the better-equipped Accord EX sedan for $219 a month (with $2,599 paid at signing) and the EX sedan with a V-6 engine for $269 (with $2,199 at signing).

Not a bad deal

Potential Accord lessees can choose to increase their mileage allowance beyond the modest 1,000 miles a month average of the promotional lease. In fact, there are more elements to negotiate in a lease — car price, initial payment, interest rate, mileage allowance and even, perhaps, the residual value — than in a straightforward purchase. The manufacturer’s feature lease is often just a starting point.

If your credit rating is stellar, if you drive fewer than 1,000 miles a month and if you can resist the temptation to pack on gadgets and upholstery that used to moo, you are likely to find the $199-a-month Accord LX sedan a satisfying transportation appliance.

The Environmental Protection Agency rates the current Accord, based on its interior and cargo volume, as a full-size car, and it feels fairly huge inside. The front seats aren’t shaped to hold you in place on a slalom course, but they are cushy and covered in a high-grade synthetic mouse fur that feels good even against bare skin. The cabin is sparely decorated, but all of the plastic surfaces — and there’s nothing but plastic surfaces — are nicely textured and soft to the touch.

Every switch works with precision, the stereo has an auxiliary jack to pump in music from an iPod and the instruments are easy to read. It’s a comfortable, if austere, environment behind doors that close with satisfying thuds.

The current-generation Accord was introduced as a 2008 model, though Honda has used essentially the same chassis, with double wishbone independent suspension at all four corners, for many years. The car rides well, but there’s nothing aggressive about the 215/60R16 all-season tires, which keep the handling just short of entertaining.

Since the 2.4-liter engine is rated at just 177 horsepower, it’s a good thing the car weighs just over 3,200 pounds — a modest number for a car this size. Compared with a V-6, the 4 is a bit raucous, but it’s well matched to its 5-speed automatic transmission. The engine doesn’t feel strained, even when climbing hills with a full load of Presbyterians.

In a world where you can get GPS directions on your cell phone and every child comes attached to a Nintendo DS, you don’t really miss things like built-in navigation and video systems. Think you need a sunroof? They usually stay closed anyhow.

So count your blessings. After all, you’re paying only $199 a month.