SWAPALEASE.COM UNVEILS QUARTERLY AUTO LEASE TRENDS REPORT FOR Q1 2018
Report Shows Fewer Dealer Incentives on New Leases Driving More Shoppers to Secondary Market
Cincinnati, OH (May 18, 2018)
Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest online car lease marketplace, today released its quarterly lease trends report for the first quarter, 2018. The report shows an increase in search activity across the board for nearly all brands in the Swapalease.com marketplace, indicating that a rising number of people are turning to the secondary market to find lease deals since many dealers are pulling back on incentives on new leases.
According to the report, Americans are paying an average of $495.83 per month on their leases during the first quarter, up slightly from $485.47 during the fourth quarter of 2017.
The brands with the largest volume of vehicles on the Swapalease.com marketplace continue to be BMW and Mercedes-Benz, with a share of market of 12% and 8%, respectively. BMW’s search traffic was slightly lower during the first quarter at 16%, compared with Mercedes-Benz at 24%.
Chrysler (27%) and Chevrolet (23%) saw the highest search traffic totals among all popular domestic brands. For Asian brands, Lexus (22%) saw the highest search traffic followed by Honda and Infiniti each at 20% search traffic totals.
“With dealers pulling back slightly on incentives for new leases, we’re seeing a noticeable jump in the number of people looking for deals on the secondary market,” said Scot Hall, Executive Vice President of Swapalease.com. “We’re also seeing more people wait longer before exiting their lease, which indicates fewer people are looking to exchange their lease at the earliest possible opportunity of their contract.”
According to data in the report, the majority of lessees are listing their vehicles for transfer with 25.1 months remaining on their contract in the first quarter, compared with 26.3 months remaining in the fourth quarter. Incentives activity has dropped as well, with the average Swapalease.com user offering $612.54 as an incentive to transfer in the first quarter, compared with $695.16 in the fourth quarter of 2017.
