As vehicle supply finally stabilizes after years of COVID-19-related supply chain and labor issues, customers are slowly gravitating back toward new-vehicle lease rather than financing their purchases. However, buyers of new Lincoln and Ford vehicles have bucked this trend for some time now – back in Q4 2023, most buyers of the marque’s models chose to finance rather than lease, while Ford customers followed the same trend in Q1 2024. The same has proved true once again, as during Q1 2024, most Lincoln buyers chose loan over lease once again.
Last quarter, 44.16 percent of Lincoln buyers leased their vehicles, while the remaining 55.84 percent chose to finance, according to Experian’s Q1 2024 State of the Automotive Finance Market report. That puts it right on par with most makes in the luxury market. This isn’t a surprise, considering that many luxury buyers gravitate toward leasing rather than financing, given that luxury vehicles tend to depreciate at a faster rate than mass market vehicles. Despite this fact, however, many of Lincoln’s rivals, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Acura, Infiniti, and Audi, all reported higher lease rates than FoMoCo’s luxury brand during Q1 2024.
Automotive leases nosedived between 2020 and 2022, but this form of vehicle ownership is slowly becoming more and more popular. Interestingly, customers who have healthier credit scores are opting to lease versus finance, although short-terms loans are on the rise too.
Short-term loans (one to 48 months) have become increasingly popular each year since 2021, especially among consumers with high credit scores. On the other side of the spectrum, long-term loans (73 to 84 months and beyond) are slowly falling out of vogue. Experian also points out that new vehicle incentives have driven down short-term loan rates to just under four percent, making them more attractive to consumers than long-term financing deals with rates averaging nine percent and higher.
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Comment
Interesting that, according to this article, 100% of the customers either leased or financed their vehicles! What about us people that purchased their vehicles outright? Is it no longer wise to pay cash?