Leasing penetration rates rising to near-record highs at the same time that more and more people are turning to shorter lease terms isn’t something that Scot Hall finds to be a coincidence.

In fact, the executive vice president of Swapalease.com said these movements may go hand-in-hand.

“I think it actually has the same message on both accounts, and I think there is a common thread between those (trends),” Hall said. “What we’re finding through our users is that people understand that the technology changes on these vehicles is greater than ever on a year-to-year basis.”

He added:  “I think the fact that more people are leasing almost at a historically high rate — and we actually anticipate it going above that — and the fact that they want shorter-term leases to boot is really saying the same thing.”

But the impacts of these trends go far beyond the side of the industry facing the retail consumer. They also play a role in remarketing, especially considering how lengthy financing terms have become.

In the latest State of the Automotive Finance Market report, Experian Automotive indicates that loan terms reached their highest level since the company started reporting the trends eight years ago.

Experian said that the first quarter of this year marked the first time that average loan terms reached 66 months. What’s more, 73- to 84-month-term loans commanded nearly a quarter of the market in Q1, an increase of 27.6 percent year-over-year.

“As the cost of purchasing a new vehicle continues to rise, consumers clearly are stretching the loan term to help lower monthly payments, keeping them at a manageable level,” Experian senior director of automotive credit Melinda Zabritski said in the June report.

So, this notion of shorter-term leases may help to counteract these longer loan terms; leased vehicles exiting a consumer’s driveway at a more rapid pace also means they are entering the wholesale market quicker.

“On the remarketing side, that is good inventory for those manufacturers to be able to sell their retailers on a certified pre-owned basis and also offset some of those longer-term loans, because they wouldn’t have seen those cars as soon as they have in years past in terms of what the equity position would be on a trade-in,” Hall said.

When asked whether shortened lease cycles would create a prickly scenario of too many cars coming back at one time and lowering values, Hall said that while that’s certainly a possibility, automakers tend to put measures in place to avoid such headaches.

“There’s always the possibility that it will create problems, and a lot of that is market-dependent at the time. So it’s one of those things where you might not necessarily know,” Hall said.

But, he added, what automakers often do is create a solid term-length balance in their lease portfolios.

And while he said it’s not be as simple as writing a third of your portfolio at 24-month terms, a third at 36 months and a third at 48 months, striking some sort of balance helps.

“They won’t flood their remarketing folks with too many Camrys at one time or too many Avalons at one time or too many Corollas, whatever the case may be,” he said. “That is definitely something that is viewed by the manufacturer when they’re taking lease terms into consideration, but ultimately … that’s going to be more of a secondary thought than accommodating what the consumer need is.”

 And the message from consumers, he said, is that many consumers want to change cars at a faster rate — often to keep up with the advancing technologies and amenities in cars — and that there may possibly be a greater shift from ownership to leasing.

And many OEMs are accommodating these customer demands when they set up leasing terms.  What's more, on its own site, Swapalease found that 36-month lessees in May were, on average, looking to get out of their leases in 15.1 months.