Off-rental volume will likely climb moderately next year, says Manheim’s Tom Webb, and there will likely be a greater percentage of these units that will be sold in a different fashion than perhaps what has been the traditional route for these vehicles.

“There should be a modest increase overall (less than 5 percent), and an increasing share will be sold outside the auction process or in an offsite/online environment,” said Webb, chief economist for Manheim Consulting.

“And, as in recent years, look for big swings in the makes and models being remarketed.”

This insight from Webb was from the Q&A portion of the latest Auto Industry Brief from Manheim Consulting, in which he was asked his expectations for off-rental volumes for 2014.

In another piece of analysis, the Manheim economist also tackled another source of dealer inventory at auction: the off-lease supply.

In this instance, he was looking specifically at the lease return volume from Ford Motor Credit in the third quarter.

According to Ford Credit data cited on Webb’s blog, it came in at 27,000 units, steady with the second quarter but up from 14,000 units in Q3 of 2012.  

Particularly noteworthy was the gain in volume for 2-year leases from Ford Credit coming back into the market. The numbers here increased from 6,000 in Q3 2012 to 17,000 in the most recent quarter. There were 16,000 in Q2.

Joe Overby can be reached at joverby@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.