ORLANDO, Fla. -

Off-lease volume will grow this year and eventually pass 2.4 million units in 2015. That’s the word from Manheim’s Tom Webb, who gave an overview Saturday at the NADA Convention & Expo of the trends in the 2013 Used Car Market Report released this morning.

Back in the early part of this new century, off-lease volumes hit a record mark of just under 3.5 million units in 2002, according to the Manheim report. Then came the drop-off in recent years.

But after plummeting to a level just over 1.5 million units in 2012, expectations are that off-lease volumes will end a two-year decline and move upward this year, followed by steeper growth in following years.

“The fall-off in originations was more dramatic than the fall-off in new-vehicle sales,” Webb said at Manheim’s press conference Saturday at NADA.

In fact, new lease originations dropped from a level well above 2.5 million units in 2007 to a level just above 1 million in 2009, according to Manheim Consulting’s data.

 “Since that time, they’ve gone up faster than new-vehicle sales,” Webb said. “And the important thing here again, this is leasing done right. This was not leasing done to get a monthly payment to someone with less than perfect credit.”

Instead, he said, leasing has been geared toward the more ideal target.

Editor's Note: Stay tuned to Auto Remarketing for more coverage from the 2013 NADA Convention & Expo.

 

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