More and more car shoppers in the U.S. seem to be foregoing leasing their next vehicle in favor of buying or financing them outright, according to a new report from Business Insider.
Leasing a new vehicle just keeps getting more expensive. The average monthly lease payment hit $661 in December 2022. That’s a 33 percent increase from March 2020. Inventory issues and dealer hassles mean shoppers don’t want to have to deal with getting back into the car market every two to three years. It just isn’t worth the hassle to many drivers.
All of these factors have come together to make the used car market pretty unbearable. Basically, there are fewer off-lease (read: newer and low-milage, but still used) vehicles headed to the used market. However, this hasn’t slowed down the market’s appetite for these types of vehicles.
