ATLANTA -

As Manheim’s Tom Webb prepared his presentation for his quarterly conference call to discuss the wholesale market, he chose not to include a slide showing repossession volume trends since he needed only three words to sum up the situation.

When asked by Auto Remarketing about what repossession volume is like in the lanes, Webb replied with, “very, very low.”

He continued: “Everybody is making their car payments. It’s really unbelievable how strong loan portfolios have performed. Repossession volumes are down.

“The rate of which people keep making their monthly payments is just amazing. The portfolio performance of almost all lenders is really exceptional,” Webb added.

According to the most recent data from Experian Automotive, the total amount of auto loans delinquent for the first quarter was $476 million lower than a year earlier. Overall, contracts that were 60-days delinquency settled 12.17 percent lower in the first quarter than the opening quarter of last year.

“We’ve got historic low delinquencies, especially as it relates to the balances that are delinquencies,” explained Melinda Zabritski, director of automotive credit at Experian. “We started tracking this formally back in 2006. And if I look at the percentage of balances that are delinquent, it’s the lowest since we started tracking it.

“If I look back at 2006 delinquencies or even 2007, the percentage of loans coming on the books in 2006 and prior periods, there were a lot more subprime loans originating, yet we still had relatively low delinquencies,” Zabritski continued. “Of course right now, we have historic low delinquencies and beginning to see subprime originate. We may begin to see delinquencies increase because we’re originating more subprime.”

According to Equifax’s May National Consumer Credit Trends Report, new auto finance company loans originated between January and March totaled $52.5 billion, which is 49 percent higher than the recession low set in March 2009. That’s when the figure was $26.9 billion.

Equifax determined the most current data also shows that new auto bank loans amounts originated between January and March totaled $47.5 billion, a seven-year high and 25 percent higher than the recession-era low in March 2010, which was $35.9 billion.

Analysts also discovered the total number of outstanding auto loans continues to climb, surpassing 57 million for the first time since February 2010 and balances among existing auto loans are also increasing with the May total of $740 billion representing a 34-month high.

“Lenders are reaching out to a broader consumer base and they are more willing to take on good-quality subprime loans,” said Equifax chief economist Amy Crews-Cutts. “Good quality comes from fully underwriting those loans for adequate capacity and collateral in addition to credit, not just the one dimension of credit that dominated immediately prior to the recession.”

With improved underwriting potentially keeping loans in good standing and further curtailing repossessions, what might happen to the few repossessed vehicles that happen to make it to auction?

“Certainly they attract strong prices because there are lots of buyers and wholesalers who like to specialize in buying those types of units. In reality, there are few of them out there,” Webb concluded.