CINCINNATI and CHICAGO -

When consumers take on retail financing for their vehicle purchase, often they’re stretching out terms as long as possible to keep their payments affordable. Experian Automotive put the average new-vehicle contract length at 68 months, according to its first-quarter data.

But when it comes to leasing, just the opposite term is sought by consumers.

The latest Swapalease.com survey showed shoppers are more interested in shorter-term lease options, compared with the traditional 36-month lease. An online survey presented to more than 2,500 drivers across the country showed that roughly 70 percent of participants would like lease terms of 24 months or less as an option at their dealership.

Site officials explained the survey was conducted during the month of July and was inspired in part by Uber’s recent decision to lease vehicles to drivers in 30-day increments. As many as 74 percent of those polled said a 30-day lease is something they are either “maybe” or “absolutely” interested in.

Only 9 percent of survey participants said they would not be interested in hearing about a short-term lease option from their dealer.

As far as types of vehicles go, men and women differ on the type of vehicle they would want to lease for 12-month terms. The survey revealed that women would be more interested in leasing a compact car, hybrid or crossover during that time span, compared with men who indicated their interests to be in premium luxury or sports cars.

In terms of specific brands, women prefer Nissan, Honda and Toyota for a short-term lease, while men indicated a strong preference for Cadillac in a 30-day lease period.

“Short-term lease options are becoming more popular, and will eventually be part of what's offered at a dealership simply because of where consumer preferences now exist,” said Scot Hall, executive vice president of Swapalease.com.

“From short-term mobile phone plans to pay-as-you-consume Netflix programming, consumers are now conditioned to tie larger investments in with their consumption habits, which may dictate the future of automobile shopping patterns and offers,” Hall continued.

So what would it take for a captive finance company or another auto finance provider to gravitate toward leases as short as 30 days? We put that question to Jason Laky, senior vice president and automotive and consumer lending business leader for TransUnion.

“It’s an innovation that Uber is helping to drive into the marketplace. Innovation is always disruptive, and good things can come of it,” Laky said on Tuesday.

“I would say that lenders who are interested in getting into it would do what I think prudent lenders always do when they look at new products is looking at some historical information on the way consumers perform,” he continued.

“Even when there are not comparable leases, there are comparable loan or lease performances on consumers who may be doing similar things,” Laky went on to say. “Use data to try to project how those leases might perform and then test your way into it.

“It’s the way in which our industry has slowly grown the length of terms from 36 months, to 48 to 60 to 72 months over time. It’s been by using data and testing our way into it. I think the same things will apply on shorter-term leases as well,” he added.