BANDON, Ore. -

Leasing has been on an upward trek the past few years, and it appears that uptick only continued in March.

During the first few days of this month, lease penetration was sitting north of 27 percent, which represents more than a 5-percent year-over-year gain, according to CNW Research.

Data from CNW and ADESA Analytical Services indicates lease penetration came in at 28.8 percent last year. The data was included in ADESA’s latest Pulse report, which says that leasing has eclipsed its pre-recession heights.

In a conversation with Auto Remarketing last week about the Pulse report, ADESA’s Tom Kontos explained that these numbers may seem a bit higher than what other industry sources report; the reason being, CNW’s retail data also includes leases to small businesses where the vehicle is for personal use and business use.

That said, Kontos believes the Pulse report numbers from 2012 — which again, includes the small business personal use as well as the traditional retail consumer — should remain “pretty stable” this year within that range.

Volumes Up

New-lease volumes have been on the upswing the past three years, the CNW/ADESA data in Pulse indicated. Volumes jumped 27.3 percent year-over-year in 2010 and 7.1 percent in 2011.  As of December, they were up 22.6 percent year-to-date in 2012.

Better Credit Environment?

And it appears there were some favorable trends to start 2013, particularly on the credit approval side of the leasing marketplace.

Swapalease.com shared some of the site’s January lease credit approval numbers based on data from U.S. Bank, its largest non-captive lender.

Based on the U.S. Bank figures for Swapalease.com, lease credit approvals on the online lease marketplace in January jumped 23.1 percent from the average approval rate in the final five months of 2012.

Year-over-year, they jumped 60 percent.

As for credit declines, these fell 20 percent from the final five months of the year and were down 42.9 percent from January 2012.

Month-over-month, approvals fell 5.9 percent in January, but declines dropped 20 percent.

“We’re continuing to see a resilient economy bounce back from the recession of a few years ago,” said Scot Hall, executive vice president of Swapalease.com. “All eyes right now are on watching if the trend can continue following the payroll tax increase and the recent sequestration, two events that still may have negative consequences on consumer finances.”

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