CINCINNATI -

Leaves are falling, as is the approval rate for vehicle lease transfers.

And the volume of applicants is cooling, too.

On Tuesday, Swapalease.com reported that vehicle lease credit applicants registered a 69.8-percent approval rate in September. That reading represented a 3.9-percent drop from the August rate of 72.6 percent.

Site officials acknowledged that lease approvals experienced a slight dip after approvals had been increasing steadily over the last four months.

However, Swapalease.com pointed out that the number of lease approvals is relatively high for the month of September, as only 47.6 percent of lease applicants were approved in 2017, and 64.7 percent were approved in September of 2016.

With September marking the second dip this year — the other arriving in May — Scot Hall noted lease approvals have been slowly increasing since January.

The executive vice president of Swapalease.com also acknowledged that September comprised the lowest number of applicants who were looking to get into a new lease since the opening month of the year.  

“Automotive shopping was unusually strong during the summer months due to the shopper confidence and the strength of the economy,” Hall said. 

“We’ve seen a slightly lower number of applicants for September, which we expect to increase again pending the upcoming holiday shopping season,” he added.