Swapalease.com, the nation's largest online car lease marketplace, today released its quarterly lease trends report for the fourth quarter, 2017.  The report shows the impact of holiday marketing dollars and the effect on lease shopping during the fourth quarter in comparison to Q4 of 2016.  Search traffic for today's auto brands remained fairly stable and consistent with that of last year's fourth quarter for most brands, with luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Infiniti each seeing increases to close out the year while Ram saw a significant increase of over 290% from Q4 of last year. Click here for the report. 

Ram saw a noticeable jump in search traffic seeing a healthy rebound from lower numbers a year ago (+290%), followed by Toyota (+29%), Mercedes Benz (+18%), BMW (+13%), and Infiniti (+13%). GMC, Subaru, and Cadillac saw the smallest growth in search traffic, with GMC (+5%), Subaru (+4%), and Cadillac (+3%). 

In comparison to Q3, most brands saw similar search traffic share on the site.  BMW holds the top spot as the brand with the largest overall traffic on Swapalease.com, at 12%, followed by Mercedes-Benz holding 8% of the total search traffic during the quarter.  Even though Ram saw the largest jump in search traffic during the quarter, it still only represents 1% of the overall traffic in the marketplace.

The average monthly payment on a lease was registered at $485.47, a slight increase from the third quarter ($484.79). Mercedes-Benz is currently the most expensive brand to lease with an average monthly payment of $784.  Contrariwise, Volkswagen is the most inexpensive brand to lease with an average monthly payment of $324, followed by Buick at $335, and Honda at $338. 

The report also shows that SUV leases, Fullsize Cars, Midsize Cars, Small cars, and Crossovers all saw increases in their numbers from Q3, while Sports Cars and Trucks both saw a decrease.

“It’s no surprise that leasing remains healthy and viable as a sales alternative for dealers and consumers,” said Scot Hall, Executive Vice President of Swapalease.com. “It was a little surprising to see a few more people interested in changing to another brand, and interested in changing their vehicle type, which might be a reflection of the confidence the economy continues to instill in consumers.”

Click HERE to access the Q4 lease report.

About Swapalease.com: 

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Swapalease.com is the world’s largest automotive lease marketplace and the pioneer in facilitating lease transfers online. More specifically Swapalease.com matches individuals who want to get out of their lease with people who are looking for short-term lease agreements. Prospective buyers can search the listings for the exact vehicle they want, and then register for a nominal fee, allowing them to use Swapalease.com’s safe online system to contact the prospective seller and close the deal. For more information about Swapalease.com or how to exit your lease early, call 866-SWAPNOW or visit www.swapalease.com.