Auto Leases and the Luxury World

Chrysler Financial has announced that at the end of this week that their leasing business will come to a halt. Chase Auto Finance followed suit (a bit) by saying that it won't lease Chrysler any longer either. GMAC, which is majority owned by Cerberus, the owner of Chrysler, has been rumored to be tightening the noose quite a bit with creditors and has stopped leasing in Canada altogether.

While Ford won't confirm or deny that they are changing their lease strategy and Toyota has stated that it will stay the lease course, it should be understood that the leasing business, which once made up 1 out of every 3 cars sold, is definitely on its way out. So what does that mean for the luxury end of things? I mean, a lot of what the luxury SUVs, trucks, and sedans had major impact with the flexibility leasing brought. Will this ultimately affect the sales numbers overall with the decreased ability to lease?

My personal take--leasing made it way too easy for people to overextend themselves, a major factor in why we are in the credit crisis we are in now in the United States (along with overextension on mortgages that were available to basically anyone), so the fact that this is going away is actually a good thing.

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Auto Leases and the Luxury World

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