Buying a new or used car is easier now, but getting a loan is becoming harder
Buying a new or used car is easier now, but getting a loan is becoming harder
New and used vehicles are a lot easier to find this year, now that supply chains are moving again. But now, car buyers may face another hurdle: getting a loan.
Earlier this week, Ally Financial said it plans to tighten standards for auto lending. Wells Fargo also said it’s setting aside more cash in case its existing auto loans go bad.
Lenders are worried that rising interest rates are making their loans too expensive.
“If people’s payments get much higher because of the interest rates, then the lenders are going to worry about defaults,” said Kathleen Engel, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.
She said lenders are also worried that if a recession happens, some borrowers might lose their jobs — so they’re raising rates further to compensate for the risk. That also means they’re making fewer loans.
“If lenders are concerned that the higher payments are going to lead to higher default rates, they want to stop the problem before it exists,” Engel said.
Lenders are pulling back most in the used car market, according to Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive. He said that’s because a lot of people who bought used cars in the last couple years are already starting to fall behind on their payments.
“And the consumers that tend to be more likely to fall behind, are subprime consumers, which also tend to be median to lower-income households,” Smoke said.
Those consumers are also ones who have disproportionately felt the effects of inflation, he said.
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