Auto Loan Delinquency Rates Decline: Wyoming Records Lowest
TransUnion, a consumer credit reporting agency, released its analysis of trends in auto financing for the first quarter of 2008. It reported that Wyoming had the lowest auto loan delinquency rate in the nation, during the first quarter. Wyoming’s rate for auto loans delinquent stood at 0.37 % (for 60days), in comparison to 0.65 % in the U.S. overall.
The report is part of a series of consumer lending sector statistics and analyses focusing on credit cards, auto loan and mortgage data with TransUnion. These findings were arrived at from TransUnion’s data base of 27 million anonymous consumer records, picked randomly. Louisiana recorded the highest auto loan delinquency rates at 1.19 percent, with Alabama following at 1.07 percent.
In June, TransUnion reported that Wyoming’s 60-day mortgage loan delinquency rate was 1.41 percent, compared to a U.S. average of 3.23 percent. TransUnion also maintained that $14,616.94 was the average auto debt per borrower in Wyoming. Nevada revealed the highest auto debt at $16,034.
Borrowers in the states of Nevada and Arizona had limited availability of home equity-based financing for auto purchases. This could probably be the reason why auto loan debts were higher in those states, explained Peter Turek, Vice President of TransUnion’s financial service group. However, he also said that states with the highest delinquency rates also showed decreases since the fourth quarter of 2007.
A contributing factor to paying off car loans could be larger income tax refunds, with consumers filing earlier than in 2007.