Interest rates have risen sharply over the past two years, and this has had a dramatic impact on private lease fees.
Many customers have received a shock when their car became thousands of kroner more expensive a year. Criticism has also been directed at the leasing agreements from those who believe that the cost has been marketed as fixed, even when it is not.
Now many customers are trying to escape from their leases by putting them up for transfer on Blocket. It’s often about electric cars, and some even offer to pay whoever takes over the contract, reports say Swedish daily newspaper.
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Consignment increasingly popular
Posting your leasing car on Blocket and offering someone else to take over the contract is nothing new, but it has become increasingly common recently.
– There are always ads like this out there. But now there are twice as many as usual, he says Carl-Erik Stjernvalltechnical expert at the Riksförbundet M Sweden to Svd.
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Paying to get out of contracts
It is also becoming more common for the seller to offer to pay for the contract’s transfer fee, and in some cases also the leasing cost for a few months.
The sellers are willing to do this because it is often expensive to end the lease early, as the finance company often wants 40 percent of the remaining monthly fees for the inconvenience.
The advantage for the person who takes over the leasing car is that you get the car at a certain discount, and that you get a shorter leasing contract.
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Fewer choose an electric car – switch to petrol
That the demand for leasing is not what it once was can also be seen in the fact that the sale of new cars to private individuals is the lowest in ten years, according to statistics from the analysis company Vroom that Svd has seen.
Above all, fewer private individuals acquire an electric car. Two years ago, electric cars accounted for as much as 40 percent of all new cars sold to private individuals, but that figure has now dropped to 25 percent.
Those who acquire an electric car are also opting out of private leasing to an increasing extent. In two years, the proportion of electric cars sold with private leasing has fallen from 70 to 40 percent.
– High interest rates and scrapped environmental subsidies have driven up the monthly cost of an electric car. In addition, an electric car is inherently more expensive than a petrol car, says Thomas Bergmansales manager at Vroom, to Svd.
According to Thomas Bergman, it is also more common for those who previously leased an electric car to switch to a petrol car. For petrol cars, private leasing is still popular, representing 70 percent of sales.
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