With Presidents’ Day approaching and consumers having taken out another $17 billion in auto loan debt in the third quarter of 2020 alone, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released the first-quarter installment of its Auto Financing Report along with its in-depth analysis of 2021’s Cities that Overspend on Cars, as well as accompanying videos.
Below are some of our key findings from each of the two reports:| Cities that Overspend on Cars | Cities that Spend the Least on Cars |
| Rio Grande City, TX | Manhattan Beach, CA |
| Willis, TX | San Carlos, CA |
| Livingston, TX | McLean, VA |
| Alice, TX | Hoboken, NJ |
| Bastrop, LA | Garden City, NY |
| Donna, TX | Needham, MA |
| San Juan, TX | Saratoga, CA |
| Leesville, LA | Palo Alto, CA |
| Uvalde, TX | Lexington, MA |
| Alamo, TX | Birmingham, MI |
| Raeford, NC | Cupertino, CA |
| Mercedes, TX | Los Altos, CA |
| Pharr, TX | Ridgewood, NJ |
| Douglas, GA | Chevy Chase, MD |
| San Luis, AZ | Mill Valley, CA |
| Brownsville, TX | Bloomfield Hills, MI |
| Tolleson, AZ | Bronxville, NY |
| Deming, NM | Westport, CT |
| Weslaco, TX | Darien, CT |
| Big Spring, TX | Scarsdale, NY |
Auto Financing Report:
- Interest rates for new cars are at one of their lowest points in three years, with the average new-car loan today charging 14 percent less interest than the average used-car loan.
- Compared with buyers who have excellent credit, those with fair credit will spend about five times more, or about $5,977, in interest over the life of a five-year, $20,000 loan when financing a vehicle.
- The best options for financing a new car include car manufacturers (rates at 62 percent below average) and credit unions (rates at 24 percent below average). Secondary options include national banks (rates at 19 percent above average) and community and small banks (rates at 33 percent above average).
- Car manufacturers continue to lack transparency when it comes to leasing offers, with the average automaker receiving a WalletHub Transparency Score of 4.6 out of 10.
We recommend prospective car buyers to check their credit scores for free on WalletHub and take advantage of a Car Payment Calculator to determine an auto-loan payment and timeline they can afford.
Please let me know if you have any questions about either report’s findings or if you would like to schedule a phone, Skype or in-studio interview with one of our experts. Full data sets for specific cities in our Cities that Overspend on Cars report are also available upon request. In addition, feel free to embed this YouTube video summarizing the study on your website. You can also use or edit these raw files as you see fit.
