In March 2026, the Dealertrack Credit Availability Index rose to 102.4, its best reading since June 2022. The All-Loans Index increased 1.3% from February’s 101.1 and is up over 6% from March 2025. Even as yield spreads widened, the month’s improvement was broad-based across all channels and lender types, driven primarily by a significant expansion in subprime lending, a recovery in approval rates, and strong gains from banks.

Key Metrics

• Approval Rates: The approval rate for auto loans rose to 70.8% in March, up 40 basis points (bps) from February, reversing a two-month declining trend. Approval rates remain down 180 bps from March 2025 (72.6%), even as most lenders continued to expand access broadly.
• Subprime Share: The share of loans to subprime borrowers increased by 200 bps month over month (from 17.5% to 19.5%) and is up 300 bps year over year. March’s reading of 19.5% is the highest level in the dataset since March 2020. This sustained expansion suggests lenders are increasingly comfortable extending credit to higher-risk borrowers.
• Yield Spread: The yield spread widened by 31 bps (from 7.53 to 7.84), while the average contract rate rose 50 bps (from 11.2% to 11.7%). The 5-year Treasury yield increased by 17 bps (from 3.68% to 3.85%). This widening spread represents less favorable pricing for consumers and may reflect lenders charging a premium to offset the increased risk from higher subprime lending and elevated negative equity.
• Loan Term Length: The share of loans with terms greater than 72 months decreased by 50 bps (from 29.3% to 28.8%), breaking a three-month streak of increases, and is up 510 bps year over year. February’s 29.3% remains the all-time high in the dataset; at 28.8%, March’s reading is the second highest on record and continues to reflect ongoing affordability pressures as consumers opt for longer terms to manage monthly payments.
• Negative Equity Share: The proportion of borrowers with negative equity increased by 120 bps month over month (from 58.0% to 59.2%) and is up 620 bps year over year, pushing the share to a new all-time high for the third consecutive month and signaling increased risk as more borrowers carry loan balances that exceed their vehicle’s value.
• Down Payment Percentage: The average down payment percentage increased by 30 bps (from 13.6% to 13.9%) but is down 80 bps year over year. This modest increase may reflect lenders requiring slightly more upfront capital or consumers voluntarily putting more down, though down payments remain below year-ago levels.

Channel and Lender Trends

• Channels: Credit access improved across all sales channels in March. The largest gains were in the Non-Captive New segment, followed by All New. Franchise Used, All Used, CPO, and Independent Used also saw improvement.
• Lender Types: Lender performance was broadly positive in March. Banks led the improvement with credit availability rising 5.2%, the largest monthly gain among lender types. Credit Unions reversed their prior month’s decline, up 2.9%. Captives continued to improve, rising 1.4%, while Finance Companies were essentially flat. Overall, lenders are showing continued willingness to extend credit, with banks driving the month-over-month improvement.

Year-Over-Year Comparison

Compared to March 2025, credit access was looser across all channels and lender types:

• Channels: The most notable year-over-year improvements were in Franchise Used, All New, and Non-Captive New, indicating stronger credit availability across both new and used vehicle segments. All Used and Independent Used also saw solid improvement, while CPO saw more modest gains.
• Lender Types: Captives and Banks led the year-over-year loosening, while Finance Companies also improved. Credit unions showed a more cautious yet still positive stance on credit access compared with a year ago.

Implications for Consumers and Lenders

• Consumers: Credit access continued to broaden in March, with improvement across all channels and lender types offering financing opportunities in both new and used markets. However, the underlying picture carries increasing caution. Record negative equity, a sharply rising subprime share, and widening yield spreads all point to elevated borrowing costs and greater long-term financial risk. Consumers should carefully consider the full terms of any financing offer, particularly total loan length and overall cost.
• Lenders: Banks led the market in March, posting the strongest monthly gain among lender types. Captives also continued to improve, with their index reaching its highest level since April 2022, while credit unions reversed their prior month’s decline. With negative equity reaching a new all-time high, lenders increasing exposure in this environment face growing collateral risk, and balancing volume growth with disciplined underwriting will be increasingly important as these risk indicators continue to build.

Overall, the March Dealertrack Credit Availability Index reflected continued improvement in auto credit access, with the headline index climbing to 102.4, its best level since June 2022. Individual metrics told a more complex story, however. Subprime lending reached its highest level since March 2020, approval rates recovered modestly, and banks posted the strongest monthly gain among lender types. Yet negative equity reaching another new high and widening yield spreads point to growing risk beneath the surface.

View historical Dealertrack Credit Availability Index reports.

The Dealertrack Credit Availability Index tracks six factors that affect auto credit access: loan approval rates, subprime share, yield spreads, loan term length, negative equity and down payments. Reported monthly, the index indicates whether access to auto credit is improving or declining. This typically means that it is cheaper and easier for consumers to obtain a loan or more expensive and harder. The index is published around the tenth of each month.

HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) – April is National Financial Literacy Month, and a certified financial planner is debunking some common money myths.

Ken Tumolo, a certified financial planner based in East Lyme, said he finds there are three big misconceptions about finances.

The first misconception is that you can wait to save for retirement. Tumolo said the earlier you start, the earlier you can take advantage of compounding interest.

“I’m going to say magic number: as soon as you can, and what I mean by that, too, you don’t have to put your whole paycheck into a savings account. For example, my youngest son, 23 now, he started saving when he was 20, and all he would save is about $50 a week. But now that $50 over time has turned into over $1,000 in a retirement account,” Tumolo said.

“I’d probably say the big one I always run into is when to start saving,” Tumolo said.

The second misconception is that you can make quick money on the stock market.

“You just don’t magically make a whole bunch of money all of a sudden in the market. Look at what’s going on now with the war over in Iran. People are actually losing money in some of their accounts, and so things do pass, and the market does go up and down, but it’s more of a long game,” Tumolo said.

The third misconception is that all debt is bad.

“For an example, a young person starting out, especially in college, I would say, just having like a student credit card, and a lot of times the student credit cards only have $500 or $1,000 credit limit on it, but it’s a good start for kids to learn. If I charge this, guess what? There’s a bill at the end of the month that I’m going to have to pay. See, so now they’re starting to learn how things work. And on top of it, they’re building their credit because one day they might buy a house,” Tumolo said.

Tumolo said getting a credit card is only a good thing if you’re paying it off at the end of every month.

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Seven months after a wildfire destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena and surrounding neighborhoods, about 70% of homeowners who suffered severe fire damage had neither put their property up for sale nor made a move toward rebuilding.

But a few weeks after the first anniversary of the fire, the number of people in that limbo had dropped to fewer than half, as more have taken some action toward recovery, according to data released Thursday by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute.

Though it’s the latest sign of progress in the Eaton fire’s aftermath, researchers say that recovery remains far from settled for most fire survivors, even if they’ve started on a path to rebuilding.

The data show that there has been a new wave of people starting and advancing through the permitting process, but a widening lag after that point because of, among other reasons, financing.

About 44% of homeowners have fully approved permits to rebuild, but only 30% have started construction, according to the data.

“This is the first step in a very long and extensive process,” said Gabriella Carmona, a senior research analyst at the institute and a lead author on the report. “Recovery is still very deeply uncertain for most households.”

Just under 50% of homeowners, the analysis found, still have taken no steps toward recovery.

The report analyzed data from single-family homes that were at least 50% destroyed in the fire, including building permit applications, property sale records and fire damage assessments, as well as race and ethnicity markers for potential disparities. The report did not analyze data for renters, businesses or the Palisades fire zone.

“Rebuilding activity increased across all groups, but the largest gains occurred among Black and Latino homeowners,” the report found, comparing similar data from August with February. The most recent data found that about 56% of Black homeowners had taken some step toward recovery, up from 27% in August. Among Latino households, that metric climbed to 63% as of February, compared with 35% in August.

The new data come as the Eaton fire recovery enters its 15th month. The Times last week released an analysis that found that just over half of all residences destroyed in the Eaton fire — roughly 6,000 — have filed applications to rebuild. The review also found that it is increasingly taking longer for applicants to obtain a permit, up to about 155 days.

Compared with the pace in Santa Rosa after the 2017 Tubbs fire, The Times’ analysis found rebuilding in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades was markedly slower.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, called the increase in applicants “meaningful forward momentum,” but she acknowledged that means residents from about 3,000 homes still haven’t started to move forward.

“The fact that only half of wildfire survivors have submitted applications makes clear that significant barriers remain, especially financial ones,” Barger said in a statement. “Many impacted residents have taken no action to rebuild because they lack the capital to move forward — an issue exacerbated by delayed insurance payouts.”

Barger continued to call for more federal support to help finance the recovery, something that Carmona said would help homeowners who remain stalled. But Carmona also said new policies are needed to support different financial avenues for families and community members to finance rebuilding, access meaningful loans and receive full insurance payouts.

It’s still unclear when and how much Southern California Edison may pay out to fire victims — the utility has not admitted it caused the fire but says its equipment was probably associated with the ignition, and faces hundreds of lawsuits — and what nontraditional or philanthropic options might be available to families.

“Many families [are] stuck between wanting to rebuild” and not being sure “what loan makes sense or what will be available to them,” Carmona said.

Marisol Espino, who lost her home in the Eaton fire and has since become a disaster case manager with the Legacy Land Project, said these financial questions had become a game of mental gymnastics for herself and many of her former neighbors.

“A major misconception is that people can just ‘rebuild,’” Espino said. Instead, people are finding out they’re underinsured, that their insurance money is tied to their mortgage, that they don’t quality for a loan or that the loan they received has major restrictions.

“What’s happening is that people are draining their savings, they’re pulling from their 401(k)s, they’re sacrificing their retirement and their children’s future to try to get back home,” Espino said.

She understands the desire to return home, she said, but worries about the long-term stability of this next wave of homeowners trying to rebuild.

A recent survey from the Department of Angels, a nonprofit focused on fire recovery and facilitating community organizing, found that about 40% of fire survivors had taken on debt since the fire, and the majority said their mental health had worsened.

“It is a bifurcated recovery, and the No. 1 factor is money,” said Joy Chen, the executive director of the nonprofit Every Fire Survivor’s Network. She said the group had found that the people who had been able to quickly rebuild either had prefire wealth or received full insurance payouts.

Though there are financial hurdles for many, the UCLA report pointed out some positive trends when it comes to home sales: Not only are investors making up a smaller share of homebuyers in recent months, but fewer homes are also being put up for sale. Altadena locals have been extremely concerned about investors and corporations buying up homes in their relatively affordable and diverse community, especially in historically Black neighborhoods where many homes have been passed down for multiple generations.

In August, about two-thirds of the sales of fire-damaged homes were made by investors — defined as limited liability companies, corporations or family trusts associated with real estate investment activity — but by the one-year mark, that share fell to about 59%, according to the report.

New listings in the fire zone also have slowed down, with only about 1% of severely fire-damaged homes up for sale in February, down from about 2% five months prior.

“In general, sales have been lower” than expected, Carmona said. “We had the biggest spike in the first couple months. … There really hasn’t been a massive uptick in sales since.”

And although much remains uncertain about Altadena’s recovery, the markers of progress do provide some hope, said William Syms, the executive director of the Legacy Land Project, which was founded in the wake of the Eaton fire to provide direct assistance to residents in need. His nonprofit is one of dozens that make up the Eaton Fire Collaborative, helping to provide residents with an array of resources they need to move forward, including case management and financial support.

“The outreach that’s happening, the conversation and events and the collective power of community is working,” Sym said. “I think more people realize that it’s possible to rebuild — and while it’s expensive and costly, together we’re going to make sure that anybody who wants to get home can.”

That includes Espino, who said Habitat for Humanity recently had found a way to help finance the rebuild for her multigenerational family.

“We’re moved on to the next phase,” Espino said. “We’re trying to get all of us together, back home.”