That’s a decrease of 19%. For the year-to-date period, $153.7 this year versus $188 last year. That’s a decrease of 18%. Core operating expenses are $42 million in the current quarter, $38.5 last year, $123.1 for the nine-month period this year versus $113.6 last year. That’s an increase of 8%. And measured against the managed portfolio, core operating expenses are 5.7% this year, this quarter versus 5.8% in the third quarter of last year. 5.7% also for the year-to-date period this year versus 6.1% for the nine months in 2022. And lastly, our return on managed assets, 1.9% this quarter, 5.2% last year. On an annualized basis, 2.4% in 2023 and 5.3% for the nine months in 2022. I will turn over the call to Mike to go over some of the operational aspects.
Mike Lavin: All right. Thanks, Danny. In originations, the third quarter remains solid as we purchase $322 million of new contracts. That compares to $318 million of new contracts in Q2 and that compares to $468 million of new contracts during the third quarter of 2022. The slight uptick quarter-over-quarter in originations reflects the strong demand in our space. The reduction in volume year-over-year was certainly purposeful as we scaled back due to certain macroeconomic headwinds that Brad discussed and we continue to operate with a tighter credit box and kept a keen eye on affordability of our product for our customers. In terms of the ever important affordability factor in our space, we continue to hold firm on our payment to income and debt to income ratios.
Equally important, our monthly payment remained relatively low for our space at $531. That compares to the upper A$500s for a used car price that’s irrespective of a subprime customer or a near prime customer and that compares to a car payment in the upper $700s for a new car. So we — our payment target remains quite low for our space. As I mentioned, demand remains strong in the third quarter. We are getting roughly 8,000 applications a day, which is roughly the same as we received in 2022 when we originated a 31-year company record of $1.85 billion. Our approval rate ticked down to 51%, which is significantly down from 2022 Q3 of 70%. Again, that’s not a cause for concern as that drop was purposeful as we significantly tightened our credit box at the end of 2022 and really dug in at the beginning of 2023 on that credit tightening.
Specifically, we tightened our LTV, we capped payments in certain program segments, we tightened job stability and residency requirements, and we definitely made less exceptions. Again, this has lowered our approval percentage, but most significantly and especially more importantly, it’s lowered our LTVs, which is a leading indicator of losses. Our average amount financed for the quarter was $20,100, which is down about $900 quarter-over-quarter and down a whopping $3,000 in Q3 of 2022. This drop is likely the result of a major pullback in backend products that we offer, specifically warranty and GAP. So we’ve allowed less of those backend products to be financed, which has lowered the LTV caps, which has lowered the amount financed and this has also contributed to our monthly payment remaining relatively low compared to our peers.
We continue to hold a strong APR in Q3, registering an average APR at 21%, which is about a 0.5-point lower quarter-over-quarter and significantly higher than the average APR in Q3 of 2022 of 18%. Again, it’s important to recognize that this APR was achieved despite materially tightening our credit box in late 2022 and early 2023. In terms of competition, we continue to see waves of credit unions come in and come out of this space with lower rates and then they basically pull out of the space when they realize the losses don’t meet their expectations. But like I said, demand remains strong, so there’s more than enough business for the five or six market makers in the space, including us. In terms of growth, there remains a tremendous opportunity as there are no new entrants into the market.
