As anybody who tried to get an auto loan during the recession can tell you, they were hard to come by. Even people who had relatively good credit found it difficult to get approved for a loan at the height of the economic downturn. Times have changed, however, and not only are lenders more apt to finance people with lower credit scores, they are doing so more quickly than ever before, Bloomberg reports.

The change in policy can largely be attributed to to the fact that housing market remains slow. As a result, banks have been turning to other ways to grow, and with the auto market rebounding, car loans seems like a logical fit.

Among the lenders who approved the most loans was Capital One. According to Bloomberg, Experian Automotive data shows the bank raised its loans by 35 percent in the third quarter of 2011 along with an astonishing 75 percent in the first two quarters.

In addition to being more likely to approve your loan, banks are doing so much faster. Lenders are realizing that consumers credit scores are improving, so painstakingly combing through each application is becoming a less common practice.

"When the market pulled back, the instant decisions really slowed down. You had more manual reviews,"  Melinda Zabritski, director of automotive credit for Experian Automotive, told the news source. "That’s one of the things you’re starting to see change is you’re going back to the automatic approvals. For a while, you really were only doing automatic declines."

If you're looking to take advantage of the trend, you should head to New Jersey State Auto Auction, which offers guaranteed credit approval. Not only does the dealer have partnerships with all the big banks, but you can get approved in a matter of minutes.