Not a good time to buy a used car. With high gas prices and high interest rates I give it a year before they can’t find buyers and retail will plummet. Only the desperate are buying cars now.
Retail Used Car Prices are UP!......................
That is considered ‘Low Mileage’ nowadays..............
In the middle of covid, right at the height of the car shortage, my son totalled my SUV... and the insurance company gave me nearly twice what it was worth before Covid! I couldn’t believe it. Then if that wasn’t lucky enough, I was able to get literally the only car on the new car lot (that just came off the truck) for a deal!
How about classics?
Any FReepers looking for a 1970 Buick Estate Wagon, complete and running?
This is one reason I was willing to spend extra to buy an EV. I needed to replace my wife’s car, we were looking at buying her yet another used car like the two of us have driven during our marriage, but used car prices this year were way up. I was looking at spending at least $10K for the kind of car I recently spent $5K to $6K for.
Which doesn't take into account the lack of new cars to sell.
Dealer's got to make money somewhere, and if he can't move hundreds of new cars a month due to lack of inventory, then he's going to move hundreds of used cars instead.
This shows what happens when some idiot from ‘The Hill’ writes an article on something he knows nothing about.
I’ve only been a sales mgr at a new car store since 1990.
The reason you’re seeing retail prices stay high, while auction prices drop is that with the numbers of used cars still being short, nothing goes to the auction except absolute crap. In all my life, I’ve probably sent back a dozen cars to the auction that had issues. Now about half that you buy get sent back, mechanical issues, undisclosed bodywork, they’re a mess.
The good ones aren’t going to auction.
Dealers won’t make a killing for long. Cars aren’t food - you don’t have to buy a car no matter what the price. People will hold onto their old cars longer. The subset of people who absolutely have to buy a car is small. And cars diminish in value each year so dealers will be incentivized to reduce prices if cars don’t sell at high prices. What this suggests is that dealers have better market knowledge and scooped up underpriced cars before consumers did. But they won’t make a killing.
I saw a 2003 Tacoma with 139K miles and the guy is asking $15,000
“Companies have passed higher costs on to customers. But they have also taken advantage of circumstances to expand profit margins. The broadening of inflation beyond commodity prices is more profit market expansion than wage cost pressures,” Donovan wrote. Found this BS buried at the bottom. There may be an element of this, but grocery stores are not excessively gouging customers to drive inflation (for instance) and ridiculous grocery prices up. Gas stations and oil companies are not gouging.
Government interference has added confusion as well. The government wants to force everyone to go to electric cars but there is little infrastructure to support electric cars.
Gasoline cars are expensive and slim pickings on new car lots. One could continue down this route I suppose.
A hybrid might seem like a reasonable choice. I have nothing against them. However hybrids require you to maintain both technologies — gasoline and electric — and thus there is more complexity it seems than an ordinary gasoline powered car.
If one needs a car now it is a confusing costly mess.
plummet??? ummmm, no...
I was at a CarMax recently (selling, not buying), and I was *shocked* at what they’re trying to get for ho-hum 2 or 3 year-old Camrys and Accords. Yes, $20k and up. I’m thinking, what the hell did someone pay for these things new, like $25k? It’s insane.
Do we still have a Consumer Protection Bureau? Is this price gouging?
It takes time for supply to catch up. The flood of the cheaper wholesale used cars has to get out to the lot.
Also consumer expectations have to change to force dealers to lower price. Right now a lot of people expect to pay more and are, when they could be holding off a little until the price dam breaks.
If you want a car, wait until the recession gets really bad in 2023. Cash is King.
What about the hot rod and muscle car market?
Several reasons for these numbers.
Retail price lags wholesale price by at least 3 mo’s. Retail used car pricing was ridiculous for several years with car values actually going up. As was wholesale. The wholesale market is somewhat correcting, but as dealers bought their current inventory at previously inflated wholesale that means to make any kind of profit they have to sell them based on their current cost.
Our best lender went from using NADA values to, well I don’t know what values, but they use “Carbly”. Scan vin and it give value which is thousands less than NADA. Which puts dealers in a bind because it’s less than wholesale paid last month.