Sales of used cars are skyrocketing prompting historic highs all amidst a shortage. That has people turning to used cars.
Demand is huge, supply is low and if you have a car sitting in your driveway — now is definitely the time to think about selling it.
The car sitting outside your house could be a hidden goldmine. Some used cars are selling for more than new ones! But that’s because cars are really hard to find.
“From December to April, I was searching,” said Steven Graves, Jr.
“There were four or five local dealers that just didn’t have what we wanted,” added Juliana Graves.
After months of looking, Steven and Juliana Graves found it, over 400 miles away!
“It’s about a six and a half hour drive from our house.”
And the used SUV Juliana traded in – a top dollar offer!
“When they said, we’re going to go over 6,000, I was like, ‘do this, we’ll never get this lucky again.’”
Just one example of a red hot used car market.
“Inventory is very tight, so you don’t see dealers negotiating very much, you don’t see a lot of big incentives,” said Tyson Jominy, Vice President of Data & Analytics at J.D. Power.”
“We cannot get enough pre-owned vehicles to keep up with demand right now. “In my 22 years, I have never seen anything like this,”said John Preston, General Manager of Marin County Ford.
Edmunds.com tracks used car prices and says vehicles traded in during the month of March hit a record high, averaging just more than $17,000. That’s $3,000 higher than a year ago.
All this being caused by several COVID-related reasons.
“We’re seeing some inventory shortages, because I don’t think a lot of automakers or suppliers really thought that new vehicle sales would be as strong as they have been,” said Jessica Caldwell, Executive Director of Insights, Edmunds “and a lot of people want cars specifically as they can still maintain their bubble because we’re not necessarily through the pandemic.”
According to Edmunds the cars with the highest resale price are trucks, sports cars, and SUVs.
The 2018 vehicles holding their best value — heavy duty pickup trucks.
The top five – Ford F250, GMC Sierra 2500, Ford F350, Toyota Tacoma and Ram 3,500 — all holding roughly 80% of their value.
So what should you do to get top dollar selling your car?
“first check the value of your car, see how much it is going to appraise for,” said Caldwell, “and then shop it around, see what your local dealer is going to give you for the vehicle.”
According to iSeeCars – here in the Midstate the fastest-selling used cars are the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Nissan Frontier, Nissan Rogue, and the BMW X3.
Historically the advice has always been that selling a used car through the dealer is easier but you make a smaller profit.
Now experts say that is really changing. Demand is so high, it is a seller’s market everywhere.
