Black Book Reports a Typical December for Used Vehicles

GAINESVILLE, GA - The used-vehicle market required a higher number of vehicles to be adjusted this past week, according to Black Book, with the most average daily adjustments at 2,437 over the last 13 weeks.

"Was this due to the return to the market by many buyers and sellers after the Thanksgiving break, or a sign of the market making a typical December turn?" asked Ricky Beggs, VP and managing editor for Black Book. "After analyzing the data and seeing the resulting numbers, I believe there was a little of both."

The percentage of adjustments this past week with increasing values was a solid 29 percent when compared to the 17-percent level the week before. An interesting note, according to Beggs, was the dollar increase of the positive adjustments that was just over half of the amount the week before at +$78. At the same time the dollar amount of the declining adjustments was almost identical to the previous week at -$148.

With the overall change of the cars and trucks being a larger decline week over week, it was almost across the board with nine of the 10 car segments declining more than the previous week. Only the Entry Level Cars (ELC) which declined by $34, an amount ½ of the -$69 adjustment for the week of Thanksgiving, was less.

Trucks reacted the same way, as the Compact SUVs (CSU) and the Full-size Crossovers (FXU) at -$23 and -$10 respectively declined less than the previous week. Those requiring the largest adjustments this past week were the Luxury SUVs at -$74 and the Full-size SUVs at -$115.

"Over the past few weeks many comments have been made to us speculating the next moves in the market prior to the arrival of 2012," Beggs said. "Some were thinking the prices had already bottomed out, while others were prepared to hold out a little longer to buy some bargains during the last few weeks of the year. The most recent comments see this past week with improvement over the shortened holiday week."

With the reporting of the November new car sales levels, Beggs sees the less-than-aggressive pricing levels being driven with more new car trades being available, thus softening the need for acquiring additional used inventory from the auction lanes.