Current Used-Vehicle Prices Similar to One Year Ago

GAINESVILLE, GA - Before the auction activity began this past week, Ricky Beggs, VP and managing editor for Black Book was able to see the views of some new car sales and leasing options at the ACVL conference in Nashville.

"Leasing is currently about 23 percent of the new-car sales volume, while this is being accomplished without heavy incentives. Where most current end of term values are stronger than the projected values of thre years ago, there is a focus by additional lenders to join the lease origination ranks," Beggs noted. "As Black Book completes our analysis of the new models and projects the residuals for consumer leases, the strength of the used market going forward is expected to be less aggressive than the current market levels."

When looking at the car segment activity this past week, the overall segment average change increased over the previous week to -$70. Within the various segments, most were pretty similar to the week before except for the Entry Level Cars (ELC) which had been pretty solid for the previous two weeks but requiring  adjustments this past week to -$82 or -1.24 percent. Only one other car segment had a greater dollar change with that being the Premium Sporty Cars (PSC) at -$161, the fifth consecutive week this segment has decline by $100 or more.

How did the cars fare as compared to the market a year ago? "It was very close to this past week’s -$70 with an average segment change of -$72 last year," Beggs noted.

The trucks continue to retain value better than the cars, but with a slightly larger decline of -$49 this past week as compared to two weeks ago when the movement was -$15. Just like the cars, the year ago average truck segment change at -$43 was very close to this past week’s change.

"All of these adjustments were based on a solid number of 2,137 vehicles adjusted on average each day throughout the week," Beggs said. "Even with the overall declining amounts there were still 27 percent of the adjustments that required a raise in the previous published values."

If you were looking for the segment types of cars and trucks that most steadily tracked as the overall segment change over the past three months you would have to look at the Entry Sporty Cars (ESC) and the Compact Crossovers (CXU), Beggs said. "For those that trended most consistently above the segment averages those would be the Entry Level Cars (ELC) and the Compact Pickups (CPT)," he continued.

If you are dealing with the most volatile segments in change week over week, keep your eyes on the vehicles in the Entry Level Cars, even though the ups and downs were still mostly above the overall segment change. On the trucks that volatility showed up in the Full-size SUVs (FSU).

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