GAINESVILLE, GA - Spring break has come and gone in most parts of the country, and instead of an increase in activity at the auctions, things seemed to have slowed down just a bit. The demand from multiple buyers pushing for an extra bid or two has disappeared in many cases.

According to Ricky Beggs, VP and managing editor for Black Book, reports were mostly made up of such comments as “small cars in demand,” “low mileage economy models are up,” “SUVs slightly off,” and “trucks not slowing.”

"After completing the analysis of all of the data, the final results brought a drop in average price of the car segments of -$2," Beggs said. "This follows five weeks of increasing values. For the past two weeks, five of the 10 car segments increased. This most recent week the strength was led by the Compact Cars (SCC) which increased by $27 or +0.4 percent. The Premium Luxury Cars (PLC) declined by 0.2 percent or -$48."

Looking in more detail at the truck segments we finished the week with an overall decline of $11. "This was the first decline overall in the past six weeks. With only five individual segments increasing within the trucks, this was the smallest number as at least eight segments increased each week over the past five weeks," Beggs noted.

The Compact SUVs (CSU) increased but $39 or 0.4 percent as the strongest segment improvement. The Luxury SUVs (LSU) declined by $88 or -0.3 percent, while the Full-size Crossovers weren’t far behind at -$82 or 0.4 percent.

"Overall there were fewer necessary changes, 1,487 per day, than the previous four weeks when the average daily adjustment was at 2,041 per day," according to Beggs. "Within all the changes we made it back to the 60-percent level of increases that we have had for four of the previous five weeks."