Used cars for sale are often overlooked in the bragging rights of cutting-edge electric cars and restrained pickup trucks. Now they are suddenly the hottest commodity in the industry.
Consumers are snapping up used cars for sale
as second or third cars to avoid trains, buses or Uber rides during the coronavirus pandemic. Others are saving money in an uncertain economy by buying used rather than new, not knowing when they or their spouse might lose their job. Production of new cars was halted for nearly two months this spring, which also met demand for older cars.
Across the country, the price of used cars for sale
is skyrocketing. This growth flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that cars are depreciating assets that have lost much of their value the moment they leave the dealership. In July alone, the average price of a used car jumped more than 16 percent, according to Edmunds.com.
In June, the most recent month for which data are available, franchised car dealers sold 1.2m used cars for sale
and trucks, up 22 per cent from a year earlier, according to Edmunds. This is the highest monthly total since 2007.
Prosperity has upended the business of selling cars. Because used cars for sale
don’t come from Detroit factories, they say, dealers have to work as hard as they usually do to buy and sell cars, including placing ads and making phone calls to ask if people are interested in selling their used cars for sale
. The old car. Such is the epidemic’s strong demand for used cars for sale
.
‘used cars for sale
are supposed to lose value, but I would look at the book value on this car and it’s higher than it was at the beginning of the month,’ says Adam Silverleib, president of Silko Honda in Raynham, Mass. “I’ve never seen one before.”
Mr. Silverleib recently sold 22,000-mile 2017 Honda Pilot to Suzanne Cray and her husband. The family has only one car. But Ms. Clay, a nurse who works at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, says the family has decided it needs another person to make sure no one has to use Uber or public transportation.
The boom in the recession, like other unexpected trends, has thrown millions of people out of work and decimated airlines, restaurants, hotels and small businesses. Despite this pain, the epidemic has been a boon to old-school economies, such as canned and processed food and suburban home sales, that have fallen out of favor in recent years.
The automotive industry is the equivalent of a three-bedroom ranch with an attractive backyard patio, a low-mileage car or SUV that is much cheaper than a new car, but can also take the family to a picnic far away from the social scene after months of isolation.
The growing desire to own cars has surprised many people and upset others, who worry about what effect it might have on the future of cities and transportation. Mayor Bill de Blasio, an SUV-riding mayor, recently implored New Yorkers, many of whom do not own or own cars, saying it represented “the past.”
These fears may be overdone. Of course, buying used cars for sale
doesn’t add to the number of cars on the road. Sales of new cars have not started to rise. Part of the reason for the sudden used-car craze, if anything, is the long-term rise in prices for new cars and trucks. Today, new cars, on average, sell for about $38,000, more than many consumers can afford or are willing to pay.
In addition, many Americans realized that they didn’t have to worry about buying the rattle traps that often appear in stores. Recent vintage cars and trucks are better built than they were decades ago, and certainly compared with the cars used in Ralph Nader’s 1965 book, “Unsafe Speed.”
