Carmigo is bringing you the best selling used cars for Septermber (or at least our prediction). We’ve analyzed trends on our marketplace platform as well as the general car market and compared those with U.S. economic trends to help you decide if this is the month to sell your car, or if you should consider waiting.
Our system is simple. We compare the prices from the Carmigo Marketplace with national auto sales and U.S. economic trends. We even talked to some of our dealership buyers to see what they plan to purchase in September.
Cars that are regularly selling for higher prices are Green-Light Cars. Alternately, cars that are not selling as well or that have dipped in price are Red-Light Cars.
If you have a Green-Light Car, now is the time to sell. If you have a Red-Light Car, maybe wait and see. If we don’t mention your car, you can find out what we think it will sell for on the Carmigo Marketplace platform using our estimator tool.
But remember, these are simply our best guesses based on current trends.
Overall, used car prices are continuing a downward trend through the last week of August. But you still may be able to squeak out a win selling your car in September.
The market is stabilizing, but that doesn’t mean everyone is ready to spend again. Even as gas prices decreased in August, we saw a significant preference for smaller cars.
If you have a luxury or gas-guzzling car you want to sell, we could see prices for those vehicles going up in the fall, especially if market conditions continue to normalize. You may even want to test the market sooner than that (you can always test for free on Carmigo).
Carmigo Operations Manager, Chris Michael, said his team has seen the most success with smaller vehicles over the past month. But he also said he’s seen more buyers showing up to the marketplace and making more offers in the week or two leading into September.
@gocarmigo It’s September and we have another update on the worst and best cars to sell this month. Does your car make our green-lit list? #carmigo #worstcars #bestcars #usedcarmarket #greenscreen ♬ September – norgebatista
Small crossovers are a fuel-efficient alternative to SUVs. And SUVs are expensive to keep fueled. For this reason, we see cars like the Ford EcoSport and Toyota Rav4 sell well.
Overall, crossovers aren’t selling for more than they were in previous months, but their used value is holding, which means a lot in this market. We’ve seen buyers make more offers on Volkswagen Tiguans, Jeep Cherokees, and the like than in previous months.
Last month we predicted fuel-efficient cars would sell well in August, and they did — except for compact cars. Small cars sold at a much higher rate and attracted higher average offers than expected (though still lower than peak prices this summer).
Vehicles like the Volkswagon Jetta and Toyota Corolla should continue to sell well as buyers wait for a little stability before shopping for larger, more expensive cars.
Once again, we’re seeing consumers turn to vans and minivans as an alternative to less fuel-efficient and much more expensive SUVs. Vans like the Toyota Sienna and Chrysler Pacifica have recently been popular.
On the other hand, we haven’t seen many vans or minivans listed on the Carmigo Marketplace platform in the past month. With the current market trends and lack of supply, September could be a good time to sell your van on Carmigo.
As gas prices dropped in August, we saw some buyers taking chances on trucks. Overall, all vehicle segments saw declines in prices, but the small pickup category declined the least.
We saw Toyota Tacomas sell well in August, especially compared with larger trucks. The smaller Chevrolet Silverados and Ford F-Series trucks also sold well in August.
If market conditions continue to even out, consumer demand for all sizes of pickup trucks could begin increasing, but for now, small trucks are the only portion of the truck segment we’d recommend selling.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which includes additional tax credits for EV owners has helped to sustain continued interest in EVs. And the additional credits will apply to used EVs starting in 2023.
This sustained increase in EV prices can also be attributed to less EV inventory overall. Since electric and hybrid models are newer than most gas and diesel models, there are simply fewer available, so prices are holding strong while the rest of the market has seen declines.
The Carmigo platform has seen smaller EV and hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius and Chevy Bolt attract interest over the past month, but the best-selling EV was the Tesla Model 3 (as usual).
All of this month’s Red-Light cars come with one positive caveat: The cars that haven’t been selling well could start flying off the shelves soon.
Most of the market conditions that kept people from spending on larger and nicer vehicles have begun to resolve themselves (gas prices and inflation). If those continue to trend in a positive direction, this month’s Red-Light cars could be next month’s Green-Light cars.
Unless your luxury car is a hybrid or EV, you’ll probably want to hold onto it until the market is a little more stable. When prices start moving and economists start talking about inflation, most folks pause all luxury spending.
Good news here, inflation is slowing, gas prices are going back down, and dealerships are starting to buy more cars than a month ago. This means you may be able to get a decent price for your fancy ride if you can hold out for another month.
Large SUVs are both expensive to buy, expensive to refuel, and expensive to maintain. For all of those reasons, buyers have been wary of committing to such large and expensive purchases.
But people love large SUVs. And the economy is looking a little less scary as we approach fall. So hold onto your SUV for just a little while longer. Go ahead and start vacuuming up all those crumbs in the backseat. Maybe get a detail and an oil change. That way you’ll be ready when prices trend back up.
Trucks were selling for all-time record high prices earlier this year. And then all of a sudden the bottom fell out of the truck market. Who wants to drive a truck that gets 12 miles to the gallon when gas costs $4 per gallon? Not me.
But gas prices are going back down. And the economy needs trucks. Even if commuters quit buying trucks, the demand for work trucks can keep the entire truck segment afloat. Buyers could start clamoring for trucks once they’ve seen a few months of steady gas prices.
Shameless Plug: A lot of these price trends are based on the Carmigo Marketplace data. Carmigo is a one-of-a-kind platform that lets private car owners sell their used cars to dealerships.
Note: These predictions are simply that: predictions. We cannot tell the future. They are based on trends we’ve seen in the marketplace but are not a guarantee of future market outcomes.
