Carmigo is bringing you the best-selling used cars for January (or at least our prediction). We’ve analyzed trends on our marketplace 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.
Rising Prices Are Nice for Sellers, But Not Here to Stay
The Manheim Used Car Index has increased for two consecutive months for the first time since Winter 2021.
It’s a Christmas Miracle if you’re trying to sell a car.
Used car price drops have been hard on sellers this year, Partially because the drops have been so steep and partially because the human brain assigns more emotional weight to losses than to gains. It’s literally the reason money doesn’t make people happy.
While the two months of stability have been a welcome change, we don’t expect used car prices to continue rising. We do, however, expect the rate of decrease to slow down in 2023.
Gas Price Stability Helps Truck Sales
Alongside falling used car prices, we’ve seen a sustained drop in gas prices, which is good news for anyone trying to sell a larger car (Read more about gas prices on the Carmigo Green Light blog).
We saw more offers on large SUVs and trucks on the Carmigo Marketplace than we have in months.
Trucks are back, baby! Trucks didn’t sell well for most of the back half of 2022. Sure, we saw plenty of work trucks selling, but people weren’t buying commuter trucks or nicers trucks. Now that buyers have seen long-term gas price stability, they’re buying trucks again.
Ever since Hyundai and Kia switched to the new body types for their SUVs, their sales have been unstoppable — specifically the Telluride and Palisade models. And since owners really like their new Hyundai and Kia SUVs, we see fewer being resold on the used car marketplace. That means buyers are willing to pay more when they finally do see a used Telluride or Palisade.
Much like with trucks, lower gas prices mean better sales for large SUVs. We haven’t seen large SUVs selling at all for most of the year. But a few months of falling gas prices seem to have reversed the fortunes of anyone trying to sell an SUV.
Vans are still selling. And according to COX’s December market update, they’re depreciating at a lower rate that all other body types, meaning van owners can get better value when they sell.
Even with gas prices falling, it appears people are ready to make the switch to electric, even if only halfway. This increase in hybrid sales in the used car market can also be attributed to the existence of more hybrids. Most auto manufacturers now offer hybrid and electric models, meaning we’ll continue to see more and more used hybrids for sale.
They’re selling a little, but not for the prices most Tesla owners want. Buyers are no longer willing to pay over-market prices for Teslas, but we still see most Tesla owners wishing to make a profit on their cars. This slowdown in sales is likely due to the flood of Tesla transactions this summer.
Luxury cars are seeing higher depreciation across all body-types than other cars. That means anyone selling a used luxury car is going to sell for significantly less than they purchased the car for.
This was a really stark turnaround. For the last year small crossovers and SUVs have dominated the market, combining comfort, capability and fuel economy. But as gas prices continue to stabilize, people are ditching the smaller SUVs.
It feels like people who are looking for something in this category are finding they can get an SUV/crossover in a similar price range. With higher fuel economy and more variety than even in the crossover category, the full-sized sedan is taking a hit.
Once again, we saw plenty of performance cars come through our marketplace (and most drew interested) but the prices buyers were willing to pay just didn’t match up to the prices sellers were expecting.
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.
