Wholesale used vehicle prices took their largest plunge of the year this past week.
The overall market dropped by 1.45 percent, according to BlackBook’s weekly Market Insights. This followed a drop of 1.1 percent the previous week.
“Wholesale price corrections accelerated this week, with remarketers dropping floor prices in order to move vehicles faster,” BlackBook reported. “We saw one of the largest week-over-week price declines across many segments in this week’s results; compact cars and full-size trucks showing the biggest changes. Increasing new inventory combined with increasing incentives is pushing the wholesale prices down in anticipation of used retail price declines in the near future.”
Full-size pickups fell $757 or 2.66 percent. Compact cars dropped 2.35 percent or $309.
All 22 segments followed by BlackBook were down.
The nine car divisions fell an average of 1.35 percent or $232. Prestige luxury cars, sports cars and premium sports cars were the only car segments that lost less than 1 percent of value.
The 13 truck and SUV segments fell 1.49 percent or $339. Full-size luxury crossover SUVs were down $593 and full-size vans $358.
The sales rate at auction was 50 percent.
“We did see an increase in total auction conversion rates this week, showing that demand is there for vehicles priced right,” BlackBook noted. “Sellers were willing to lower their floors in order to move more inventory but the question now is, are floors low enough now, or will the declines continue next week?”
The retail price index for vehicles two- to six-years old reverted back to the starting point for the year. The retail inventory index is at 1.02. Vehicles are taking 51 days to turn.
