Post #1836: Will used-car prices continue to fall?

 

Warning:  This post contains economics.  It’s about the odd state of the used car market, right now.  And my guess that used car prices will continue to trend down from their December 2021 peak.

Update one year later, 7/26/2024:  At this point, the post-pandemic spike in used-car prices has pretty much run its course.  In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, used car prices are only slightly higher than they were before the pandemic.  Therefore, I’d guess that there’s not much potential for them to fall much further.

Here’s the updated graph, where I set the index of new and used car prices to a value of 1.0 in January 2020.  The underlying data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Original post follows.

 

 

Continue reading Post #1836: Will used-car prices continue to fall?