Vehicles under $15k are 1.6% of the market, and their share of the market has dropped over 90% since 2019. The old advice that you can get a beater and drive it in to the ground for $5k hasn’t been true for years but it still seems pervasive in personal finance spaces.
Going car free is getting more affordable.
Either way, as someone stated above, they are price gouging. Covid taught them that fake shortage works and we will pay so they are milking us.
Housing, food, car, health care…
The used car market is so terrible where I live that I bought a 1999 Subaru Forester L with a completely trashed engine that could barely make it a block without overheating. I got it for around $200 in “scrap material” (Luckily the title wasn’t a salvage yet).
So I completely took the engine apart myself and put in new head gaskets, pumps, belts, electronics and all that noise. I took it as a challenge to myself since my old cars’ engine had completely stopped starting and absolutely nothing got it working again, and I had wanted to prove that I could fix a fucked up car. It took 2 months, but I saved so much money not buying an overpriced piece of trash that seems to saturate the used market right now. (Seriously? $6,000 for a beat up 30 year old sedan? Is everyone selling these cars insane?).
And the best part is that the total cost of this Subaru + all the parts needed was 1,700!
To put it in perspective I had found someone selling a 2002 Subaru Forester L for 3,000 on the side of the road. I could probably make a business out of this if I wasn’t so slow…
Never did figure out what was wrong with the old car, we just ended up scrapping it because it was a complete lost cause. But if this were pre-pandemic I wouldn’t have had to do that at all. I would’ve just slapped over 2,000 for a piece of garbage that needs some maintenance, and be on my way, no need for scrap diving, brain rotting and time wasting.
My partner took her 2022 Toyota for service and the dealership offered to buy it off her. The price was only $1k less than she paid new. That’s a year and a half of heavy use for $1k if she opts to take it.
I bought used in December 2020. 6 months later, the dealership called me with an offer $3k higher than the sticker price I saw. It was madness for a while!
I bought a new car in 2018 for 19K. Everyone I know flipped at me for ‘wasting money’ and not buying a 5yo+ 10K car that looked like shit with 100K miles.
It’s now worth 21K, after 50K miles.
I’m looking at trading it in for a 35K car in the next two years, and watching the value on that car never go down either.
If you expect that to continue happening you’re in for a surprise.
dude, everyone says the housing market will crash for 15+ year now.
We have to accept the old rules of economy are out the window. govt will bail and stimulate to no need the second the market slows down.
this is the new normal. truth is our inflated economy can’t ever allow housing values to go down anymore without causing a depression so the govt won’t allow it.
