I've been actively looking for a used car to buy on craigslist and offerup for a few months. I observe a growing trend in the prices that sellers ask for their vehicles (than get offended by low-ball offers). Dozens of new car ads are posted every day. Folk selling their garbage cars for thousands. Selling salvage titles at the price of clean titles.
Is there really such a high demand for used cars? Who are those people buying used cars nowadays? Are there other reasons for the high volume of overpriced used cars (aside from the covid thing)? For example, maybe the bulk of the posts are scam/infestation by resellers (the guys buying cheap and reselling 10-20% higher to people who prefer to play it safe)/other reasons...
Mostly due to covid, but also monkee see monkee do. If someone selling their 2000 Celica GTS for 5k all of a sudden every GTS is 5k + now. This was a car barely worth 2 before covid. You can say that a lot of sellers also offer at higher to see if they can get away with it but the more people pile on the more it becomes the set price. Suppose some stats say that they have been as much as a 10% increase in average value. Major manufacturers do this too, my 2019 Camry is supposedly worth 27k new but screw that, got mine with tax, license and fees w/ 7 year warranty for 20k. But a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck too, these used prices are utterly insane for people who need a vehicle and cannot afford these prices.
Private sellers are absolutely pricing their cars north of their value and are the nastiest they have ever been about negotiations.
I'm actually pausing my current private seller purchases because these sellers are not out to sell their car. They are out to take advantage of the situation, no different than eBay scalpers and at least twice as nasty.
I haven't had faith in humanity for some time now, but after dealing with people these last few months....yeah, people are terrible.
Thanks guys. I was looking for answers from persons with hands-on experience like you. I think I hold on my search for a car until December. People say December-January is a good time for buying used cars.
there are some decent deals, you just have to know what you want and act fast
there are also a million new residents who want cars because 'Murica!
So, based on the article, the people that would buy a new car tend to buy a used car nowadays. Plus a small percent of people who want to travel. I wonder what other categories of people buy overpriced used cars today :hmm: