eBay Motors prices

Am I the only person that has noticed eBay Motor's prices on "normal" used cars has gone astronomically high?

I just compared Ridgelines between eBay and AutoTrader and AutoTrader was hands down cheaper, then you can negotiate!

Just strange

The used car market in general has gone up quite a bit. Before I could peruse endless CL pages of sub $1000 sweet cars that only needed slight TLC. Now you want a car for that kind of money, most have something exploded or majorly wrong or missing on them these days. Must be a sign of the times...

On the flip side certain classic car 'toy' prices have fallen hard, while others that were always considered worthless semi-dd types have skyrocketed...

In reply to Raze:

I could be wrong, but I was told that used car prices went up first after Cash for Clunkers. They also went up because less people were leasing, so ther were less off-lease vehicles available. Then there's our economic condition, where more people are buying used. Collector car prices have come down due in part to the economy and people finally realizing that the Barret Jackson bubble has burst. As far as Ebay, I don't know. Maybe it's the "it must be cheaper here" syndrom. It used to be true, and people would cross check other options, but maybe some have gotten lazy on that cross check and just assume Ebay is cheaper, so the sellers are raising prices. Maybe not, but I know that this is exactly what has happened to some local auctions that I participate in. They've been infiltrated by father's buying their 16 year old daughters their first car, and they've driven prices up to the point that it hardly pays to buy at auction.

There is a wholesale lot down the street from my house & I seen firsthand the increase in prices. For $2-3K you could've had your pick of Elantras, Foci, Escorts & the like, now they're going for $4-5K and he's still moving them pretty quickly.

In reply to bravenrace:

If used car prices went up due to CFC, it was due to preception, and not reality. Of the hundreds of millions of cars that are in the US, CFC only got 600k. For a month. Almost 2 years ago.

Economic conditions, for sure. Plus the interesting fact that roughly 12-14M cars are removed from US roads annually, and two years worth of new sales were in the 9-11M, so 3M shortfall will be noticed.

Ebay seemed to go the "investment" route a few years ago. I used to use it a lot when doing a challenge car, and even searched when I should not have. Just after 2004, when I figured a new challenge car was not really in the books, I also noticed that the good deals that you would find went away. And then noticed how many times things got sold for MORE than new cost.

IMHO, the preception of Ebay deals has not gone away, even though opportunitsts have more than found Ebay as a money maker.

There are still good deals out there, but they are pretty rare.

(oh, and that seems to cover Ebay, and not just ebaymotors)

We had a thread about this subject a few weeks ago. Basically, it seems that while people can't afford a new car anymore, many still need a car... with the end result being an increasing demand for used cars... and we all know what happens with demand exceeds supply...

I'll still use ebay to find stuff, but I definitely don't expect to find deals anymore. Is there an easy way to eliminate the "power sellers" from search results, just leaving you with regular joes trying to sell their stuff?

alfadriver wrote: In reply to bravenrace: If used car prices went up due to CFC, it was due to preception, and not reality. Of the hundreds of millions of cars that are in the US, CFC only got 600k. For a month. Almost 2 years ago.

It was 700k for the record, and they were all in one particular price range, which did in fact make a difference in supply in many areas. I didn't say it was a lasting effect, only that it was a factor in prices going up.

bravenrace wrote:

alfadriver wrote: In reply to bravenrace: If used car prices went up due to CFC, it was due to preception, and not reality. Of the hundreds of millions of cars that are in the US, CFC only got 600k. For a month. Almost 2 years ago.

It was 700k for the record, and they were all in one particular price range, which did in fact make a difference in supply in many areas. I didn't say it was a lasting effect, only that it was a factor in prices going up.

Vs. the total number of cars on the road, and the total number of cars that are annualy taken off the road, permanently, 700k is lost in the noise. Sure, it has a lot to do with the preception of the value of used cars. But not the reality of supply and demand. Opportunitst sure did take advantage of it.

In reply to alfadriver:

Whatever. The prices went up significantly in my area and the general consensus was it was because of CFC. YMMV.

Buy on CL, sell on ebay -- profit

My next door neighbor does the books for a local mazda dealer - basically, the used car market is where their action is right now.