Silly Used Car Prices

Five years ago or so, my granddaughter totaled her *nice* 2012 Jetta after getting three speeding tickets in two weeks. 

She needed a car and had $1,500 to spend - no new Jetta for her.  I started looking and found a 1999 Beetle automatic that had about 75K miles on it for *surprise*, $1,500.  Rough, but ran well.  Did all of the maintenance (timing belt, water pump, tensioner, brake pads, trans fluid flush, etc), cleaned it up, and took it to her.  She drove it for a couple of years and then her mom bought her a Escape (thread on that is here somewhere) and the Beetle was parked. I ended up with it a little over year ago, cleaned it up again, patched some ugly on the paint with rattle cans, and gave it back to her to sell.

Here is the point of this tale.  I told her the used car market was stupid a few weeks ago, and she put the Bug on CL for $3,000.  After less than a week, she sold her old, not straight, not too shiny, automatic Beetle for $3,000. Cash.

I am astonished.

I'm surprised and not. 

I've accepted I'll likley go another year without a car. 

I bought a 94 Fordzda Branger with 89k four years ago for $4000.  I drove it for 3.5 years and put 40k on it and sold it 6 months ago for $4500.

I bought my house 5 years ago for $87k.  I'm now getting offers (not even listed, nor do I want to sell) for $132k.  I even had one of those "we buy any house for cash" flipper scams offer me $92k. I think it's really telling when the wholesale housing prices rise above retail in 5 short years.  Artificially, of course.  As material prices drop and new home construction gets back to normal I think it will level out.

I bought one vehicle in the pandemic and I got extremely lucky, I had to negotiate for about a month, and had to drive 600 miles to get it.  I'm shopping now for another vehicle and finding something at or near real market value is daunting.  I think it will eventually (slowly) level off (as is the same with housing) when new car production gets back to normal, although used sellers are getting a taste of what this market is doing and they'll be reluctant to give up on the sky-high pricing.

About a year ago I bought a 1989 VW Jetta for about a grand. I did a little work to it and sold it a couple months ago for $1500, and people were messaging me every few minutes trying to buy it. 

Recently we found we needed a second vehicle again, and preferably one with good towing capabilities for the future. Trying to find a full-size truck for a low price was certainly a challenge. The cheapest I was able to find was a $3400 2004 Avalanche with 190K miles that needs some TLC. Used car prices have gotten insane.

infinitenexus said:

About a year ago I bought a 1989 VW Jetta for about a grand. I did a little work to it and sold it a couple months ago for $1500, and people were messaging me every few minutes trying to buy it. 

Recently we found we needed a second vehicle again, and preferably one with good towing capabilities for the future. Trying to find a full-size truck for a low price was certainly a challenge. The cheapest I was able to find was a $3400 2004 Avalanche with 190K miles that needs some TLC. Used car prices have gotten insane.

13 years ago I wanted to replace my '89 Golf with another one and could not find anything under $3000.

I sold my 19 Golf R for close to what I paid for it, after owning it for 2.5 years and 24k miles.  If you count the tax savings I got by trading it in, I did sell it for what I paid for it.  Then I parted out all the mods I'd put on it and got all that money back too.

I did have to pay a silly price for my Land Cruiser but still got it for significantly less than others with 4 times the mileage on them...

When it comes to fun cars and project type cars, are people actually paying the prices that are being asked?  Obviously vehicles that are more 'need over want' can be better justified at the current prices, but it seems the Miatae and Corvettes of the world would have a more savvy buyer, since more often than not they are 2nd or 3rd cars.  Or am I just being blindly optimistic?

5 years ago I bought a 2013 Ram 1500 4x4 with 55k miles for $15k. Drove it for another 75k miles, did minimal normal maintenance,  and sold it for $16k. I could have sold it for more but it was a quick sale. Strange market we are in. 

2007 Prius owned for 5 years, added 80k miles going from 80-160k. Sold it for what I paid for it and sold in just a few days. Two months later, gas was $4 and it was probably worth $1k more. $5,800 purchase and sale price. 

I was looking at 370Zs the other day, and I was seeing 10 year old examples with upwards of 100k miles listing for $25k and beyond.  I was shocked.

I hope it stays high until my garage is done and I can sell my Ranger. Then the bottom can drop out of it.

It's to the point now that when I see a vehicle listed for a normal/fair price I instantly assume it's a scam or too good to be true.

In reply to Puddy46 :

I'm very afraid of the answer to that. 
At my income level, asking prices are 2 to 3 times what my mind thinks, for anything besides a basic appliance. And the ones that are only twice, the add does not last all that long; so - afraid!

Puddy46 said:

When it comes to fun cars and project type cars, are people actually paying the prices that are being asked?  Obviously vehicles that are more 'need over want' can be better justified at the current prices, but it seems the Miatae and Corvettes of the world would have a more savvy buyer, since more often than not they are 2nd or 3rd cars.  Or am I just being blindly optimistic?

One of the interesting phenomenons I've noticed is that, while C8 resale values are going insane, C5 and C6 prices have barely moved at all and C7 prices are only slightly up.

dps214 said:

Puddy46 said:

When it comes to fun cars and project type cars, are people actually paying the prices that are being asked?  Obviously vehicles that are more 'need over want' can be better justified at the current prices, but it seems the Miatae and Corvettes of the world would have a more savvy buyer, since more often than not they are 2nd or 3rd cars.  Or am I just being blindly optimistic?

One of the interesting phenomenons I've noticed is that, while C8 resale values are going insane, C5 and C6 prices have barely moved at all and C7 prices are only slightly up.

In my online shopping, I've unfortunately been seeing the opposite.  C7s that were low 40's three years ago are now low to mid-50's all day.  C5s were 15k for a good non-Z.  Now those same cars are listed at 20k easy.

But are sellers actually getting those prices?

I mean that's all basically no change compared to what the rest of the market has been doing. C7s are definitely up a bit but C6s are basically no change though. Seems like there's still a pretty decent selection of Z06s for under $40k, and they never really dropped much below the mid 30s. The other factor as you pointed out is that C5s especially non-Z06s have been being listed for ridiculous prices, and not getting sold for anywhere near that, for ages. So it's kind of hard to figure what the actual values are based on listing prices alone.

In reply to dps214 :

I see what you are saying now.  I took it as prices were staying flat year to year, rather than relative to the market.  That's my bad.