The Canadian and U.S. used vehicle markets experienced record-breaking wholesale price increases this past week, ending on March 26, even as the industry struggles with production shortages around new vehicles and strong demand for both new and used models.
The news comes from Canadian Black Book’s weekly auto market update, which notes that both the car and truck/SUVS segments experienced record-breaking week-over-week price increases — with the latter segment leading that strong market performance. On the car side, the segment is picking up momentum.
“Used cars posted a record-breaking weekly change of +0.39%, an increase compared to the preceding week’s increase of +0.30%,” said CBB in its update. “All nine car segments showed a weekly increase, with full-size cars (+1.42%) and subcompact cars (+1.04%) leading the car segments.”
Mid-size cars (+0.77%), sports cars (+0.58%), and prestige luxury cars (+0.42%) also managed strong performances, with above-average increases. And while performance from the near luxury car (+0.13%) and premium sports car (+0.14%) segments did not shine as brightly as the rest of the car segments, they still managed a weekly up-tick in prices.
In the truck/SUV segment, which posted a weekly increase in values of 0.76% (last week’s increase was 0.55%), all categories in the segment revealed positive weekly changes. The full-size crossovers/SUVs led the way, thanks to an increase of 1.51%, followed by compact crossover/SUVs (+1.19%), minivans (+1.15%), and sub-compact crossovers (+1.09%). These are the top four segments showing weekly changes of more than 1%.
Full-size pickups (+0.97%) also managed an above average weekly increase.
As for the wholesale side of the market, average listing prices continued to improve this past week, with the 14-day moving average now at approximately $24,930. The 28-day moving average is experiencing increases, and is catching up to the daily and 14-day trends from the past few weeks. This analysis is based on approximately 130,000 vehicles listed for sale on Canadian dealer lots.
“As we expected, retail prices are now catching up to the upswing in prices that we have been experiencing in the wholesale market,” said CBB. “We are definitely not completely in the clear when it comes to the impact of the pandemic; however, the inventory shortage on the new and used vehicle market continues to drive wholesale and retail prices up.”
The full report can be viewed here.
