GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

Another dealer-connected development coming out of a busy week in the lanes is making Black Book’s Ricky Beggs want to get to auctions even more than usual.

The Black Book managing editor described in his weekly “Beggs on the Used Car Market” video report about the climbing number of “no sales” percolating at auctions nowadays.

“As the week progressed, there were more comments reported by our survey personnel and the editors as they returned from the auction in regards to the strong number of ‘no sales.’ This reflected the sellers holding the line on their floors,” Beggs explained.

“For sure, we’ll be right back on the auction lanes this week to see how the sellers react to the buyers being a little more conservative in their bidding,” he continued. “The importance of Black Book Daily might be stronger than ever.”

The trend connected with “no sales” wasn’t the only item on Beggs’ radar.

“Another comment I heard several times during the week reflected as to how the really nice cars continue to sell under the hammer at the current level of book price,” Beggs shared.

Before last week got fully underway after the Memorial Day holiday, Beggs touched on dreary news about May new-vehicle sales and other national events.

“The latest new-car sales numbers were released and the trend was not near as positive as was hoped,” Beggs acknowledged.

“Looking at reports of the 19-percent lower incentives for the industry and you think how ingrained we are to getting the ‘best deal,’” he continued. “The week ended with the stock market taking a significant hit, and the news headlines on the major networks were all about housing woes and unemployment continuing to be a struggle.”

Meanwhile for the used-vehicle market, Beggs believes there are two ways to look at the value levels.

Overall, Black Book determined the number of adjustments being increased in value was still greater than the downward adjustments. In fact, last week’s upward movements totaled 51 percent of all activity.

“The second thought is that with the struggling economy, consumers should keep their focus on the used cars that are a more reasonable purchase as compared to the higher priced new model,” Beggs emphasized.

Moving on to price changes by vehicle type, Black Book noticed cars are still doing well in retention as nine of the 10 segment types the company tracks increased last week.

The overall upward move by cars settled at $33.

Black Book indicated three segment types climbed higher than the average: prestige luxury cars (up $60), entry sporty cars (up $56) and premium sporty cars (up $55).

The lone declining segment was full-size cars dipping by only $10.

“Two of the three stronger segments this past week had relatively small percentages of the cars in the segment getting increases,” Beggs surmised.

“Only 10 percent and 14 percent of the prestige luxury cars and the premium sporty cars adjusted were increases, but the amount of adjustment was an impressive amount at $411 and $386 each,” he continued.

“Even smaller percentages of the vehicles in those segment types decreased in value,” Beggs went on to say.

Turning over to trucks, Black Book found overall truck changes have remained consistent during the past five weeks. In that span, the overall average change of drops had a variance of only $6.

The five-week average change for trucks was a dip of $17.40, according to Black Book. And last week’s truck decline came in at $18.

While trucks overall were off last week, Black Book said seven of the 14 segments actually posted an increase. Among the gainers were compact crossovers (up $42) and midsize pickups (up $38).

However the truck category contained the segments that posted the most significant downward slides, including full-size SUVs (off by $153), full-size crossovers (off by $61) and luxury SUVs (off by $59).

“With 39 percent and 38 percent of the compact pickups and the compact SUVs increasing in value, it was no surprise that these segments increased overall,” Beggs stated.

“The full-size SUVs and the luxury SUVs had two of the higher percentage of adjustments being declining amounts, supporting their larger overall adjustments,” he added.

When looking at the overall average price of cars and trucks, Black Book discovered the average vehicle price of $15,479 was the highest average price since the week ending Nov. 5. Editors added truck prices have declined the past five weeks — settling at an average of $13,898 — the lowest average level since the week ending March 11.

“I hope our insight into the market helps you in your buying, selling, and financing decisions,” Beggs emphasized. “Have a great week and we look forward to seeing you back on the auction lanes.”

Beggs’ videos can be viewed here.