STAMFORD, Conn. -

Auction volume for luxury coupes surged last month, “saturating the used-car market” — as RVI Group’s Rene Abdalah put it — and leading to this segment being the only one to see a sequential decrease in prices during April.

Specifically, luxury coupe values dipped 0.3 percent month-over-month, while all other segments either climbed in price or were static, according to RVI. Granted, luxury coupe values did rise 12.1 percent year-over-year.

“Luxury coupes saw an increase of nearly 40 percent in auction volume in April, saturating the used-car market,” Abdalah explained to Auto Remarketing.

This was just one of several wholesale trends spotted in the latest RVI Market Update.

Overall, the RVI Used Car Price Index was at 1.476 for April. This was up 1.5 percent from March and up 6.9 percent from April 2012.

“In April, we saw new-car prices creep up, helping used-car prices increase,” Abdalah shared. “Used-car prices continue to increase because of two major factors: 1) strong new-car pricing and 2) a continued relatively low level of supply.”

Looking at new-car price data from RVI in more detail, prices increased 0.23 percent from February to March, RVI indicated. There had been a 2.5-percent hike in new prices since March 2011.

Breaking down segment trends in more detail, the only segment other than luxury coupes that did not increase from March was the luxury SUV segment. Its values did not change sequentially.

“For luxury SUVs, competition remains high on the new-car side. This holds new-car prices down within the segment, which impacts used-car pricing,” Abdalah shared.

On the other end of the spectrum, sports cars (up 7.2 percent) showed the most growth from March, followed by small pickups (up 4.4 percent), subcompacts (up 4.3 percent) and luxury full-size sedans (up 4.3 percent).

Explaining some of the reasons for these gains, Abdalah shared: “Sports cars got off to a quicker start than normal with the warm weather. It’s also lagged the market in strength and caught up in April.

“Small pickups are an alternative to full-size pickups with high gas prices returning through April,” he continued. “Subcompacts remain strong due to gas prices, also.

“The strength in luxury full-size sedans is mainly due to new models entering the used-car market, like the 2009 BMW 7-Series, which is doing much better than its predecessor,” Abdalah concluded