GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

While describing last week’s price trends as a “leveling market,” Ricky Beggs shares what he and the rest of Black Book’s editors expect to see as the wholesale scene ventures into autumn.

Beggs indicated that Black Book’s outlook for the next couple of weeks is “an active market with a similar number of changes compared to this past week.”

The managing editor continued during his latest edition of his online video analysis series, “Beggs on the Used-Car Market,” by stating, “The trending should again see larger declines with the more luxury-oriented models. We are also watching the late-model vehicles as the lack of interest in the lanes for these could represent some relatively large negative adjustments.

“Although gas prices rose as reported on Sept. 17, by the end of last week the decline in pump prices had begun,” Beggs went on to say. “There has to be a point where the market reacts to the lower prices, and we’ll be the first to report this if and when it occurs.”

So what happened to wholesale prices last week? Beggs acknowledged the results show some trends “we might not have expected to have seen during this time of the year.

“Week-over-week gas prices at the pump increased by $0.03 with no detriment to the necessary changes to the vehicles in the truck segments,” he continued. “With many of the survey reports mentioning a market that is leveling off, it wasn’t so within the cars.”

Black Book determined that car prices softened by an average of $87 last week, coming off a week where the prices tumbled by $94. Editors pointed out these are the two largest declining amounts in more than a year.

Prices for premium sporty cars (down $239) and prestige luxury cars (down $114) continued to be the largest declining car segments. Meanwhile, coming off a week where prices for the units slid by $135, editors determined luxury level car price dropped by $88 last week.

All of those price declines are a stark contrast to what dealers witnessed a year ago when scouring for cars. Black Book recalled that car prices dropped by an average of just $49 at this time last year, and only one segment sunk by more than $70 — premium sporty cars which decreased by $104.

However, this past week, seven car segments had price drops of more than $80.

“As we often prefer to see consistency while looking at which segment or segments have trended most like the overall average, the entry sporty cars (down $95) this week have trended most like the overall car segment average change over the past three months,” Beggs explained.

“The trend mirrors the overall change pattern while generally being just over the segment average with the greatest variance being the week ending Aug. 30,” he continued.

“When looking at the truck trends, other than the week ending July 20, compact crossovers most represent the average truck trend,” Beggs added.

Looking deeper at truck prices, Black Book noticed more stability as prices within three segments increased a week ago, while another five segments depreciated by 0.2 percent or less.

The top truck price gainers a week ago included midsize pickups (up $24), full-size pickups (up $16) and compact crossovers (up $3).

"The three increasing truck segments were forced, regarding the 42 percent of all adjustments that were increases during the past week,” Beggs noted.

“A year ago there were no truck segments with positive adjustments although there were three that declined $6 or less for the week,” he went on to say.

Beggs wrapped up his latest commentary by recapping what dealers could be seeing in the lanes as they look for inventory.

“As we head into a new week, there’s plenty of activity as many dealers are looking for what best fits as their next best profit maker,” Beggs said. We hope our thoughts have provided a point of interest, support or raised a question that helps with you buying, selling, or financing decisions.

“Is there a major change on the horizon to the most recent market trends? We hope to see you on the lanes during this week. Let us know how you see the market,” he concluded.

Beggs’ video can be viewed below.