Lane watch: Depreciation continues to accelerate
![](https://www.autoremarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/black-book-07-23-24-for-web.png)
Charts courtesy of Black Book.
If your dealership needs used inventory, now appears to be prime time to find what you need at lower prices.
But your store might be the outlier stemming from the combination of trends included in the newest installment of Market Insights from Black Book.
Analysts reported on Tuesday that wholesale prices dropped another 0.74% last week, nearly three times the average they reported for the same week in 2017 through 2019.
Plus, Black Book said the auction conversion rate last week softened to 58%, down from 61% the previous week.
And to add to it all, analysts mentioned their estimated used retail days-to-turn tracker is still climbing and is now at roughly 52 days.
“The rise in auction inventory across the country over the past few weeks could be a potential factor driving these prices down,” Black Book said in its report that also noted six of the 22 vehicle segments analysts track posted prices declines of more than 1%.
That group included:
—Luxury cars: Down 1.11%
—Prestige luxury cars: Down 1.28%
—Full-size crossover/SUVs: Down 1.41%
—Subcompact luxury crossovers: Down 1.68%
—Full-size vans: Down 1.37%
—Small pickups: Down 1.33%
For those subcompact luxury crossovers, Black Book noted it was the largest value drop since January. For those small pickups, analyst added it was the largest amount of depreciation since the last week of last year.
All told, overall car values dropped 0.75% and truck prices decreased 0.73% on a volume-weighted basis, according to Black Book data from a week ago.
Analysts drilled deep into their data to find one specific segment that registered a notable price gain a week ago. It was 8- to 16-year-old full-size cars, which generated a 1.01% value lift.
With perhaps dealers having a rough summer so far both in the showroom and the lanes, Black Book reiterated “as always, our team of analysts are focused on the keeping their eyes on the market for developing trends and gathering insight.”