Lane watch: Depreciation lands within late-year expectations
Black Book didn’t spot any post-Thanksgiving surprises in the wholesale market.
According to its newest installment of Market Insights, wholesale values decreased 0.72% last week; an amount just 10 basis points below the average decline Black Book recorded during the same week in 2017 to 2019.
“After the slowdown in depreciation during the week of Thanksgiving, the depreciation picked up the pace once again last week, but the overall market did not experience the level of declines seen before the holiday,” Black Book said in the report.
“The level of decline last week was more on par with what is typically expected for this time of year,” analysts added.
On a volume-weighted basis, values in the overall car segment decreased slightly more than the entire market, softening by 0.87%.
As prices within all nine car segments dropped last week, analysts noticed three categories sustained value declines greater than 1%, including subcompact cars (down 1.09%) full-size cars (down 1.08%) and midsize cars (down 1.02%).
While Black Book said the premium sporty car segment has reported the smallest declines during each of the past eight weeks, analysts said values decreases for subcompact cars have accelerated during the past six weeks, with the segment now averaging a drop of 1.62% per week.
In the truck department, Black Book’s volume-weighted data showed the overall truck segment decreased 0.65% last week, only slightly more than the prior week’s decline of 0.61%.
Despite prices in all 13 truck segments dropping, analysts said none posted a value decline of more than 1%, marking only the second time in the past 16 weeks that truck segment declines remained under 1%.
Analysts said subcompact crossovers paced the price decline last week, sliding by 0.89%. That softening was less than the average weekly value decline for the segment over the past six weeks, which Black Book calculated to be 1.32%
Black Book rounded out its latest update by mentioning the estimated average weekly sales rate continues to drop, falling to 49% last week.
“Auction lanes showed increased activity this week, but are still slower than normal overall,” analysts said. “Buyer count was consistent with prior weeks, and they were hoping to be able to negotiate. Some buyers were physically in the lanes, but most were online. Sales rates seem to be down this week. There are still some ‘if’ sales coming through so some sellers are willing to negotiate for the right price. Inventory count is overall still down, but consistent, which might be why some sellers are not willing to negotiate.
“After a short absence, rental companies came back this week strong in the lanes. Large independent dealers and rental companies were very competitive with each other, while it seemed like the smaller franchise dealers stepped back a bit this week. There are still very few model year 2023 vehicles coming through the lanes, but we anticipate seeing more in the near future. Overall, wholesale values are continuing to decline. We do not expect much to change for the rest of the year,” Black Book went on to say.