Lane Watch: Where activity is headed at auction
There are three types of vehicles that have either started arriving in the auction lanes or are likely to do so soon, with each speaking to a larger industry trend — those being flooded vehicles, repossessions and model-year 2023 cars.
Black Book spoke to these trends in its latest weekly Market Insights report, recapping the week that ended Saturday.
“While there are concerns about flood vehicles running through the lanes, they haven’t seemed to start coming through, but we anticipate them to start running soon. The number of vehicles that were affected by Hurricane Ian is still unknown,” analysts said in the report.
“In addition to flood vehicles, the number of repossessed vehicles is also expected to increase as delinquency rates continue to rise,” the company said. “Some model year 2023 vehicles are running through the lanes, so there are hopes that production is continuing in attempts to meet demand.”
In terms of wholesale prices, it was another week of softening. Overall, there was a 0.72% drop in wholesale values, Black Book said, following a 0.77% drop the week before.
The average change for the same week in 2017 through 2019 was a decline of 0.44%.
Car segment prices were down 0.66% after a 0.80% decline the prior week, while truck/SUV prices fell 0.75%, same as the week before.
Prices for all 22 segments (nine car, 13 trucks) softened, according to Black Book.
“Values continue to decline, both in wholesale and retail, and the rate of decline has shown minimal signs of slowing down in recent weeks,” Black Book said. “The gap is narrowing between depreciation trends we are currently seeing in the market and what is typical for this time of year.”
Separately, Cox Automotive senior economist Jonathan Smoke analyst dissected wholesale supply and price patters in the latest biweekly Auto Market Report, also released Tuesday.
“Wholesale supply, measured in days’ supply, is now lower than it was in 2019, so pressure in wholesale prices is less severe than we had been seeing,” Smoke said in the video report. “And the average model-year 2019 wholesale price declined 0.7% last week, which was the same as the prior week. The average retail price declined 0.8% after declining 0.4% the prior week.
“We have seen higher-than-normal wholesale depreciation this summer, and retail did not follow,” Smoke added. “But retail is now declining more than wholesale, as wholesale declines are slowing. Last week’s wholesale decline was normal for this time of year.”