Compared to previous years, wholesale vehicle values remained unusually high in July.

But it’s what’s happening with consumer confidence — which continues at “historic lows” — and the impact to used-car demand that pushed these values down from June.

That’s according to analysis around Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index for July, which came in at 189.4 points.

That’s up 17% from July 2021 and 65% higher than March 2020 pre-pandemic levels, but down 1.1% from June.

“Wholesale prices reversed the trend at the end of June for the 2-8-year-old vehicle segments that comprise of Black Book’s Retention Index,” Black Book chief data science officer Alex Yurchenko said in a news release. “High gas prices, inflationary pressure, and global events kept consumer confidence low. Even with the lack of adequate new inventory, used retail demand continued to soften which finally pushed wholesale prices down.

“During the last week of July, we saw all segments decreasing in value, including full-size vans (with some segments dropping by more than one percent per week),” Yurchenko said. “We expect the wholesale prices to accelerate their declines in August as consumers are staying away from large purchases.”

The dip in values likely comes as relief for wholesale buyers, given recent heights in prices.

AutoIMS recently shared its second quarter AutoIMS Industry View, which serves as as a “compendium of metrics featured in the AutoIMS Sales Scorecard that reflects the AutoIMS database (with a few needed exclusions) — a vast majority of the commercial sales volume at wholesale auto auctions in North America.”

What AutoIMS found is that average sale price in Q2 was $16,624.33, up from $16,096.20 a year ago.

In the first quarter, average sale prices were at $16,356.31, up from $14,340.92, AutoIMS noted in an earlier report.

So, even though prices continue to climb, the year-over-year uptick was less dramatic than it was in the Q1 data from AutoIMS.

“As our country’s economy shifts into the difficult but needed mode of finding equilibrium after more than a dozen years of stimulus-fueled growth, the AutoIMS data shows some leveling off to this hot car market,” the company said in the report.

“The average floor price ticked up, but conversion rate and sale price have moderated, suggesting that seller expectations are finally getting ahead of actual results.”

Gross sales price and a percent of floor price was at 98.3% in the second quarter, down from 102.3% a year ago, the data shows.

Conversion rates fell from 71.65% in Q2 20221 to 62.82% in the most recent quarter, according to AutoIMS.