LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -

While a new weekly wholesale price increase record was not set, these unprecedented times in the lanes prompted Black Book to expand its data tracking.

Analysts said in the newest Market Insights that they’re seeing a substantial increase in prices that dealers are willing to pay for higher-mileage units, especially models 2-years-old and newer.

Because of this development, Black Book started to update its mileage sensitivity curves on a weekly basis instead of the typical monthly cadence.

When looking at just those late models, Black Book indicated in the latest report that values in that particular space didn’t surge as much last week as they did during the previous week. But still, overall values for units less than 2-year-old increased by 1.42% week-over-week with cars rising 1.54% and trucks and SUVs climbing 1.37%.

Analysts described three factors that are pushing dealers to bring these units into inventory even if they have higher mileage than they would prefer.

“As new production continues to struggle to meet demand, the fleet and rental companies are holding onto their vehicles longer, further depleting the availability of used vehicles in the marketplace,” Black Book said.

“Recalls are another challenge for some sellers and buyers as the manufacturing delays are slowing down the access to parts necessary to make the fixes that would free the vehicles up for retail sale,” Black Book continued.

“The deteriorating condition of available units is leading to higher costs for buyers before it reaches their front-line,” Black Book went on to say. “Additionally, the level of reconditioning necessary is further delaying the time required before a vehicle is ready for retail.”

Looking at the entire wholesale market no matter how fresh or long-in-the-tooth the vehicle might be, analysts determined values still moved higher, but not quite to the level a week ago when they saw records fall faster than the auctioneer’s hammer.

Overall, Black Book said values last week moved higher by 1.59% with cars jumping by 1.79% and trucks and SUVs increasing 1.48%.

Once again, analysts noticed that all nine car segments posted another week of value gains exceeding 1.00%, with compact cars (up 2.54%) and subcompact (up 2.04%) leading the way.

“It is expected for this segment to increase this time of year, but not by this amount,” analysts said about compact-car prices that increased what seems like a paltry 0.53% during this same week in 2019.

And how about another even more stark example for what an unprecedented time this is?

Black Book said that prestige luxury cars generated the smallest increase last week at 1.09%. But during the same week two years ago, analysts pointed out values of those prestige luxury cars actually softened by 0.28%.

Turning to the truck space, Black Book found that 10 of the 13 segments generated value increases of 1.00% or more.

Like in the car space, compact and subcompact crossovers paced the truck-price rises with increases of 2.23% and 2.07%.

“Despite the OEMs doing their best to prioritize full-size truck production, new inventory continues to be limited, which continues to put pressure on the used market,” analysts said about those full-size trucks that posted a value rise of 1.57%.