If you’re shopping for a used vehicle right now, money expert Clark Howard wants you to be prepared to pay up: It’s a seller’s market.
“It’s a great time to be a seller of a used vehicle, and it’s a brutal time to be a buyer of a new or used vehicle,” says Clark.
Used vehicles are in such demand that even those with a lot of miles on them are going for higher prices.
Do You Have a Vehicle With 100K+ Miles? Read This
A recent news release from vehicle valuation site Edmunds shows that some very used vehicles — defined in this article as cars with mileage between 100,000-109,999 on the odometer — are commanding higher prices than ever.
“It’s been a long-held belief among many car buyers and sellers that a vehicle’s value begins to decline dramatically once it crosses the 100,000-mile mark, but that’s proven to be wrong as vehicle technology and durability have greatly improved over the years,” Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ senior manager of insights, says in the release.
“The soaring demand we’re seeing in the used vehicle market right now only further debunks this myth: We’re seeing 7- to 8-year-old vehicles with more than 100,000 miles commanding prices today that are more like the cost of 5-year-old vehicles with 60,000-80,000 miles a year ago.”
Here are the key findings from Edmunds’ analysis of used car prices in June 2021:
- Trucks fill the top three spots among “very used” vehicles with the greatest price increases.
- The average price of very used vehicles spiked 31% to $16,489, compared to $12,626 the same time last year.
- Very used vehicles are selling more quickly: an average of 30.5 days, compared to 37.7 days the same time last year.
Let’s look at the prices some very used vehicles are selling for in June 2021 vs. what they were going for last year, according to Edmunds.
These High-Mileage Used Vehicles Are Fetching High Prices
| Vehicle | Average Age | June 2020 Average Price | June 2021 Average Price | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chevrolet Silverado 1500 | 6.6 | $18,070 | $26,914 | 39.3% |
| Ford Escape | 7.1 | $8,646 | $11,359 | 27.1% |
| Ford F-150 | 7.2 | $18,092 | $25,924 | 35.5% |
| Honda Accord | 8.4 | $9,440 | $12,633 | 28.9% |
| Honda Civic | 8 | $8,177 | $10,907 | 28.6% |
| Honda CR-V | 8.5 | $10,582 | $13,829 | 26.6% |
| Jeep Grand Cherokee | 7.3 | $13,333 | $17,700 | 28.1% |
| Jeep Wrangler | 8.6 | $17,329 | $23,084 | 28.4% |
| Ram 1500 | 6.5 | $17,365 | $24,657 | 34.7% |
| Toyota Camry | 8 | $9,040 | $12,057 | 28.6% |
Should You Sell Your Car Right Now?
Given the market conditions for buying a used and new vehicle right now, if you can delay the purchase, you probably should. Take a little of that money you were going to spend on a used car and put it toward the upkeep of your current vehicle.
Here’s a maintenance schedule you can follow to keep your car running properly.
Given these prices, you might be tempted to see what your car could fetch on the open market. Here’s a Team Clark rundown of several websites that can help.
“Consumers with an old truck sitting in their driveway are in the best position to take advantage of this wild market,” Drury is quoted as saying. “But even if you own an SUV or passenger vehicle that’s a bit long in the tooth, you shouldn’t be too quick to assume its value is dead. Chances are it’s worth a bit more — if not a lot more — than you think, which you could use to offset the cost of your next car purchase, or you could simply pocket the extra cash.”
Thinking about putting your vehicle on the market? Here’s some advice on how to sell it.
