HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WHLT) — Used car sales are higher than ever before. Some car dealerships across the country have less than 25 percent of the vehicles they normally would have heading into the summer months.
According to Credit Karma, a used 2016 Honda CRV was priced at $15,000 one year ago. Now, it is valued at $17,575.
Breck Daniell, who is the general manager of Daniell Motors in Hattiesburg, said business has changed in the sense that there is less inventory.
“We’re spending a lot of time trying to acquire inventory which is very difficult to do in this current market,” he stated.
Daniell said his family has owned the dealership for more than 40 years. He said during typical times, he would sell between 40 to 60 preowned vehicles at a time. Now, the number is closer to 15.
“On my lot now ready to sale, I think I’ve got 12, and that’s just because of problem in the pricing. The prices are so high to acquire on the wholesale market that it’s very difficult to attain inventory.”
According to caranddriver.com, the average price for a used car is $24,000. Used car sales have increased by more than 14 percent since Spring 2020 and has even increased by 40 percent in the last year.
Some families have been buying higher mileage vehicles during the coronavirus pandemic.
Daniell said, “There’s plenty of people wanting to get outside and travel and pull campers and do recreational things outside. So they’re buying trucks, and there’s not enough supply of trucks due to some of the shortages in parts to build new ones.”
He hopes when new cars become available later this year, it helps ease up on the supply issue.