March 25, 2010
Black Book: Used Truck Market on Five-Week Rise
With steady floor traffic and active consumer interest in used vehicles, more dealers are attending auctions each week looking for additional inventory, according Ricky Beggs of the "Beggs on the Used Car Market."
"With the low supply of vehicles in the market, if you need inventory you have to pay what it takes to be the winner on the block," wrote Beggs, managing editor of Black Book.
The total weekly adjustments reached almost 11,200. A majority of those adjustments - a record 87 percent - were increases over the previously published wholesale values, according to Beggs.
This is the fifth time since last November that Black Book has adjusted over 11,000 vehicles during a weekly time period. This is the fourth consecutive week, and fifth of the last six weeks, that the overall adjustment level was in a positive direction.
"As a whole, the combined car segments finally broke into positive territory this week," Beggs wrote. With a steady climb towards actual appreciation for eight of the last nine weeks, this week finally showed an increase of $13.01, with eight of the 10 car segments finishing in positive territory. Only the luxury-level cars and the prestige-level cars failed to increase in value.
Meanwhile, the truck market has had five consecutive weeks of increases. This week, 13 of the 14 segment types went up. Only the full-size Crossover segment continued to struggle for the seventh consecutive week.
"Needless to say, the strong spring market continues to roll on," Beggs wrote.