Car prices are still stubbornly high
If you’ve been in the market for a car in the last few years, this is probably not news to you: Vehicles have gotten way more expensive. $20,000 used to be the starting point for a new one. Now there’s only one remaining model on the market that sells for around that figure — the Mitsubishi Mirage.
And between inflation and high interest rates, consumers are having a harder time paying for their cars. Auto loan delinquency rates have risen to Great Recession levels. Will that push carmakers to lower their prices?
When the lease on Cerina Pocino’s Honda Civic ended, she decided not to buy the car.
“Looking back on that now it’s a mistake. I should have definitely kept the car that I had,” Pocino said.
Pocino, who lives outside New York City, has been sharing a car with her husband for eight months now. Because shopping for a new one has been difficult. She’s hoping to spend no more than $30,000.
“And the shocking thing for me is the value that doesn’t seem to be there at that price point,” she said.
On top of that, it’s been hard to find the kind of car Pocino wants: a sedan. “They’re not on the lot because they’re selling so fast.”
More consumers and carmakers are focused on bigger, more expensive cars. And with the pandemic chip shortage, the average price of a vehicle has ballooned to $50,000. That’s $10,000 more than it was five years ago, according to Gartner analyst Mike Ramsey.
Plus, he said, high interest rates mean car payments for the average vehicle have gone up more than $100 a month.
“That starts to make a substantial difference in peoples’ ability to afford the vehicles,” Ramsey said.
He thinks the market has finally reached its price limit. Sales are slowing. Inventory is up. Companies are starting to put less emphasis on higher end models.
Ramsey said deals could get sweeter with incentives. “Rebates and subsidized financing and that lowers the price a little bit.”
He thinks sticker prices could come down, but they’re unlikely to fall back to where they were pre-pandemic.
Meanwhile, used car prices are not looking much better. That’s because demand is still high and supply is low. Fewer new cars were sold over the last couple years, so there are fewer used cars on the market.
“There’s no used car factory, right? That used car does not exist and that’s going to take several more years to work its way through,” said David Whiston, an analyst at Morningstar.
According to the auto research site Edmunds, the average sale price of a used car is now just over $29,000.
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