The average 3-year-old used vehicle is now tipping the $32,000 mark on the market, which is a shade over $9,000 more than the 3-year-old listed in 2019.
Driving the news: A new report from iSeeCars shines a light on the 38.2% increase in the prices of 3-year-old vehicles over the last seven years since the pandemic.
A popular 3-year-old model was running $23,624 in 2019.
Now, only 11.4% of vehicles of that age are under $20,000.
It’s even rare to find a 5-year-old at that price, with only slightly more than a quarter of listings under that threshold.
“A lot of people are struggling with affordability right now,” said iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “We're so many years into these elevated prices, there are a lot of people who just have to get a new-to-them used car. And they're not surprisingly a bit shocked by the prices they're seeing and what you have to pay to get for what you get.”
Zooming in: The rising prices are even more alarming when looking at individual models.
As an example, the 3-year-old Hyundai Elantra was $12,295 in 2019 and now is $19,178, a 56% jump.
The Kia Sportage also saw a 50% jump from $16,312 to $24,543.
Sedans, the Toyota Camry and Honda Civic, also saw more than a 47% jump in the seven years.
Brauer points out that demand for the “least expensive” options is driving up prices on the limited supply.
“A lot of small economy cars and sedans have been canceled in the last five years,” Brauer said.
Trucks also jump: Not as dramatic as some of the smaller sedans, trucks saw a big jump in overall price.
The 3-year-old Ford F-150 is now at $43,121, nearly $12,000 more than in 2019.
Similarly, the GMC Sierra 1500 moved from $33,542 to $45,785.
And the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Toyota Tacoma jumped between $8,000 and $9,000.
Not all increased: The study did point out that two models actually saw prices fall for 3-year-olds in the seven-year span.
The Tesla Model X dropped 17% from $75,554 in 2019 to $62,689 now.
Brauer attributed the large loss for the Tesla model to its high upfront price and the lack of substantial updates over the years.
The Land Rover Discovery Sport fell 2.4% from $28,798 to $28,118.
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Takeaway for dealers: The increase in prices of some of the vehicles at the lower end of the market points to demand and gives credence to the need to bring some into the inventory, if dealers can find them.
“If [dealers] thought they couldn't sell cars like this before, and so they avoided them at auction, they might reconsider that because there's clearly demand for them,” Brauer said. “And the demand is such that it's driving up prices, and they can probably get a higher price than they would've thought for cars like this.”
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