Board 8 > Hey, my new car I bought a year ago is now worth 4000 more

(+) Yeah! (+)

Good oll car appreciation totally normal

Step one: Buy new car
Step two: ???
Step three: Profit

Yeah I sold a used car with 30k extra miles on it for 1k more than I bought it for around April. It's a brave new world out there

My 6 year old car is about break even right now

Yeah it's really great to have to need a new car right now

Yeah it's really great to need a new car right now

Wow that's really awesome

let's get another one of plum's threads to 500

It's a false economy because even if you do decide to sell for a profit and you want to purchase another car you'll find that most cars will be a lot more expensive than they were a year ago.

Yeah theres no profit to be made here (for consumers) unless you are selling a car you dont need to replace.

If you have an extra car now is a great time to sell it.

I have been wanting to replace my car but have been putting it off for a year now due to prices.

I got my new car in April for MSRP, not sure how it looks at dealerships now

Yeah, my friend just traded in a 4 year old vehicle and got the same price for it that he paid for it 4 years ago.

I bought a 2014 Mercedes SLK in 2017. When I traded it in like 6 months ago, it had only depreciated 6k in value which was a pleasant surprise since it needed ~3k of immediate work at least. I bought a new car and was happy to get slightly below MSRP since basically everything is marked up to hell right now

How long before people start scalping cars?

redrocket posted...

How long before people start scalping cars?

Not gonna happen. Cars are expensive but not unfindable. If you try to scalp a car you essentially bought a new car to sell a used car, along with the fees and taxes you essentially lost money

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Not gonna happen. Cars are expensive but not unfindable. If you try to scalp a car you essentially bought a new car to sell a used car, along with the fees and taxes you essentially lost money

I mean, thats literally what car dealerships are doing right now.

If you have enough money to pay cash for cars (from private sellers or auctions), you could probably flip them pretty easy.

I got a grand more than expected for my beat up old Camry, and that was like seven months ago. I could have waited and probably gotten an extra grand on top of that, but I literally didn't have a place to store it. Crazy seller's market for just about everything rn.

It's nice if you had extra cars or don't need one anymore.

We traded in both of our cars a couple weeks ago. The 2019 we bought for $20k sold for $27k, and the 2015 we also bought for $20k, with 93k miles on it, sold for $12k.

Put the $12k as a down payment on a new 2021 and banked the $11k we made back from the 2019. The monthly payments on the new car are the exact same as we were paying on the 2019.

We're pretty happy with how this turned out, especially since we almost traded in the 2015 when we bought the 2019, and it would've been for only $9k at the time.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I mean, thats literally what car dealerships are doing right now.

If you have enough money to pay cash for cars (from private sellers or auctions), you could probably flip them pretty easy.

If your talking about reselling used cars that's completely different and not really what most people mean by scalping. It's also not new in the slighest

Colegreen_c12 posted...

If your talking about reselling used cars that's completely different and not really what most people mean by scalping. It's also not new in the slighest

No Im talking about buying new cars from other dealerships and wholesale and reselling them.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

No Im talking about buying new cars from other dealerships and wholesale and reselling them.

I have never heard of dealerships buying cars from other dealerships to resell for more. They will usually trade cars to get specific models they want but not to charge a lot more than what they got it for.

Buying from wholesale is basically how retail stores as a whole work.

Colegreen_c12 posted...

I have never heard of dealerships buying cars from other dealerships to resell for more. They will usually trade cars to get specific models they want but not to charge a lot more than what they got it for.

I work for one of the largest dealer
groups in the country, and we do that.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I work for one of the largest dealer
groups in the country, and we do that.

How does that work? Are you buying stuff at msrp-2000 and selling it for msrp+2000 or something? Or are you buying unpopular models for below msrp? Doesn't seem like a lot of profit margin but maybe you guys are making it on volume. I still wouldn't consider this scalping unless you are doing it to the point of draining the market around you.

Theyre making a killing on market adjustment (literally a transparent markup).

Basically, if there are only 2 or 3 scat packs in the region, our analysts buy them up so we control all the supply.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Theyre making a killing on market adjustment (literally a transparent markup).

Basically, if there are only 2 or 3 scat packs in the region, our analysts buy them up so we control all the supply.

Then I mean yea, thats pretty scummy. I've never heard of that being done before so I'm not sure how common it is

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Then I mean yea, thats pretty scummy. I've never heard of that being done before so I'm not sure how common it is

My official public stance is no comment lol, but anyone who knows my politics can guess how I feel about it.

I imagine its not very profitable normally, but the market/supply is primed for it right now, as long as you have the money to GET them.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

My official public stance is no comment lol, but anyone who knows my politics can guess how I feel about it.

I imagine its not very profitable normally, but the market/supply is primed for it right now, as long as you have the money to GET them.

Not to get too political, but it's another situation where the rich can prosper even further, while the lower/middle classes pay the, in this case literal, price.

I'm just glad I got my new car last year, before this crazy market would have jacked the price up $4-5k.

I bought my car over a year ago and this is all new to me. What happened to make this trend happen?

HaRRicH posted...

I bought my car over a year ago and this is all new to me. What happened to make this trend happen?

Supply shortage on certain parts.

We are a sizeable company (~1000 employees in the US) and we could not find work vans to give to new hires or to replace older ones in the field. We have the ridiculous scenario where we are literally replacing engines and transmissions in work vans because we can't get replacements. We had like a 6 month stint in Hawaii where we couldn't buy the guy a van and we couldn't rent a vehicle because there just wasn't any.

that explains why my dealer sent me an email offering me 1/3 of what I paid for my new car...wait for it....7 1/2 years ago. I was like, they want that much for my 2014 vehicle? Of course, like others have said, there's no point in selling it for that price though as I would need to find something else and pay the price for it!

HaRRicH posted...

I bought my car over a year ago and this is all new to me. What happened to make this trend happen?

Like everything else, its all about the microchip shortage.

I checked the value of my car when it was nearly totaled in 2019. It was worth around $8,500 I believe (assuming repairs would be performed), and repairs were about $8,000. They fixed it.

I recently checked and despite it being two years and many more miles over what it was, it is now worth about $12,000.

I bought it 7 years ago for $17,400. Okay I've lost $5,400 in depreciation, but that's still not bad.

If you sell a used one and buy new, you can also profit right? Only the used market is inflated - new cars are priced normally

foolm0r0n posted...

If you sell a used one and buy new, you can also profit right? Only the used market is inflated - new cars are priced normally

If by normally you mean you can get a new car actually paying MSRP, but which normally you never have to do

Right, it's stupid normally. But now it's kinda viable.