The chip shortage, the pandemic, the weather, and your rheumatoid arthritis acting up—and everything is conspiring to drive up prices of used cars across America. According to a study by iSeeCars.com, the average used car price in June rose a whopping $7,583, or 32.7 percent compared to what it was last year. This comes after a 26.4-percent year-over-year increase in May and a 16.8-percent year-over-year increase in April. The Nissan Leaf had the highest percentage increase at 48.1, while the Mercedes G-Wagon had the highest dollar increase at $50,271.
It’s crazy!
“This is an update of a study we ran in April, when the year-over-year price increase was 16.8 percent,” said iSeeCars analyst Karl Brauer. “There were cars that had only minor price increases, or that didn’t increase at all. However, in June, even the smallest price increases are still significant and prove that buyers looking for used cars should wait if they have the option to do so. However, for buyers that don’t have the option of waiting, there are some models that weren’t as drastically impacted by price hikes.”
It’s just that those models not impacted by price hikes are not on this list. This list is for those cars most impacted. And almost all cars got a price increase due to demand.
So now is the time to sell, sell, sell anything you have parked in the garage, the driveway or under a tree in the backyard. Drag it to the curb, put a “For Sale” sign on it, and rake in the dinero.
Sports cars and pickup trucks—the cars people are more likely to want to buy—had the highest price increases, making them the best to sell. Small SUVs, hatchbacks and minivans—the vehicles people are more likely to have to buy—only saw minor price bumps.
Here are the 10 biggest increases by model year-over-year as of June 2021.