As used car prices continue to soar let's reflect on the Great Positive Equity Wave of 2020. How did you do?

Sold my 2017 Genesis G80 for $5000 more to Vroom. It had about 4 months left on the lease (all in all, I spent < $10000 for 32 months). I have no idea if they will make any profit at all. The only downside really was that I had to rush onto my next lease…

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These companies don’t care about profit. Their investors only look at gross sales so they just want inventory.

Once they take over then prices will be jacked up I’m sure.

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This is correct! Carvana is valued as a tech company and not a car dealer. This is obviously stupid and wrong, but it only really matters who is left holding the bag at final liquidation.

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I’d guess they are just trying buy up cars because they need inventory to survive. Carmax is already the big profitable “new” used car dealer that largely pays reasonable prices and I doubt the new guys are trying to force cout of business.

Also I just don’t see how much room there is to increase used car prices. Carmax, Carvana etc… all offer a more pleasant car buying experience. But you have to imagine at some point buyers are gonna be unwilling to buy a three year old off warranty car when the brand new model is only 5%-10% more.

My biggest worry about these new mainly online used car dealerships is how vulnerable they are to another market disruption. For brands like Toyota, Honda and Subaru, people have been willing to pay just insane amounts of money for used cars - I know now is not normal but look at how much Civics cost on CarMax. Clean low mileage 10 year old ones are going for more than 60% of MSRP.

If someone like Costco or Amex just improved their car buying service to be like Rodo but with 100% legitimate offers (obviously not good offers but just fair zero BS offers like CarMax provides) they could take away the only advantage CarMax/Carvana/Vroom have.

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These companies have so much cash though. It’s very hard for the little guys to compete with them. The tech giants are gonna swallow us all and make us beg for our $15/hr.

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They would have to eat all the sub prime loans Carvana gives out. I don’t see that happening. That’s what has created the opportunity for these companies, it’s not enough to make profit on the product, it’s the profit you make on financing the product. FWIW Carvana makes alot of money.

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Don’t forget where carvana money comes from. A quick google search will show you the fraud involved with that family.

Google ernest Garcia…

None of these companies are organic. It’s all from I’ll gotten gains…they funnel cash from one scheme to the next.

But by all means sell them your cars people. Take what you can from the robber barrons!

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And your 401K funds it!

@Jrouleau426 robber barons! Have not heard that term in a long time. I remember Netflix had a great show on that very topic!

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Wow, bravo. thats amazing

I wonder if Carvana would be interested in my 1969 VW Kombi Bus…I bought it for $550 in '90.

See if Doug Demuro will let you put it on Cars and Bids

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Thanks. A Lot. For my new addiction.

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My english professor was looking for one :laughing:. Those things are a cult classic.

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Of course it currently doesn’t run (do they ever really?), but I recently nabbed a black and gold (retro Cali) plate: 1969VUB for the day I either install the engine, or electrify it.

Put it on Bringatrailer if you decide to sell it

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Damn! There’s actually some bargains there!

I mean, I’ve seen 20 Million dollar mansions get less marketing than this:

Non-ended auctions don’t mean much. Prices usually jump a lot in the last few minutes of an auction.

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If you like the car and since you owned it since new, Better of to keep it even if you pay a few bucks extra, unless you want another new car

I didn’t realize just how bad the credit of some of Carvana’s customers was.

They recently started accepting subprime customers but…
That compares to Carvana’s prime pools with average FICOs ranging from 634 to 636 and APRs between 13.47%-13.84%.”. So their non-sub prime buyers were already getting terrible rates and had poor credit score.

I now wonder what percentage of their customers are tier one and just shopping their for ease of use versus being basically shut out of new car dealerships.