Was This Finally “Peak Insanity” in Used Vehicle Prices? And all other crystal ball questions

I wasn’t looking at the carnival for my son I just saw one in the showroom and probably let out an audible gasp. Ended up getting a civic at msrp instead.

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Assuming you are referring to summer 2008 when national average gas hit $4 bucks. After college I was looking for a car in July 2008. User car dealership tried to sell me a 10 year old Geo Metro for 10k. The look I gave them told the dealership we were miles apart in price. Salesman said whatever, someone will buy it for that price, gas is expensive and it’s very fuel efficient. Five months later gas was under 2 bucks a gallon.

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When the market goes back to normal (which we can debate will be in a month or a year) but eventually things even out. A 17k over msrp on a Kia will have someone in a terrible spot. Sitting in that showroom for 5 mins I got the impression the people there were not in a position to take a 20-25k equity hit.

Im in the mortgage industry. I can’t tell you how many $700-$800 mo car payments I’ve seen on 40k a yr employees. Banks got their hands slapped after the 2008 housing bubble for “giving mortgages to people that cannot afford them”. Wonder if there will be the same recourse on car dealers when this shakes out. The mortgage industry is still paying for those 2008 “sins”

I left that dealer in a hurry and after some more leg work found a new civic at msrp.

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Yep, that’s the time period. All I remember was filling up my Crosstour V6 with regular for $70 a pop weekly and everyone was falling hands over fist trying to get small sedans or even Hybrids only to trade them up for gas monster a year later.

I doubt it would be dealerships. It is again would be finance/banking for giving out loans “they should have known people can’t afford” because people don’t understand finances.

It somewhat would be easier since repo a car after a payment stop is easier than going through foreclosure. But car loans have become the next cow to milk after the housing collapse.

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So what happened to cars in New Orleans after Katrina? Were cars just sent to the junkyard? Looks like a lot of cars will be severely flooded/totalled from the St. Louis floods today.

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Insurance would have funded those cars. Legitimate loss.

What’s happening now are people and corporations paying extremely inflated prices for cars. You have consumers who will conceivably be underwater for years once used prices return to reality. You also have CarMax, Carvana, etc. who are holding a LOT of inventory that they’re paying top dollar for. Inventory level are getting better (albeit slowly) and it won’t be long before those used cars can only sell at a loss.

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It is much much easier. In many states lenders can reposses after just one missed payment. And if the car is accessible without “breaching the peace” they can do it without notice or court order. So lenders, especially ones that deal with high risk borrowers, have a decent chance to get their property fairly quick after non payment.

Contrast that with foreclosures which require a court order and take months. And often at the end of the foreclosure process the owner will file for bankruptcy and get the automatic stay.

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I forget the video but ‘Breaching the peace’ can be as simple as lifting the latch on a lock that is not closed. Repos are such fun.

This partially relates to the concept of curtilage. The Castle doctrine historically covers land outside the house that is considered curtilage. Opening a gate and entering a fenced yard/driveway could be enough to make it legal for a resident of the home to shoot a repo man (especially at night).

My understanding is that most states require a court order if a repo man is going to do something where, without a court order, he could otherwise be harmed/killed with the castle doctrine as a defense to the crime.

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And don’t forget GPS trackers with remote stop proliferation in recent years in subprime loans making locating the car that much easier…

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I’m sure repo men in texas have to be pretty careful about this.

What the heck with the carnival. I went to carmax. 2022 LXS with 26k for $41,998. This thing MSRPed at $34k last year :sweat_smile: Maybe it’s got a few options but really that shouldn’t even be going for $30k.

They also have a 2022 SX Prestige with 15k miles for $58,998. It had an msrp of $46k, no way it ever cost $59k even fully loaded. Carvana has a couple of these things for $61k one of which has 19k miles on it. Man that’s a lot for a kia minivan. Peeps be trippin’.

2023 carnival build I can max one out at $49k. So I guess yeah these places are really asking more than a $10k over MSRP for a used one. crazy You can get a brand new XC90 recharge for not much more.

Still overpriced by 12K to 18K.

OHHHH…

Imagine buying their stock at $370 last year, lmao

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There are a lot of stocks down 90% especially in tech so Carvana isn’t exclusion from the rule.

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Hey, you could do worse than -95%! If you invested in Luna for example. I’m sure someone(s) out there invested in both. LOL

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Its really the first entry into the van market thats styled/designed in such a way that it doesn’t look like a van and gets the attention of the people that actually need the space/flexibility of a van but “will never be caught dead driving a van”.

I (well, usually my wife) get more random questions from people on the street about our carnival than any other vehicle I have owned.

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Anyone else remember the car companies (Chrysler in particular IIRC) were offering gas “price locks” to customers who purchased a new vehicle around this time frame? You could lock in a price of say $3.50 a gallon (edit: $2.99!) for 3 years or something to that effect, in the event prices kept rising.

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I forgot they did that.

I couldn’t see them doing that today though.

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Econoboxes with great gas mileage still going pretty strong … Just sold 2020 Kia Forte back to Kia dealer in NY three months before lease end for $17800. $6000 equity for a car that was involved in a major accident (almost totaled). Peak I had seen on CarMax was 18900 in May.

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