Used vehicle sales during 2012 in the United States topped more than 40.5 million cars and light trucks, according the consultancy CNW. This is the best year since 2007, and represents an increase of 4.5% when compared to 2011’s 38.8 million.
Franchised dealers, or factory authorized new car dealers, increased sales 8.2%, garnering nearly 37% of all used vehicles sales. Independent dealers represented 34.6% of the market, down 2.5%. So called private party sales, some of them thinly disguised transactions from quasi dealers, accounted for the balance of used vehicle sales at 28%, an increase of 3.1%.
CNW says that because of heavy trade-in volumes of vehicles in the two- to six-year old class, franchised dealers’ average used transaction price in December rose to $12,678 compared to $11,531 a year ago. This means a Total value last month of $14.5 billion compared to $11.3 billion one year ago.
Independent dealers saw a slight decline in transaction prices from $6,943 in December 2011 to $6,910 this year. Total value of sales, however, was up from $6.8 billion to $7.9 billion.
Passenger cars climbed to more than 52% of used sales, up from 50% a year ago, which AutoInformed opines reflects the soft new pickup truck market and the ongoing shift to passenger vehicles in the new car market.
One interesting trend is that a growing percentage of consumers are traveling outside of their home marketing area to make a used purchase. In 2011, 15.1% traveled to make a used acquisition. In 2012, that increased to nearly 18%.
In addition, yes, the Federal Reserve continues to print money: The number of sub-prime buyers with a FICO score of 550 or less jumped in December of this year to 17.1% of total used sales compared to 9.8% in December of last year.
