Small, efficient used cars are selling like crazy right now
Something interesting has been happening in the wake of news by Ford and other companies that they would be scaling back their small car offerings in favor of SUVs, trucks and crossovers, used car values for small, fuel-efficient cars have started to rise, according to Automotive News. It's not hard to remember back to the summer of 2008 when gas prices spiked nationwide, and all of a sudden three-cylinder Geo Metros were commanding a used car premium again. What's interesting is that many of these companies cite lack of sales of new small cars as their reason for discontinuing them. Edmunds found in its latest used car report that compact car prices were up by 3.9 percent, which isn't Earth-shattering, but it reverses a general trend for non-SUV and truck sales. By comparison, used car sale prices are up 2.2 percent across the board, again according to Edmunds but that could be attributable to a number of factors.
World in Progress: The dirty export business of used cars
as declared inConsumers are spending more for used cars
Read Full Bio→Photo (c) Joe_Potato - Getty Images Even though a near record number of cars are hitting the used car market this year, used car prices have never been higher. Edmunds, an automotive publisher, reports the average transaction price (ATP) for a used car in the first quarter was $19,657, up 2.2 percent from the same period a year ago. That doesn't mean the price of all used cars went up, it only shows that consumers are choosing to purchase more expensive used cars. While consumers were willing to pay more for a used car in first quarter, they also bought more of them, defying predictions that auto sales would decline in the "sharing" economy. The sales of 10.57 million used cars sales in the first three months of 2018 was the highest for the period, going back to 2013.
5 safe, reliable used cars for under $20,000
Parents and grandparents looking for a car for the recent graduate in the family want something safe, reliable -- and, of course, affordable. That resulted in some three-year-old used cars that you could buy for half their price when new. For example, luxury cars average a 43 percent loss of value after three years, partly because so many of them are leased. But we're focusing on cars where sharp depreciation has brought them into affordable used-car territory of under $20,000. Here's a rundown of the five 2015 sedans that cleared these hurdles in the order of their average used-car price, lowest first.collected by :Haily Jackson