What about car sales during the Coronapocalypse?

Is this a good time to buy or sell? What do you see in your area? What do you think?

Is it a buyer's market?

Will the supply chain of new cars be seriously effected making it a new car seller's market?

Fly and drive seems unappealing this week, but flights are gonna be cheap for a while. Do you see opportunity, or stay away?

I don't want to be test driving a car that just had your grubby mitts on the steering wheel. eBay and Carvana purchases vs in-person?

With oil prices crashing, are there regions such as Dallas where prices are going to be dropping? Other places where the market will get tight?

I know that steps are being taken at a certain dealership in the area to which I have connections.  They are hiring a crew whose sole responsibility will be to make sure every surface is clean and sanitized frequently.  They expect to remain open for business, at least for now.

And given that in-store traffic will be WAY down, I'd expect them to be willing to deal.

I have a couple of motorcycles that I need to sell and I'm probably going to wait. 

They can still only deal so much. They don't suddenly own the cars for less. If the supply gets disrupted because the manufacturers can't get parts, it'll be harder to get a deal. 

I was shopping used cars during 08/09 when the market tanked. Private sales were willing to deal. Used dealers were not. I got a very good cash deal on a brand new Fit. If they have wiggle room, they'll deal eventually. 

Every single person that was interested in either of my cars dropped out. It's a buyer's market on used stuff for sure.

Buy Honda Elements, you can live out of them during the apocalypse. 

I want to buy a couple cars that are "not for sale" YET , 

Not sure if I need to wait a week or 2 before making another bid on them.....

the world is a Big ???? Mark  right now ?

Definitely a buyer's market on used stuff.  One of my riding buddies is on his way to buy a van that is listed at $2,000 for a paltry $900.

The Bride of Burrito is an indirect loan underwriter and is basically the automotive loan department at a Credit Union.  She says she has never seen it this slow.  Essentially nobody is buying new cars this week, they're all broke from trading toilet paper futures.

I guess I could call my son and ask him, sales manager at Toyota dealership

I don't know about entire cars, but I had a guy text me last night about 7pm offering me $150 for a Ford Focus transmission I had on craigslist and he wanted to come and pick it up by 10pm.   Sure enough, he and his buddy rolled up and now I've got more space in my shop and $150 to go buy a roll or two of TP with.

This is a topic that I have been thinking about the past few days.  In my personal life, we are considering selling off my wife's 2010 Mazda5 (bought new) for the next larger size like a recently used Grand Caravan or Ford Flex.  In my "business life" of flipping some cars, I have a 2013 Sonic listed up on CL/FB currently and another Prius I am working on now that might hit CL/FB too.  

As for the Mazda5.  The sale of this car is a "want" not a need.  The wife would like something newer and bigger.  In one hand, maybe we should just "hold" right now in these odd times.  The other option is used car inventory will move slowly and this could be the time to pick up a deal on that larger version.  Such a quandary.  

For the flip cars, I'll admit, I'm now more motivated to drop the prices quickly. These are not "need" cars.  I really don't want to keep the Sonic.  However, its a good car.  If I was without the Mazda5, the Sonic is good enough to replace it if needed to be for a while.  

As for buying more salvage cars and putting them on the road, I'll watch prices.  I'll lowball bid some stuff...maybe.  I cant get to the auction this week but I expect that this week will just result in a lot of cars that do not meet the reserve.  It wont be for a couple of week's before those cars miss the reserve a couple of times before the deals will be had.  

Funny for me on the Sonic is that in the first day I listed it I had what seemed like a serious buyer who was hitting me at a low price.  I'm asking $4,500.  In our real conversation I agreed at his ask that I would come down to $4,000 if he made the 2 hr travel the next day.  Then on the day of, he stated that his research showed he didn't want to pay more than $3750.  I told I could not go that low, certainly not since the car has only been listed for less than 24 hrs.  I sort of wonder if I regret that now but in BC, the world Before Corona, I think that was a smart move.  Now we will see what AC brings; the world After Corona.  

My car selling logic is to keep a starting price for two weeks and then drop the asking price by $200 every week after that.  This is my second weekend at this price.  On Weds of this week I think I will drop by $200 for another two weekends.  I could do this for a lot of weeks but I'll eventually just need to get firmer to the asking price.  

I have enough "mad money" saved to buy a couple of cars and wait till this turns around ,  

But  they need to be cars I can add value too like you do with the Prius , 

I am  going to wait until next weekend and start calling a few people who were not "ready yet" to sell a few months ago, 

And maybe get my Old Fiat running........

Bringing this back up.  Yesterday, Monday is the inspection day (12pm-4pm) and today, Tuesday is the actual auction at my local IAA .  I could not make it out to inspection so I had no bids on items.  I have however spent a little time this morning watching the auction online.  Most of what is going up on the block is not meeting reserve. No surprise.  

I did see some CRVs get into bidding wars but interestingly the dueling bidders were Guatemala and South Africa.  Every week a bidder from Conley, GA bids up to about $300 on every crappy car.  Just so happens that Conley, GA is the HQ for Pull-a-Part who has a yard here in Cleveland.  This week I am noticing that everything is being bid at least a little from Antioch, TN.  I am not sure what is HQ'ed in Antioch, TN.  Anyone know?

For the record, my Cleveland IAA auction has 512 cars this week which is a little less than normal.  More normal is closer to 600 cars.  I'll be interested to see if next week surpasses 600 as so many cars come back across the block with the addition of the new ones.  

In other IAA news, going forward they are suspending all inspection days.  With no ability to physically see the cars, I wont be bidding on them.  The risk for me goes up significantly.  If I did bid, I would have to bid significantly low to offset the gamble.  

In the new-car department, GM is starting to offer 0% financing for 7 years: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/gm-offers-0percent-financing-for-7-years-delayed-payments-amid-coronavirus.html

I expect the other carmakers to follow suit. If you're in a position to buy, the next few months could be a great time to do it.

I wonder what the banks and credit unions are doing on car loans. Late last week a friend tried to get a loan for a used, high end motorcycle (at a very reasonable price) - they said yes but at an interest rate that said no. If I remember correctly - about 9 percent higher than "normal". Yea I know that motorcycle loans can be more expensive than car loans. With the Fed bringing the prime close to zero, one would think the banks would be interested in making loans.

Anybody else experience this?

In reply to TasdevEngineer2of3 :

I don't know enough to know if one thing has anything to do with the other, but I read an article about home loans that said the banks were putting out higher interest rates because they couldn't handle all the business that was coming in.

I had this additional thought...

I have a recently bought Prius in need of a Salvage Inspection.  That inspection is scheduled for 11:00 March 24th.  These appts are usually about 2 weeks out.  I then had a thought that maybe they are getting a bunch of cancelations and maybe I can log into their site and snag an earlier time.  This is a low contact event.  They see one car per 15 minutes and the lobby rarely has more than 3 people in it.  

Sure enough, I log onto their site to see:

There is no current ability to schedule a future appt.  I tried.  Looks like I'll have a Prius that I can not drive for a long time.  

I think mortgage and personal loans are going to get more spendy as banks get more anxious about A) the health of the borrowers and B) the income stability of their borrowers.

With the last recession fresh in people's minds, the subsequent bailout, I'm sure many banks are worried that the public may not support those moves twice in a decade. 

pheller said:

I think mortgage and personal loans are going to get more spendy as banks get more anxious about A) the health of the borrowers and B) the income stability of their borrowers.

 

With the last recession fresh in people's minds, the subsequent bailout, I'm sure many banks are worried that the public may not support those moves twice in a decade. 

I was assuming money would be cheap since the Feds keep pushing the interest rate down but you maybe right. I hope not. I am planning on building a new garage later this year.

If cars get cheaper that would be great cause I am looking to buy one in a month or two.

The Chevy dealer I bought my Cruze from, sent an email stating they now have a delivery service. Now you can buy a new car and have it delivered without leaving home, doing all paperwork online.

TasdevEngineer2of3 said:

I wonder what the banks and credit unions are doing on car loans. Late last week a friend tried to get a loan for a used, high end motorcycle (at a very reasonable price) - they said yes but at an interest rate that said no. If I remember correctly - about 9 percent higher than "normal". Yea I know that motorcycle loans can be more expensive than car loans. With the Fed bringing the prime close to zero, one would think the banks would be interested in making loans.

Anybody else experience this?

Some power sports loans are not traditional vehicle loans, and are more like getting a credit card, then paying it down.  Wonder if that was the cause for the higher interest.  

As for the Fed rate not affecting consumer-level loans, they are also having to take into account the risk of not getting repaid, risk of greater inflation, and the risk of rates going up before the loan is paid off, so the prime rate won’t always have a direct effect on anything with a longer term. I think at some point in the past it may have had the opposite effect.

81cpcamaro said:

The Chevy dealer I bought my Cruze from, sent an email stating they now have a delivery service. Now you can buy a new car and have it delivered without leaving home, doing all paperwork online.

I think in at least a few states, that type of transaction triggers additional consumer protections so I'm curious how that will affect things.  Typically if you're closing the sale in some place that isn't the "normal place of business" things like 3 day right-of-return become an option.

I'm working at a BMW dealership. I haven't seen anyone who looked like a customer in a week. 
 

The owners own 20 different dealerships- Toyota, Lexus, Ford, Chevrolet, Audi, Chrysler, Jeep, Porsche...  New car business is in the toilet. 

Tom_Spangler said:

In the new-car department, GM is starting to offer 0% financing for 7 years: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/gm-offers-0percent-financing-for-7-years-delayed-payments-amid-coronavirus.html

 

I've expected a recession soon, though I always seem to see things that make me think that, but Toyota has been offering incentives, and very low interest rates locally for months now. They never do that.

I'm car shopping, and I'll continue to look, but I don't think there's any way the economy can recover quickly from what's happening now. That probably means lower car prices for me in the future.