Got your eye on a pre-owned Acura RL, Audi A8, Lincoln MKZ or another luxury car with a few years behind it? You may want to act now, because dwindling supply could lead to increase costs for used vehicles.
That's according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which in its newest Used Car Guide predicts that the availability of used luxury cars up to five years old will decrease by 13-percent this year – causing prices of used luxury cars to rise by about 1.9-percent, after rising by a whopping 9-percent in 2011. The cost of all total used cars could rise as much as 2.9-percent.
"The falling used supply will raise used-vehicle luxury prices again this year, but overall appreciation will be mild by recent standards," said NADA senior analyst Jonathan Banks.
This year, the NADA expects the biggest increases in cost from Acura (4.8%), Audi (3.3%), Lincoln (2.6%), Lexus (1.6%), Infiniti (1.5%), Mercedes-Benz (0.7%) and Cadillac (0.5%).
Other automakers will actually see their used cars decrease in price this year, including Volvo (3.1%) and BMW (0.2%).
"Used-vehicle prices have risen over the past couple of years because of economic conditions that lowered supply and increased demand," said Banks.
The cost of used luxury cars is at an all-time high; the rising prices due mainly to scarcity. The 2008 recession and its lasting effects resulted in fewer new luxury car purchases, and subsequently fewer trade-ins and returned leases. So the used car market is not as abundant as it has been in the past. From 2009-11, prices of used luxury vehicles up to five-years old rose by 22-percent (used Mercedes vehicles by an astounding 29-percent).
The NADA report predicts another eighteen months before supply returns to the used luxury vehicle pool.
