Buying a used car will not be considered easy in the new year. The lack of new cars will also affect the used market, so let's look at the most important things we should pay attention to.
The year 2020 was turbulent in the car market, of course with the used ones. Factories, as well as sellers of new cars and bazaars, had to close or restrict traffic several times, and problems with vehicle registration began to appear. There are higher costs associated with all this. At the same time, there are no stocks, and this will be reflected in rising car prices.
There are several reasons why cars are more expensive. Paradoxically, the most expensive were the ordinary and technically simple models with older types of engines, which did not fit into the emission tables. Logically, some models will disappear from the market and will no longer be. It is not worthwhile for manufacturers to invest in expensive hybrid technologies for price-sensitive cars. This is the reason why you can no longer get diesel in small cars, it would be extremely expensive with all emission technologies. And downsized supercharged engines are more expensive to develop and manufacture.
Outages in the production of new cars will also affect the used market. Just as companies and people change their fleet at regular intervals by buying new cars, so do those who buy on the used market. The prices of new used cars, year-old cars, and cars with low ramps practically do not decrease, in some cases, they are even higher than the original price list prices of new cars. It is all caused by the overpressure of demand oversupply. Simply put, people want cars, but not enough.
We can expect the economy to slow down, and as entrepreneurs and companies lose profits, they will not be so crowded into buying new cars. So all the more so today's cars will keep longer. Cars also do not seem to become cheaper due to faster inflation.
At the same time, beware of scams! The more limited range of some models and higher average prices give fraudsters much more room to lure money away from careless buyers. Especially with deficient models, those interested will look for where they can, and thus these cars will become relatively risky.
Moreover, the trend of online home shopping is currently spreading, so be very careful. Fraudsters will, of course, try to take advantage of this situation and will lure people into non-existent cars or cars with a hidden defect. Fraudulent practices are very similar to falsifying the origin of a vehicle, turning a tachometer, forging a service book, masking serious breakdowns and accidents, and most importantly legalizing a stolen car.
There is a shortage of new cars and companies that have to change their fleet will logically look for young, most often annual used from operating leases, for which no extraordinary investments in repairs can be expected. But there will also be a few of them. We have already realized several times that an older car with a higher approach does not have to be a problem, it depends mainly on the service history and origin.