As Black Book personnel visited and watched over 70 auctions last week, market insight reflected the approaching tax season as Black Book editorial director Ricky Beggs reported prices are strong, and of course, “the tax season favorites are getting sold.”

As many dealers are tracking, the IRS began accepting tax returns on Jan. 20 — and when the checks come through, many consumers will head toward the lots.

By the end of last week over 36 percent of all price adjustments in the lanes were increases.

This marks the sixth week out of seven that price jumps have beat out the 30-percent mark.

“This is not all that unusual during February and March each year, but this level supports our comments as to how active the market is now, and was back in November and even December,” Beggs said.

For cars, the average price decline last week at auction came in at $62, just under the $63 drop seen the week before.

The largest drops were seen in the luxury-level car segment with a decline of $129; the prestige luxury cars followed, dropping by $108 last week.

Beggs said the spring market is looking up for entry-level cars, as retention continues to be strong. This segment saw prices drop by a mere $20 last week.

Moving over to highlight the truck segments, overall truck prices fell by $43 last week, also similar to the $46 drop the week prior. Trucks continue to lead the pack in terms of price retention.

In fact, the compact SUVs enjoyed their third consecutive week of price increases, rising $71 last week.

Other strong performing segments were the full-size pickups with a drop of $6, the midsize SUVs with a decline of $9, and both the full-size vans and wagons with declines of $12 and $7, respectively.

“Except for the larger drop the prior week for the midsize SUVs, these have been our better performers over the past month or so,” said Beggs.

On the other hand, some of the larger models aren’t holding their prices up quite as well.

For example, the full-size SUVs saw a drop of $114 last week, while the full-size crossovers fell by $95. Luxury SUVs also saw a larger-than-average decline with an $85 downturn turn.

Beggs said, “One would think the continuing falling gas prices would get a better reaction from these full-size utilities.”

Gas prices continued to fall last week, dropping to an average of $2.07 per gallon, according to Black Book.

To view the latest “Beggs on The Used Car Market Report”, see above.