CARY, N.C. -

The number of vehicles up to 8 years old sold at auction fell by 5 percent to 360,700 over the four-week period ending April 25 compared to the four weeks prior, according to NADA Used Car Guide's monthly used-car update.

While sales of 2016 units increased by 46 percent to 12,500, sales for other model years fell over that same period. Of note, however, was a large increase in 2015 model-year sales during the last week of April, which jumped by 24 percent compared to the previous three-week average, bringing the total to nearly 21,000 vehicles.

As had been previously noted, sales volume of 2015 model-year vehicles, most of which are off-rental units, has been running at a deficit relative to 2014 volume last year. Interestingly, however, registration data shows that more 2015 units were sold into rental fleets over a similar period than 2014 units.

“On a cumulative basis, we’ve still seen more 2014 vehicles go through auction than 2015 vehicles,” said Larry Dixon, senior manager for market intelligence at NADA Used Car Guide. 

This increase in sales of 2015 models recorded over the last week of April could indicate that rental companies are finally set to exceed last year’s 1-year-old sales by remarketing larger numbers of 2015 units of the coming weeks.

How will this affect pricing?

“Without a commensurate rise in demand, a concentrated rise in higher auction volume would lead to softer prices … not just for the 2015 model year, but for other model years as well to varying degrees,” Dixon said, noting that there should be a logical relationship between pricing across model years.

Dixon pointed out that while 2015 model-year auction sales were up in the last week of April, they leveled off in the first week of May. (Week 2 data is not yet available.)

Sales at auction of late-model vehicles (up to 3 years old) climbed to 887,700 units through the end of April, a 10-percent increase over last year.

Sales of large pickups were up the most over a four-month period (41 percent), followed by subcompact cars and compact utilities, for which sales were 30 percent higher.

Midsize van, large car and luxury car sales fell by 22 percent to 29 percent.

Sales volume share was dominated by midsize cars (19 percent), compact cars (16 percent) and compact utilities (12 percent). Combined, those segments accounted for 47 percent of late-model auction sales year to date.