Through two months of the year, auction volume is up 8 percent against comparable weeks of 2014, according to the latest Economic Dashboard prepared by Ira Silver, the chief economist at the National Auto Auction Association.

For the month of February, auction volume jumped 5.2 percent year-over-year, the report indicated. January auction volume climbed 10.7 percent.

And those increases aren’t expected to stop any time soon, as NAAA president Ellie Johnson emphasized during a presentation at last week’s NAAA/IARA/CAR Conference in Las Vegas.

Citing Silver in her speech, Johnson said that, “there is good news ahead for the auctions. We can expect that the auction unit growth that began in 2012 will continue throughout 2015 and also 2016, for the longest string of yearly gains in the history of the data, which goes to 1997.”

She also noted that while commercial consignment will make up the lion’s share of the increases, expect dealer consignment units to climb each year, as well.

“On the business level, auctions will need to be prepared for more unit volume and to take advantage of this extended good business environment,” Johnson said.

More Data Points on Volume

In its Guidelines report for March, NADA Used Car Guide said that February auction volume for vehicles between 1 and 8 years old was steady on a month-over-month basis at just under 323,000 units.

Off-rental-heavy 2014 model-year volume was down 2 percent, coming in slightly above 65,000 units. This marked the first decrease in over six months, NADA indicated.

“However, volume for the more off-lease-laden 2012 and 2013 model years increased by an average of 7 percent to 62,000 and 51,300, respectively,” NADA Used Car Guide’s Jonathan Banks explained in the report.

“Conversely, waning off-lease supply led to a 9-percent drop in 2011 model-year volume, while the number of remaining model-year units fell by an average of 4 percent,” Banks continued. “Although auction supply fell relative to January, the month finished with volume almost 5 percent higher than it was last February, thereby pushing the year-to-date change in volume up to 6.6 percent.”