Commercial consignor sales at auction reflect strength in off-rental, repo volumes

Auction sales of 2-year-old vehicles from commercial consignors climbed nearly 32% year-over-year in November and beat October numbers by 4%. Through 11 months of the year, sales of these vehicles have jumped 33.6% from the same period of 2024.

What does this indicate?

For one, it means that “rental fleets continue to remarket larger quantities of out-of-service vehicles,” the National Auto Auction Association said.

This off-rental-heavy age group was perhaps the standout from the commercial consignor segment, which continues to buoy overall auction sales numbers, NAAA said in analysis accompanying its latest AuctionNet data.

Commercial consignor sales were up 12% year-over-year in November, lifting overall auction sales by 1.2%, selling-day adjusted, as dealer sales at auction softened over 5%, NAAA said.

Typically, auction sales in November dip from October, and last month was no exception, with a sequential decline of more than 5%.

The month-over-month decline in sales volume was 7% for dealer consignment, but only 0.8% for commercial consignment, the association said.

Another standout from the commercial segment: vehicles 7 years and older.

In November, this age group, “also continued a more than year long run of double-digit growth, which reflects the elevated repossession environment that’s been in place since early 2024,” NAAA vice president Larry Dixon said in the analysis.

“Specifically, prior-year growth for the age group averaged 22% in the five months leading up to November, with growth moderating slightly to 19% year-over-year in November (selling day adjusted),” Dixon said.

Through 11 months, there has been close to an 18% rise in sales of commercial vehicles at least 7 years old.

Looking the age group spread among dealer consignment volume, Dixon said, “Dealer sales of vehicles up to 6 years old, which are increasingly in high demand given the ongoing rise in new-vehicle prices, were down 12% compared to last November and 6% versus October last month. Year-to-date, auction sales for the group are down 1.7%.”

As for vehicle types, the year-over-year changes were mixed. Compact car sales were down 3.7% in November, while compact crossover/SUV sales rose 8.2% and compact luxury crossover/SUV sales were up 6.2%, NAAA said.

There was a 4.8% hike in full-size pickup sales last month, while luxury car sales fell 5.3% and midsize car sales were off 3.4%.

Midsize crossover/SUV sales rose 3.5% and midsize luxury crossover/SUV figures rose 4.6%.

“Sales at the segment level continue to follow familiar trends, which will continue to be the case moving forward given their new vehicle sales trajectory (i.e., car volume continues to fall, while truck and utility sales continue to grow),” Dixon said.

There were 11,481 EV sales at auction last month, which beat year-ago numbers by 32.5%, NAAA said. Through November, there have been nearly 150,000 EV auction sales, which represents a little more than 2% of the market.

Their retention continues to be challenging, NAAA said. EV retention came in at 34.2% in November, down from 35.6% in October.

“Put another way, an EV with a new vehicle price of $70,000 three years ago has lost roughly $46,000 in value since,” Dixon said.

Looking at overall numbers, he added: “Following October’s 4.4% fall versus September, depreciation was slightly better (and more seasonally ‘typical’) in November, with prices dropping 3.3% compared to October. For context, monthly depreciation averaged 3.6% in November from 2022-2024.”

Note: This is part of a monthly series in which Auto Remarketing shares AuctionNet data and commentary provided by the National Auto Auction Association.

As noted by the organization, more than 260 NAAA member auctions power AuctionNet, making it the most comprehensive source of wholesale auto auction sales data in the U.S. Unless otherwise noted, auction sales figures are based on total reporting auctions, the number and composition of which may vary over time.  Data below courtesy of AuctionNet/NAAA.