LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -

If dealers had electricity and internet access, they were buying vehicles at auction last week, no matter how cold it became or strange it appeared to see locations with both palm trees and snow.

Black Book analysts said auction sales rates remained strong last week despite places like the entire state of Texas being under winter storm warnings. Analysts elaborated about how prices, volume, bidding and buying continued to be influenced by the spring market as well as the pandemic.

In the latest Market Update, Black Book explained that no-sales often arrived as a result of “sellers holding very firm to floors and not lack of bidder interest.

“Overall, bidding activity was strong across the country,” analysts continued. “Even with the poor weather plaguing so many locations, the comfort level of buyers utilizing the digital platform kept the sales rates strong.”

“Remarketers continue to report limited volume in their pipeline, so they are holding firm to floors because of this knowledge. In some cases, they are willing to turn away a buyer over as little as $100,” Black Book went on to say.

“Bidding activity was strong from all buyers, with some lanes even seeing the smaller independents squeezing the larger independents out of the bidding with their determination to secure inventory,” analysts added.

With that activity in mind, Black Book reported that overall market values rose 0.43% last week compared to the previous week.

Truck values didn’t climb quite that much, as volume-weight data for trucks, vans and SUVs showed a 0.33% increase. However, on the car side, the value jump was more, as analysts pegged it at 0.61%.

Black Book noticed sporty cars generated the largest increase among cars as the “seasonally sensitive segment” made it four consecutive weeks of rise with value increase of 1.09%.

Another car segment that’s making seasonal moves are compact cars. Black Book reported the popular tax-season segment now is in the midst of five straight weeks of value jumps with the most recent improvement coming in at 0.99%.

Values in only one of the nine car segments softened last week, but analysts said the dip for near luxury cars was only 0.10%.

Over in the truck space, all of those packages from Amazon and other online retails arriving at your door continues to impact two segments.

“Supply of delivery vans continues to be low and this is seen in the gains of the compact and full-size van segments,” analysts said about these models that posted value gains of 1.26% and 0.36%, respectively.

The value increase for full-size trucks jumped significantly this past week as Black Book reported the gain by these popular units climbing from an increase of 0.29% to a rise of 0.46%.

Like cars, trucks only had one segment sustain a value decline last week, according to Black Book’s data. The full-size luxury crossover/SUV segment dipped by 0.15%.