Surging volume in this consignor segment drives late-model gains at auction

Dealers looking to acquire later-model used vehicles in February were finding them in a rather traditional channel: the auto auction.

But the source is not the consignor segment that might first come to mind when discussing this age group.

According to the latest AuctionNet data from the National Auto Auction Association, overall wholesale auction sales jumped 2.9% year-over-year last month on a selling-day-adjusted-basis and beat January figures by 3.5%.

NAAA attributed the spike in auction volumes largely to the gains for 1- to 3-year-old vehicles, where sales were up 10% year-over-year.

And it wasn’t off-lease leading the way.

Driving that was 31.5% spike in the rental unit-heavy 2-year-old vehicle segment, NAAA said.

There was a 3.9% uptick for 3-year-old vehicles, while 4- to 6-year-old vehicle volume was down 6.6%. There was 4% growth in auction sales of vehicles 7 years or older, according to NAAA’s data.

Commercial consignment sales jumped 10% year-over-year in February, after a 12% hike in January. Dealer sales, meanwhile, were up just 1% — the shortest gain in five months — after growing more than 12% in January.

Year-to-date auction sales are at 1.174 million units, a 4.4% increase.

“Looking ahead, wholesale prices typically rise over a given first quarter as consumer tax refunds are used to purchase larger numbers of used vehicles,” Larry Dixon, who is the vice president of Auction Data Solutions/AuctionNet at NAAA, said in analysis around the data.

“The degree to which wholesale prices rise over the quarter this year (if they do) will be heavily influenced by the effect of tariffs on new-vehicle prices, consumer confidence and outlook, and near-term trends in wholesale supply, particularly off-lease supply which is scheduled to fall acutely as the year progresses.”

Dixon is among the inaugural honorees in Automotive Intelligence Awards: Industry Analysts program.  He joined the Auto Remarketing Podcast to discuss his career journey and his passion for “connecting the dots” between sharing data/information and explaining the “why” behind those numbers.

That conversation can be found below. Also below is the full data set from NAAA on AuctionNet volumes.

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.