McLEAN, Va. -

Used-vehicle values have come down a bit lately, but that shouldn’t be seen as prices being soft. It’s quite the opposite, actually.

The National Automobile Dealers Association is calling for used prices to climb roughly 2 percent for full-year 2012, says Jonathan Banks, senior analyst with NADA Used Car Guide.

Banks was explaining some happenings in the new- and used-car market in the latest “AutoFocus with David Hyatt" video interview posted to NADAFrontPage.com.

He noted the “incredibly strong” new-vehicle sales, which were at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 14 million in July. And with this influx of new-car sales comes a bevy of trade-ins, which would help alleviate some used-car supply concerns. However, take that with a grain of salt, Banks noted.

“A lot of analysts are saying that supply is more readily available for all the dealers, which is true for the franchised dealers who are getting the vehicles back with the new-vehicle purchase,” Banks explained. “But, in fact, our data shows (from NAAA) that auction volume is down substantially year-over-year.”

And that’s where the impact on used prices comes in. Used values “are still really strong,” Banks said, despite the fact they have dipped a bit recently.

He emphasized further that although used prices have slowed down, “they’re dropping off of really high levels. NADA still remains very bullish on used-vehicle prices.”

Banks added: “In fact, we’re predicting used prices to come out about 2 percent higher in 2012 compared to a really strong year in 2011.”

RVI Tackles Used Price Trends

RVI Group also shared some used-car pricing trends, as the firm released its RVI Market Update on Friday afternoon. It found that wholesale values (for vehicles two to five years old) were up 0.5 percent month-over-month in July, but jumped 2.1 percent year-over-year.

Specifically, the RVI Used Car Price Index was at 1.453 for the month.

RVI noted that there was some discrepancy regarding price movement within different age groups.

“Although wholesale values (seasonally adjusted; two- to five-year-old vehicles) remained somewhat flat in July, three- to five-year-old vehicles declined by 0.2 percent with the five-year-old models declining the most in our index (down 0.6 percent),” officials shared.