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Used car prices in Syracuse are higher than the national average

Used cars sitting in a lot.
Deposit Photos
Used cars sitting in a lot.

If you’ve been looking for a new or used vehicle car and are having a problem finding exactly what you want and at a price you can afford, it’s no small task. An auto expert evaluates how Syracuse ranks against the national average.

The national average used car price in July was $34,291 which represents a year-over-year increase of 10.9%. In Syracuse, the average price last month for a used vehicle was $31,185. So, that must be good, right? Not really. Prices have been trending-up locally since May according to data from the website iSeeCars. In fact, Executive Analyst Karl Brauer says used vehicle prices in Onondaga County increased in July compared to the same month a year ago.

REPORTER: "You've given us some data about the Syracuse market last month, I hear that we are actually exceeding the national average"

"Yeah, exactly, so it's up even higher there by 15%, so it's just showing that there's a lot of demand right there in the Syracuse area that's above the national level," Brauer said.

REPORTER: "What does that mean for buyers in the market for a vehicle?"

"Well you know, because it's very regional, on how much prices go up, I think it means some other things that if you were searching for a new used car in the Syracuse area you might do better to go to another location, to look further out and not just look locally in that area. And of course, you can do that now, that's the beauty of today's world, you can check prices for vehicles across the country or out a couple hundred miles versus only looking right in your local area," Brauer said.

And there is a potential bright spot in searching further away. Brauer says there are some positive breaks in used vehicle pricing.

"So, across the country, we were seeing increases of around 10%, which sounds like a lot and it certainly isn't something people are happy about, but we were actually seeing much higher increases of like 30 plus percent a year plus ago. It looks like prices are slowly stabilizing the last few months, and they're still higher, they're stabilizing at a much higher level than they were before the pandemic, but at least they're not continuing to go up," Brauer said.

He suggests those in the market for a vehicle searching for a specific year, make, and model look locally and then expand a couple of hundred miles out and see if they notice falling prices.