Used Cars Under $20K Are Vanishing

Summary: 

• The average used car’s price has increased by 47.7 percent since the pandemic

• Used cars priced under $20,000 made up 49.3 percent of the market in 2019; they now make up just 12.4 percent of the market in 2023

• More than half of today’s used cars (1- to 5-years old) also have 20 percent or more miles than they did 3 years ago, meaning buyers have to pay more money for cars that have been driven substantially farther

• In 2019, about 50 percent of used Honda CR-Vs and Toyota RAV4s cost less than $20,000, but in 2023 only 2 percent of them are priced under $20,000, and these same used models also have twice as much mileage as they did in 2019

The surge in used car prices has been obvious over the past few years. iSeeCars.com’s latest study not only demonstrates the practical effects of this dramatic rise in used car costs, but also confirms shoppers must pay these higher prices despite a substantial increase in used car mileage. For some of the best-selling cars, buyers are faced with used models having over twice as many miles compared to the pre-pandemic market, while paying 25 to 50 percent higher prices.

iSeeCars analyzed over 10.8 million 1- to 5-year-old used cars and found the average used car cost $22,493 in 2015, with a slight bump to $23,351 in 2019. But over the last four years, used car prices have exploded – ballooning to $34,491 in 2023, which is a 47.7 percent rise, averaging more than 10 percent each year.

“Among the pandemic’s many casualties is the affordable used car, which has nearly vanished from the used car marketplace,” said iSeeCars’ Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “In 2019, used car shoppers with a budget of $15,000 could afford over 20 percent of the late-model used car market. Today that budget only gets them access to 1.6 percent of the market.”

While they only made up 3 percent of the used car market in 2019, shoppers could still find models with less than 75,000 miles on the odometer for under $10,000 in 2019. Now those cars are gone, with only 1.5 percent costing under $15,000 and around 11 percent priced between $15,001 and $20,000.

Within the sub-$20,000 price range, the average used car’s mileage was 43,541 in 2019. Now it’s 63,457, an increase of 45.7 percent. For added perspective, in 2015 cars costing up to $20,000 made up 52.7 percent of sales, and the average mileage of these cars was 44,777. Across all price points, more than half of cars sold in 2023 have at least 20 percent more mileage than similarly priced cars in 2019.

“During the pandemic lockdowns one of the few things people could still do was take a drive, and clearly many of them did,” said Brauer. “This drove up the mileage across the used car market, but the supply of new and used cars was so constricted that the additional mileage didn’t hurt used car prices – they still went up.”

Popular Cars That Cost Between 25% and 57% More Today

Below are some of America’s best-selling cars and their changes in used-car pricing from 2019 to 2023. Nine of these cars cost less than $20,000 in 2019, and all but two of them averaged less than $30,000. Today only the Hyundai Elantra still costs less than $20,000, and eight models cost more than $30,000. Examples of mainstream models that no longer cost less than $20,000 in the used car market include the Honda Accord and Civic, the Hyundai Tucson, the Nissan Rogue, and the Toyota Camry and Corolla.

“Two popular compact SUVs, the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, increased in price 37.1 percent and 41 percent, respectively, over the last 4 years,” said Brauer. “These price increases occurred despite a doubling of the average mileage on these same used models, from less than 50,000 miles in 2019 to over 100,000 miles in 2023.”