Unfortunately when you need transport, it more often than not becomes worth whatever the price they charge is. A lot of unfortunate people fall into awful loans because they lack viable transport options otherwise. Rto hasn't helped at all either.
Agreed. I wish people in general were more confident in repairing their cars, because that's a great way to put off a big purchase. However, I just mentioned to a coworker a repair I did (which saved me like $800-1000), and they were shocked and didn't understand how I could do it (basically ripped apart the dash and sent the odometer chip to a repair place; if I didn't suck at soldering, I could've saved another $70 or so).
But most aren't, or they don't have space to do it even if they had that confidence. And the result is getting sucked into paying 10% interest over a 7-year term in 2020/2021 because your car broke down at just the wrong time and parts aren't generally available.
However, the silver lining is that the more people that default, the better the used car market will get, so there will be more options for people who can't afford new cars. So I think it'll even itself out, it just might take a year or two to stabilize. I'm in the market for a car, and honestly, the options suck. The cars I want are out of stock, and the cars that are readily available are available for a reason. I've never financed a car (newest car I bought was 8 years old), but it's looking like that's the best option right now. So, I'm holding off and just maintaining our aging cars (both >15yo), but that's not a realistic option for a lot of people.
Good news for the used car market. Lots of new inventory about to become available.
Bad news for American car manufacturers, who are already struggling while they're in limbo between ICE and EV and can't commit to either, but certainly will help to correct used car prices.
There's data for that. At least as of Jan, it has largely stabilized (as in, rate of forclosures isn't increasing), and it's way below pre-2008 levels. The foreclosure rate seems to track pretty closely with rate increases, and that's held steady for about a year now, and there's talk of a small decrease.
So I don't think house repos are related at all to the trigger for the headline. I'm guessing a lot of the car repos are due to paying way too much for an EV (the used EV market is really attractive right now) or luxury ICE (average purchase price Is way above modest new car prices), and then losing a job (lots of tech layoffs recently). I'd like to see more details, but I highly doubt regular working class cars are getting repoed.
Oh it's so much more than the just the car market. Housing is too expensive as well. And so many other goods and services. I don't know anyone that's not in crazy debt