Jan. 30, 2014—Cars.com, an online resource for car buyers, announced Thursday that the average transaction price for light vehicles in the U.S. dropped in January.
Average transaction prices in January of this year were $29,882, down $356 (1.2 percent) from January 2013. And that’s a $1,032 (-3.3 percent) drop from December.
"After what appeared to be an unstoppable run, transaction prices finally experienced a measurable drop in January," said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst for Cars.com. "The Dow dropped more than 500 points causing buyers to hesitate in purchasing vehicles with higher price tags, while vehicles under $30,000 carried the industry sales to an essentially flat performance. Even though the incentives dropped this month, the current pace of inventory accumulation at the dealerships has the potential to cause heated incentive battles in competitive segments in the coming months."
Cars.com estimated that the average incentive for light vehicles was $2,383 in January, down $151 (6 percent) from January 2013, and down $425 (-15.1 percent) from December 2013.
