The USA needs to sell roughly 15 million new cars a year to maintain an adequate supply of used cars. Falling below that target will cause used car prices to rise in the following years.

The lack of new cars is driving up demand for used cars. Supply chain issues in new products increases used product value if demand is there.

What happened 12 years ago? 2008 happened, and resulted in a decade of incredibly low new-vehicle output. Add in the Cash for Clunkers program, and used inventory levels are about as low as they’ve ever been. This is the same as the housing market, the result of a decade of underbuilding.

Couple that with stimulus money making down payments easy, and low interest rates keeping monthly payments low, and you have a recipe for prices to take off like a rocket, from both ends of the supply-demand curve.

New cars aren’t available due to chip shortages, which enhances demand for used cars.

That being said, if you happen to have an extra car, now is probably the best time to sell it in recent history.