WASHINGTON–In what won’t be a surprise to anyone in credit unions shopping for a car or to credit unions that make auto loans, new car prices are up 12.6% from a year ago and used car prices are up 16.1%, according to new government data.
And now, in addition to the higher cost, the costs to consumers and members are only expected to be pushed up further following the 75-basis point increase in rates by the Fed last week.
According to data from Edmunds.com provided to CNBC, the monthly costs to finance a vehicle purchase have hit record highs. Consumers face monthly payments averaging $656 for a new car, financed at 5.1% over 70.5 months, the Edmunds.com data showed. For used cars, the average monthly payment is $546, with an average rate of 8.2% and loan length of 70.8 months, the same data show.
"Simply put, there is not enough supply of sellable vehicles to support demand," Jeff Schuster, LMC Automotive's president of Americas operations and global vehicle forecasts, stated in a forecast published jointly with J.D. Power and reported by CNBC.
Even Less Affordable
For new cars, the average transaction price was an estimated $44,832 in May, according to the J.D. Power/LMC Automotive forecast cited by the news outlet. For used cars, consumers are paying an average $31,450, according to CoPilot, a car shopping app.
CNBC further cited an affordability index published by Cox Automotive and Moody's Analytics that showed the number of median weeks of income needed to purchase a new car rose to 41.3 weeks in May from 40.8 weeks in April —up from about 35 weeks a year earlier.
The Very Best in CU Reporting. For You. For Free
Don’t forget to check your Spam/Junk email folder if you haven’t been receiving your free, popular and daily CUToday.info news headlines.
And if you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time.
CUToday.info has received very positive response from readers following the move to an improved provider of the daily headlines, but many also noted they did need to go to their Spam/Junk folder and mark it as safe.
The new email solution has not only improved every reader’s delivery experience, but it also features a fresh, new format that is easy to read, especially on mobile devices.
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com.