Last year I noticed the CarMax nationwide inventory ballooned up from just over 40,000 cars during the summer of 2017 to 73,000 cars in mid-November. Prompted me to do my amateur analytics piece called The $577 Million Car Loan and Other Fascinating CarMax “Analytics”. Here’s the link. Well here we are a year later (been blogging a year?! Perhaps time for a year in review piece?). Been watching the inventory levels creep up this summer from about 47,000 cars to about 62,000…..so far. That’s only 15,000 more cars compared to the 30,000 last year, but with an average selling price of $20,000 that’s still a $300 million increase in inventory on the lots nationwide this fall. Could that be why I got this alert dropping the price of a Mercedes by $12,000? When the inventory peaked last fall more and more cars on my saved list pinged with $1,000 price reductions. CarMax quarterly financials end on November 30th, annuals in February. I’ll be watching!
