Posted on 08/04/2022 9:11:56 AM PDT by Signalman
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — A perfect economic storm of inflation, soaring gas prices and the unintended consequences of the federal pandemic relief programs is closing in on many car owners.
“We’re talking, on average, 15,000 repos a day nationwide,” said Mark Zane, owner of a repossession company and president of the Nevada Association of Licensed Repossessors.
Zane says repossessions were all but non-existent during the pandemic because banks were working with car owners to defer payments or help them get caught up.
Those days are ending, however, and banks are taking the necessary steps to start the repossession process on vehicles in default.
“Right now, we're seeing a slow move because of the banks and the national lenders have to wait until their criteria is hit with default,” said Zane. “So, if the criteria of lender X was 90 days and we sent out a report, we're in that 90-day period right now where you had a lot of people that were able to get caught up on their car because they didn't have those old back payments.”
“Right now we're in the middle of waiting for the default to hit,” Zane said. “Our big problem is we're telling the national lenders don't wait that long, because if you hit us and blow us up with everything that we believe is coming because of the way the economy is currently, then we're not going to be able to service those contracts.”
While many car owners are struggling to make their monthly payments because of inflation and high gas prices, economist Mike PeQueen says the source of the problem can be traced back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people, flush with stimulus checks, decided to buy a car they would eventually struggle to pay for when the government money stopped.
“If this were really a bad trend, we would see repossessions from across the board - people that bought in a four- or five-year period,” PeQueen said. “But it's really just limited to that two-year period where the majority of this is which does seem to indicate that it was a strange time, which we knew. And people made strange economic decisions based on how much money they had in their pocket, which was not a sustainable amount of money.”
There is an upside, however, according to PeQueen. While used car prices soared during the pandemic, adding more inventory by way of repossession should help bring prices back down.
“A picture of repossession of automobiles above average for the next several months is not something positive for the economy, that's for certain,” said PeQueen. “What it will do is probably take some of the steam out of the used car market,” he added. “That is probably over now with this new supply of cars coming in from the repo side of things.”
That’s why I paid cash no way would I stick my neck out with libtards in charge of the economy
I guess not all those stimulus checks went to tattoos and weed.
Yeah, nobody saw that coming (rolling eyes)
What are “Payments”?
If you can’t pay cash, you can’t afford it.
Or hair extensions.
Truth
15,000 a day?
Oh my.
Does carfax tell you if a vehicle was repossessed? It would be a bad idea to buy anything previously owned by a deadbeat
I saw somewhere that the average new car sale was like $46K.
Are there really that many people who have that kind of money?
I just checks a Carfax for a 2022 Toyota 4Runner with 7000 miles on it. Figured it was a repo, and nothing was mentioned on the Carfax.
LOL, well not all of it anyway.
I know the repossession types well. They are actually RELIEVED when the car is taken back. Who cares if their credit takes a hit?
Got a mailer from a local Ford dealer yesterday offering incentives on pickups and suvs. Looks like the shortages are going to go away pretty quickly.
Will be getting good deals on cars due to that actions of irresponsible people.
Don’t worry the Democrats will bail them out.
Low fixed rate loan doesn’t look so bad when inflation is 8% higher than your borrowed money. Of course, if you put the saved cash into the stock or bond market, losses exceed gains, so there is that
Why does not Biden propose their car loans be forgiven?
Because car buyers, unlike the education establishment, is not a single block of potential election campaign donors to the Dims, so Dims can’t buy their votes.
If the Dims really wanted to help their “Liberal” students, they’d make the “Liberal” colleges pay off the loans their students incurred from their indoctrination courses. But 100% of federal aid to higher education is about protecting the education industrial establishment from accountability for its outrageously excessive costs to students.
Someone with a car loan? Could be a Conservative, an independent or something else but no guarantee it’s a Dim and no guarantee they’d become a Dim if Biden got their car loan paid off. But college students - that’s an already woke community, so they “deserve” Biden’s help.
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