Government Car Auctions Numbers Down: Saving Money On Used Cars For Sale Still Possible?

Online, May 13, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The amount of searches for government car auctions in the US have dropped approximately 50% since April, 2009. The reasons behind this phenomenon may be many, but one of them appear as the most probable cause: the simple fact that many Americans perceive the current crisis as something of the past. Nonetheless, a few people are still going against the general trend and making thousands of dollars by buying used cars at government car auctions.

Since the beginning of the global economic crisis, the American public started searching for new places to continue buying cheap used cars. With the aid of the ubiquitous internet, many individuals discovered terms like "government car auctions", "repossessed cars" and "police seized cars", and these discoveries led to thousands of dollars in savings and profits. "The rumors of regular people buying used cars for sale at 70%-90% less than their regular price spread like fire", tells us Sean Rye, professional car dealer and head of Incredible Products publishing. "Word of mouth ignited and helped propel the new gold rush", he adds.

These days, however, the popularity of government car auctions and repossessed auto auctions is at the lowest point in the last 12 months. According to Google's insight tool, the number of searches for the term "government car auctions" is down almost 50% in comparison to April, 2009. This tendency reflects what happens offline as well. "You don't see as many new folks around these car auctions as we used to a few months back", says Tim Hutts, car dealer from New Jersey. "They seem to be buying again from private owners".

After analyzing data from a 3 month survey among used car buyers across the United States (with over thirteen hundred people interviewed), Sean Rye confirms a decline of almost 30 percent in the number of used car buyers attending government car auctions. "When asked, most of them tell us that they no longer see a reason to attend a government auto auction.", tells us Mr. Rye."It's not that they don't see the benefits of government auctions, but since they don't feel they are in a crisis anymore, they'd rather go with a more hands-free approach".

All this, however, doesn't mean that everybody's fleeing government car auctions. In fact, along with professional car dealers for whom auto auctions have always been at the center of their business, a small number of individuals are still bidding at government auto auctions and benefiting greatly from the lack of competition. "These are often times the smart ones who have turned a hobby like bidding at a government car auction into a lucrative business", concludes Mr. Hutts.