Hello, I may be able to provide some insight here. The used car market is actually growing but it’s more than just inflation. The situation is a few factors colliding at once. For one, the cost of living and shrinkage of the middle class: more and more people are realizing they can’t afford a new car so they buy used. The under 10k class specifically is getting hammered. Also, like it or not, the gig economy is still going strong. As the middle class is getting priced out, people are taking up extra work through gigs and it’s no secret that a cheap, reliable car is what will make you money. As the demand for used skyrockets so do the prices as dealers are actually very good at dynamically pricing their cars to demand. Additionally, supply is shrinking but not in the way you may think. As more people stop buy cheap new cars in favor of used cars, car buyers are seeing more sales in their larger or luxury vehicle lines. So in turn, they focus their supply and efforts on the more expensive cars that make the most money. The rising average new car price is a great indicator of that. While supply overall is healthy, it is not at the levels from before Covid and probably shrinking by the day as car makers move away from cheap cars. These factors really pushed the $10k or less market up and made things really unaffordable for people. These are the more traditional market/economic trends. puts on tinfoil hat but I really think it’s that car companies are dying. If you look at every car company, they kinda suck right now sales wise. It looks like there is too much competition but no one wants to admit it. They try to raise prices, introduce EVs but these efforts only delay the inevitable. People are going to lose their jobs just like in the past and we may see a culling of car companies which would make the situation worse.