MASON CITY, IA - Careful consumers are spending their summer looking through used car lots. Even though the average price this summer for a three-year-old vehicle is a little more than $19 thousand. That's up ten percent from the year before"Business right now is fantastic. People are out, people are trading cars, getting new cars getting used cars and people are out buying cars."
Don O'Connor from Schukei Chevrolet says business is good but manufacturers are not making as many new cars as they used to. That’s affecting the number of pre-owned cars available.
O’Connor says "cash for clunkers" cleaned out all the “junkers” from the lots. The cars here are now worth more and more people are trading in earlier to cash in on their vehicles extra value.
"The car that they own has gone up in value which has made it easier to trade a puts more equity in their pockets."
More money in pocketbooks means consumers are also in a better mood to buy. That's something the Schukei dealership is slowly starting to see.
"The economy is slowly coming back, we're a long ways from being perfect but it's coming back."
O’Connor says along with new vehicles, folks in the area also don't seem to mind spending a little extra on a good used car.
