Sandy to drive up prices of used cars

Expect used car prices to rise nationally because of superstorm Sandy.

The storm destroyed about 250,000 used vehicles on the East Coast, and maybe more, according to estimates by the National Automobile Dealers Association.

That puts pressure on what already is a tight supply of good-condition, late-model used cars and could push prices for such vehicles up by as much as 1.5 percent in December, said Jonathan Banks, an analyst with NADA.

The dealer group said that amounts to up to $175 for the average used vehicle.

Auto information company Edmunds.com projects a higher estimate, saying that used car prices will climb $700 to $1,000 "in the short term."

While this will be felt most keenly on the East Coast, the rest of the nation is not immune, Banks said.

"We have seen a trend for dealers, regardless of where they are located, buying inventory online, and that means that geography is not as important as in the past," he said. "It used to be that dealers would buy cars from a physical auction near their dealership."

The problem is compounded by at least tens of thousands of new cars that were destroyed both at dealerships and storage yards in the New York and New Jersey areas hit hardest by the storm.

"Many dealers lost a significant amount of inventory. One Honda dealer told me he lost 600 new units," Banks said.

Fisker Automotive, the Anaheim, Calif., maker of high-end plug-in hybrid sports cars, said it lost 30 vehicles with a retail value of $30 million at a port storage facility in New Jersey. A spokesman said the cars were insured and the company won't suffer a financial loss.

Toyota has said it lost as many as 4,500 new Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles to flooding and storm damage.

All of this is going to create problems for consumers in the region who need to replace their rides quickly.

The dealers group believes some replacement buying will start this month but will pick up in December and run through February.

It takes time for people to collect payments from insurance companies and shop for a replacement car.

The buying, however, should provide a boost for the economy, said Edmunds.com chief economist Lacey Plache.

"Even if 100,000 damaged vehicles are replaced by the end of the year it could boost auto sales 3 percent to 4 percent for the quarter, and that has a positive effect on the economy overall," Plache said.

Edmunds.com estimates that 20 percent of new car sales in the U.S. come from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast region affected by the storm.