We will be in the market for a car fairly soon. Financially, I wanted to wait until February or so to use our tax return for down payment. But I read online that December is the best time to buy and tax return time is a terrible time to buy.

Does this make much difference in reality?

I could probably borrow some money from family, get the car by year end, and pay them back at tax time if it makes a big difference. But I’d obviously rather not.

So I'm in the upper midwest, and this week my mom's '23 compact SUV that she just got last year got totaled by baseball sized hail. It would be safe and driveable for way less than insurance will pay out, but she actually hated the thing and wanted to trade it as soon as she was settled at her new apartment. Since a bunch of hail dents and a salvage title will very much hurt trade in value, our best financial bet is probably to take the payout. She doesn't have great credit (hasn't had loans since she and my dad lost their house in the 2008 recession), but I think it's mostly a lack of credit history outside of bills, since the foreclosure shouldn't be on there anymore. That is to say, no low/zero interest rate deals for us!

My main question is, her sister said if we can go a couple months without a car and wait for the market to cool off we might get a better deal.... how true would that be? There have been thousands of totaled cars just in my mid-size city, and that's not including the supply from dealerships being affected from the storms as well. Even the cities we'd normally go to about 90-100 miles away for cheaper cars have been having prices rise (I think, I feel like I have seen a shift since I started looking online Tuesday) because they've also been hit by hail, tornadoes, and flooding. I'm just not convinced this will go away soon, and since we no longer live together sharing a car would be pretty hard, but not impossible for the short term. It's kind of a weird situation and it would be great to get some outside perspective from people who know the market better than I!

As per above. The market is changing so rapidly within the past 6 months it seems, and there is more to come. I just started a new job and I do need a car for it, but my current beater works just not sure how long it's gonna last since it's real beat. Since I just started the new job, I know I'll have more savings later down the line but I'm worried about the car market getting worse 6 months from now. Thanks for the insight

I've been looking at used cars for a couple of months because my car is getting up there in age and miles. I wanted something cool. but now with everything going on, I thought I'd look for something with better gas mileage since I commute to work. I worry about spending the money on a car, and then things getting worse and not having a lot of emergency funds, but on the other hand I remember the prices of used cars skyrocketing during covid and never coming back down. thoughts??