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.

I've been car shopping around Austin for the past month and the used car market makes zero sense right now.

I'm looking at a 2024 Honda Civic Sport with around 20,000 miles and dealers here want $26,000 to $28,000 for it. A brand new 2026 Honda Civic Sport at the dealerships on I-35 is listed at $27,790.

So I'm paying basically the same price for a car that someone else already drove for a year.

But here's where it gets really weird. Used car loan rates right now are averaging 10% to 12% APR. New car loans are running 6% to 7% and some manufacturers are doing promotional rates between 2% and 4%. Over five years that interest rate difference adds thousands of dollars even if the sticker price is identical.

Plus with new you get the full warranty, no mystery about how the previous owner treated it, and all the latest safety tech. When did this whole thing flip around?

I always heard you should buy a car that's two to three years old to avoid the depreciation hit. But right now used inventory is still tight from the pandemic, prices haven't crashed like everyone predicted, new cars have way better financing because dealers are trying to move inventory, and manufacturers are actually incentivizing new purchases with rebates.

My father keeps telling me never buy new but he bought his last car in 2015 when the market was completely different. Used was actually cheaper back then and interest rates were pretty similar between new and used.

I'm also seeing certified pre-owned cars that end up being more expensive than new once you factor in the interest rate difference over the loan term. Used EVs are depreciating fast which could be an option but then I worry about charging infrastructure and whether the battery will last.

What are people actually doing right now? Is the old advice to buy used basically dead for 2026? Should I just get new while the financing deals are good or wait and hope the market corrects? This all feels completely backwards.

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??