Karl Brauer, executive analyst with Iseecars.com, joined Cheddar News to discuss what to consider if you're in the market for a new or used vehicle.

<div class="block">Karl Brauer, executive analyst with Iseecars.com, joined Cheddar News to discuss what to consider if you&#39;re in the market for a new or used vehicle.</div>

Closing Bell

Stretching Your Dollar: What to Consider Before Buying a Car

Right time. Now for stretching your dollar where we give you tangible tips to help you make the most of your money today is all about those who are looking to buy a car, whether you want a new car, a used car, an electric or a gas powered vehicle. Our expert is here to break down what you need to consider before a purchase. So joining me now is Carl Brauer executive analyst at I see cars dot com. Carl, thanks for joining. Absolutely. Great to be with you, Kristen. Ok. So let's start with the, the need to know items heading into this Memorial Day weekend if someone is in the market to buy a new vehicle. Yeah. Well, the good news is that we've come off the highs that we were at most of the last two years in terms of new and used car prices. We're not back to pre pandemic levels. Unfortunately, we're still well above those, but we're not at the record highs. We were at up until about probably 4 to 6 months ago. We're coming off of those. Now, when it comes to use versus new, what should consumers expect to pay and what should they look into when comparing the two? Yeah, you should really look for vehicles that are not drastically priced over MSRP. Once upon a time you could negotiate down from MSRP the last couple of years, you had to negotiate up from MSRP. But we do have cars that are within $1000 of their MS MS RP or less cars like the Mazda C nine and the Chrysler Pacifica, the Chevy Silverado you've got on the screen. These are vehicles that you can go get and they're within 1000 or less dollars of MSRP. And unfortunately, that's about the best you can do now, but that's better than it used to be on the used car side. Average car used car prices are well into the thirties. But we have these 27,000 or cheaper dollar cars that like the infinity QX 80 the Buick Envision Honda Civic, the Mazda three, the Volvo C 40 recharge which is an electric car. There is a good choice of new and used cars out there that are not outrageously priced. Whereas a year ago everything was expensive. Now, the market is fragmented. You do some research, you can find cars like this that are pretty good deals. What about electric versus gas power to carl, especially at a time where this summer we could see gas prices rise a little bit. Yeah, the electric car question has gotten a little trickier because the inflation reduction act that was passed, recently removed many of the cars that were getting the $7500 credit, but some still exist mostly the domestic produced cars because they're trying to encourage domestic production, which is good. But that means you have to look carefully to make sure your car that you're interested in gets the full $7500 credit. If it doesn't, you're going to pay more for an equivalent versus a traditional car. If you're in an urban area or a suburban area where you don't travel a long distance and you have regular access to charging points that can be fine. But you just have to keep that in mind. And if you're going to go on longer trips and not necessarily be near the infrastructure, commonly, you might want to stick with a traditional car. So you really just have to think about your situation. What makes sense for you are deals expected over the Memorial Day weekend, you will see some deals. As I said, the market has fragmented. So there are cars out there that will have incentives on them to come in and buy them. And hopefully maybe some interest rate incentives too because as we know, those are, those are high now. So if you could buy a car completely without a loan, that's great. That's not an option most people have. If you have to take a loan out, try to get as good a rate as you can try to have as low a balance as you can and look for these incentives, which will often give you lower interest rates than you would get from the local bank at today's rates. Yeah. Well, given some of the recent bank failures, carl that we've seen, I mean, anything that you would caution customers who are looking to take out a loan to make one of these purchases. Well, I think, yeah, you always want to be thinking about the banks that you're working with and hopefully, uh, you know, have a good, good idea of their stability. I think there's a wide range of banks out there. But if you've got a larger bank, I've got most of my money in one of the larger well known banks. Nothing's guaranteed. But I think that's, that's certainly what you'd want to do. But also again, if you can just avoid taking out as big a loan, that's the big one. Um, buy a used car, try to find one of the lower priced ones and take less of a loan out because you're going to pay a lot for a car. If you, if you finance it over an extended period of these rights, it'll really bump that price up that you had to pay for the car. So, do you think maybe people should hold out, stay on the sidelines or maybe there are still deals to be had because we've come off the highs it's not as bad to buy today as it would have been a year ago. But I think prices, there are more forces suggesting prices will continue to drop over the next six months. You just mentioned there's predictions of a recession coming up. So I think it's more likely prices will be down in six months versus up or even the same. However, I don't think they're going to be down an incredible amount. There's still a backlog of demand and there's not as many cars out there as there used to be on the supply side. So if it drops, it won't be drastic. Meaning if you buy now, it won't be like, oh, you bought way too soon, but if you could wait, you probably will save a little more money. Ok, Carl Brauer, executive analyst at I see cars dot com. Carl, thank you.