About 6 months ago me and wifey wanted to sell her 07 Honda Element SC and buy a 2004-2005 Yukon Denali. At the time, her car would've brought around $14,000 at Manheim auctions, and ~$18K retail.

We planned to sell her's, then buy the Denali. A friend of mine is a rebuilder and could get us a clean one from Manheim or other auctions for ~$9,000 to $11,000 depending on mileage. We were shooting for 40-50K miles, white, grey interior, quad buckets, and no damage.

I talked to my friend today and he says they've rebounded and the Denali's are now back up to $15K and up. We haven't tried to sell the Element yet because it needs a doording fixed, but that should be done this week and we can take the next step in selling it.

To the car dealers here? Have you guys seen this yet? Are they really that much higher? Advice?

We're located in Western KY just in case someone asks, and may have one. I think we still owe $17K on the Element and just wanna drop some debt. Back then when we were gonna do this, I found a few on Autotrader, but the dealers wanted US to give them anywhere from $2,500 to $6,000 boot for their's, when the auction value of the Denali was $5,000 less than the Element. The Element is Rootbeer Metallic, Certified Pre-Owned through Honda with a warranty, 15,000 miles, and very clean. Here's a pic for reference.

Yes, the wholesale market is considerably higher than it was 3-4 months ago....this always happens around this time of year except what makes the cars bring more money than usual now is the lack of cars at the auction. Hope that made sense.

It made sense....Less cars there, the more they bring. Under $2/gallon fuel makes a big difference right now too.

I am seeing the cars I am buying bringing 3 to 5k more than they were 3 months ago.