It's better to buy a used car in the more congested parts of New Jersey, according to a study conducted by autolist.com.
Competition rules when it comes to getting the best price for a used car in New Jersey. That's what the results of a study by Autolist.com into the sale of used cars from November 2012 to September 2015 shows.
A look at average price paid by a buyer of a used car by county in New Jersey shows that congested North Jersey and Central Jersey offers the best prices, while the average price is higher in rural parts of the state.
The county with the lowest average price, according to Autolist, is Bergen, followed by Passiac, Morris, Somerset and Union. South Jersey counties Gloucester, Salem, Cumberland and Cape May had the highest average prices for used cars.
This is the best time of year to buy a used car, said Alex Klein, vice president of Data Science at the firm, and this should remain through the end of April before prices begin to climb this summer.
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"The wide range in prices is primarily caused by dealer density," Klein said. "At its core, our data aligns with basic economics: The more dealers in a given area, the more competition for buyers, and as a result, the lower the prices relative to a state and/or national average.
"The converse is true in areas with fewer dealers, as buyers have fewer options and as a result we see dealer prices being higher than the average."
The company collected over 3 billion data points on over 58 million vehicle identification numbers between November 2012 and September 2015, and broke that data down by zip codes, according to Klein. At any time, the site lists at least 4.5 million used cars for sale.
One of the most popular used cars in New Jersey is a 2012-2013 BMW 3 series with less than 25,000 miles. A check of any being sold in a 50-mile radius around Somerset County on Wednesday showed the best prices are in Bergen, Morris and Union counties (ranging from $23,700 to $23,990), while the highest price is in Gloucester County ($24,990).
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San Francisco-based Autolist was launched in 2014 and aggregates car lists from almost all car sites, such as Autobytel and Edmunds, Klein said.
"You can think of us as the KAYAK for used cars," Klein said. "However, our biggest push starting this past year and going forward is buyer intelligence through big data.
"Because we have more cars than any other search platform, we have the most visibility into the dynamics and trends of the used car market."
Klein said the company's goal is to increase transparency in the used car market by using large amounts of data to reveal market dynamics, from the national to the local level.