Used cars that hold the best resale value and sell for the most money after 5 years (2024)

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Graham Rapier

2024-01-05T19:28:07Z

Used cars that hold the best resale value and sell for the most money after 5 years (1)

Used-car prices have finally normalized after years of increases.
Sticker shock pushed some customers to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
Electric vehicles saw some of the worst depreciation over five years, data from iSeeCars shows.

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They say a car loses most of its value the minute it drives off a lot.

But that doesn't mean they all depreciate at the same rate. In fact, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some used cars' values even went up!

Luckily for almost everyone, things are normalizing in the auto market, and virtually all used cars are holding their value better than five years ago, according to data from iSeeCars.

The website monitored transaction prices for more than 1 million cars sold between November 2022 and October 2023 to determine depreciation rates over five years of ownership.

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Electric vehicles fared the worst, the website found, losing an average of nearly half their value over five years in a segment of the pre-owned market that is still largely untested and proving nerve-racking for customers.

Trucks and hybrids held their value much better, with the latter having "a nearly 12 percentage point advantage over EVs in value retention, which translates to thousands of dollars in higher market value after five years," executive analyst Karl Brauer said in the study.

With such an uptick in used car prices in recent years, some drivers flocked to cheaper models and fuel-efficient engines, iSeeCars said.