Not exactly unexpected, they've been struggling for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me if others follow.

They are ceasing operations with immediate effect

https://www.vroom.com/sell/sitemsg

Only ever used them once, they gave me an excellent price for a truck I sold a few years back and the process was pretty seamless. Also sometimes found their better offers helpful for negotiating better trade ins at dealers etc.

 

They bought high and sold low; ouch.

 

I thought Carvana was going to go the same way last year but somehow survived.

 

My investment strategy to minimize taxes!

 

Haha! That one made me laugh thanks.

 

They will if they are counting on people like me. Lol

I don't buy vehicles from "car vending machines".

Always thought that marketing campaign was <RETARDED> as hell. Lol

 

I still remember many ppl even some members on CL saying that car buying is changing forever and we will never see crazy discounts again lol

Well welcome to 2024 where dealers are full of overpriced vehicles and plenty of deals to be had even below invoice!

Things will be getting worse as the car market crash is just beginning. There are folks who are way upside down on cars they bought in 2021 to 2023.

 

Vroom's flaws of not insisting on quality, not having strong reconditioning was a major flaw. Sure, many customers are interested in buying online, but especially with used, there needs to be an over index on good quality and condition. And then not having CPO (because they're not a franchised dealer) and not having the low APR's afforded by big OEM captive CPO hurt their sales a lot in this high interest rate environment. Same goes for the holding costs of all that overpriced inventory with floorplan interests that continued to creep upwards over the past few years.

Vroom and Caravan also indexed heavily on low credit tier consumers, who have largely started to sit this market out due to high prices and high interest rates. So that effectively cut off all their sales potential.

 

Ah more prognostications of doom and gloom that you’ve been having for at least 5 years now lol

 

Well things have gone progressively worse in past 5 years and inflation is still a factor.
The economy is the worst it has been in some time, credit card debt is at all time high, half of young ppl ages 18-30 still live with parents, those 7/8 year auto loans are upside down and to top it off we have massive amounts of Commercial RE debt coming due for refi on assets that are now worthless.

Again just because YOU don’t feel the negative effects doesn’t mean that many others who are either young or much lower income are not struggling.

Btw this is all with a healthy job market, if that changes and we have seen many large corporations starting to do layoffs. I think next 12-24 months will be challenging for lots of folks before things stabilize and hopefully go back to 2018/2019 type growth.

 

With a healthy job market, those 18-30 yr olds can certainly go get a job? Whats stopping them? Inflation is about 3%. Commercial real estate is suffering because employees rather work at home rather than go into the office and perhaps learn a thing or two and grow professionally. I dont know whats going to happen in the next 12 to 24 months, everyone been calling for a recession for the last 4 yrs now.

Those 6 yr + loans are a problem only if people sell, or loose their jobs. I have a 6yr loan, interest 3%. Theres no sign that the economy is crashing. Maybe get out of the house a bit more and turn off that tv for once?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't unemployment a lagging indicator? I've been attempting to sell my parent's home, and from first hand experience, can say that the real estate market is quite slow the past 4 months. Could it be seasonal, of course, but just giving my first hand account.

 

Jobs aren't the issue, I have several friends who have good jobs (70-105k) who still live at home to avoid having zero money month to month.

 

Clearly your friends need a lesson in money management. Unless cost of living in Ohio is higher than NY?

 

Houses are expensive and they don't want to spend half their money on one, their newest car is an 09 as well......in NY what exactly can anyone afford? A little mini apartment thing the size of half a room here for $2k a month? Back here the same houses we all grew up in are over 2x the price our parents paid for them and they are making the same money with similar jobs so???????

Unless you advocate for just putting your entire existence into loans/dept etc it's difficult these days. I got lucky due to the generations prior to me setting up trust funds and properties for me but that's "unfair advantage" to the max