Powersports values fall in February, bucking seasonal trends

Motorcycle and powersports values fell across nearly every segment in February as dealers were flush with new inventory, trending outside typical seasonal increases. Prices continue to slide on powersports units as values decrease from pandemic-driven highs, Scott Yarbrough , senior analyst of motorcycle and powersports at Black Book , told Auto Finance News . “Prices are still going down,” Yarbrough said. “The whole market was still adjusting downwards [in February] even though this is the time of year we'd expect [values] to be rising.” Values in every motorcycle and powersports segment except snowmobiles declined in February, with the snowmobiles segment increasing 2.3% month over month, according to Black Book’s March Specialty Market Insights. The watercraft, jet boats and two-cylinder V-twin engine bikes segments recorded the largest MoM decline in values at 3.3%. Street bikes and metric cruiser bikes had the lowest value declines sequentially at 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively. Snowmobile values increased since February was the end of the selling season, Yarbrough said. January to February Average Segment Change in Value [caption id="attachment_58338759" align="aligncenter" width="596"] Courtesy of Black Book [/caption] Although values have come down, they are strong compared with 2019, Tony Altieri , vice president of business development at National Powersport Auction (NPA), told AFN . “Wholesale values through [NPA] have been very strong through the first three months of the year,” he said. “They are down from where they were in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Regardless of what you're looking at comparison-wise — whether you're looking at average sale price or price to MSRP — all those metrics show that pricing is down, but it also shows that [pricing is] in line with 2019.” Values have pretty much returned to normal patterns, Altieri said. “All of that extra value that was kind of shoved into the marketplace because of scarcity during COVID, that's all gone now.” Value increases to come Despite values continuing to fall on a MoM basis, values have begun to rise over the past week to 10 days, Yarbrough said. March is going to mark “the first price increases in forever in the street segments,” he said. “The cruisers, street bikes and dual sports I expect to be going up at least a couple percent [in March] but could be a little more, a little less. … For the off-road segments, dirt bikes, ATVs and utility vehicles look like they're still headed down, but not quite as bad in some cases as before.” The rise in values to come in March for the on-road segments will be the first increase for street bikes since late spring and early summer 2023, Yarbrough said. Off-road unit values are continuing to fall because the buying season is typically in the fall, so a rise is expected in those segments when that selling season begins, he said. The NPA has also seen strong values in Harley-Davidson sport bikes and metric cruisers, Altieri said. Shorter season of high values The peak of values in the powersports market typically runs from late March to the middle of May, but the NPA expects the peak to be shorter by about 30 days this year, Altieri said. “Our anticipation looking at the numbers is that we'll probably end up seeing unit values start to fall off towards the back half of April, so we're going to lose about 30 days’ worth of season compared to where we would normally see the peak,” he said. NPA anticipates values will come down sooner partly due to dealers carrying an overstock of new inventory, Altieri said. Many dealers have received 2024 model-year inventory while still having a lot of 2023 units, so dealers are prioritizing new-unit sales, he said. “We've seen the participation [at auction] for a lot of different franchise dealers across the board, regardless of brand, a little bit softer than normal, and that's because of the inventory,” Altieri said. Registration is now available for the annual Auto Finance Summit East 2024 , May 1-3 in Nashville, Tenn., which gathers lenders, dealers and fintech innovators in an event designed to bring the power of technology to a cross section of industry players. Visit AutoFinance.Live to learn more.

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