The Biggest Automotive News and Shifts in Used Car Prices With Joe Overby

Joe Overby is the Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada at Cherokee Media Group, which publishes leading B2B digital and custom media. He is also the co-host of the Auto Remarketing podcast. Joe is a member of the agenda team for Cherokee Media Group’s Automotive Events and Conferences, where he serves as a Panel Moderator.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Joe Overby talks about the type of content Auto Remarketing publishes
• What are the biggest automotive stories Joe has covered?
• How the pandemic has impacted live events and content publication
• Joe discusses Used Car Week and reports on used car prices
• Auto Remarketing’s process for analyzing and publishing information
• Joe’s thoughts on electronic vehicle tax credits

In this episode…

There have been a lot of changes in the automotive space in terms of technology, consumer preferences, and soaring vehicle prices. So, where can you receive the latest news to stay informed of industry changes?

Having spent 15 years working and reporting in the automotive space, Joe Overby has witnessed the industry’s evolution. He has seen small companies grow to become publicly traded, taken part in publishing top industry news through Auto Remarketing, and experienced the effects of the pandemic on car prices. He joins Ilana Shabtay to share his insights on the automotive space.

In this episode of the InsideAuto podcast, Ilana Shabtay interviews Joe Overby, the Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada at Cherokee Media Group, about the biggest automotive news published over the years. They also discuss shifts in used and new car prices, Used Car Week, and electronic vehicle tax credits.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• AutoLeadStar
• Ilana Shabtay on LinkedIn
• Joe Overby on LinkedIn
• Auto Remarketing
• Auto Remarketing Canada
• Auto Remarketing Podcast
• Cherokee Media Group
• Used Car Week
• The National Auto Venture & Investors Conference (NAVIcon)
• Nick Zulovich on LinkedIn
• Cox Automotive

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by AutoLeadStar, a company that helps car dealerships engage quality customers on the web and convert them into car buyers.

Co-founded by Aharon Horwitz, Yishai Goldstein, and Eliav Moshe, AutoLeadStar’s state-of-the-art software automates a dealership’s entire marketing funnel and provides around-the-clock service for dealers.

AutoLeadStar’s innovative technology helps dealerships automate ads, connect with customers, and discover ROI and performance metrics.

Visit their website at www.autoleadstar.com to learn more about their around-the-clock marketing service.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the InsideAuto podcast where we feature everyone and anyone you’d want to talk to you in and out of the automotive industry.

Ilana Shabtay 0:14

Ilana Shabtay here, host of the InsideAuto podcast where we interview top dealers, GMs, marketers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in and out of the automotive industry. And before we introduce today’s guest, this episode is sponsored by AutoLeadStar.com. AutoLeadStar serves automotives’ first and leading customer data and experience platform CDXP. Top dealers invest in CDXPs to unify dealership data sources, automatically create one to one customize journeys, and execute omnichannel shopping experiences. It’s an all-in-one connected platform. Today we’re welcoming Joe Overby to our podcast. Joe, welcome to the podcast.

Joe Overby 0:51

I want to thank you so much for having me. Good to talk to you again.

Ilana Shabtay 0:54

Yes, you too. We were just saying how Joe was one of the first people I met in automotive back in 2016. So I’m really excited to reconnect with you today. For those listening, Joe is the Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada at Cherokee Media Group, and co-host of his very own podcast, Auto Remarketing Podcast. He’s also part of the agenda team for Cherokee Media Group’s Automotive Events and Conferences, where he also serves as a Panel Moderator. I know big ones coming up. So we’ll talk about that in today’s podcast episode. Again, thank you for joining us. Let’s just open up and tell us a little bit about the publication Auto Remarketing. I know you’ve been there for quite a bit. I’d love to know the nature of what you’re what you report on the craziest story you’ve ever covered. If you have that. Just tell us a little bit about the publication.

Joe Overby 1:45

Sure. So we are Auto Remarketing. And are we now okay, I guess it was about two years ago, we combined all of our publications into other US publications into one. So we have Auto Remarketing, which covers the retail and wholesale used car markets in the US. And then we have Subprime Auto Finance News, which covers the subprime finance markets. And then we have auto fin journal, which does cover kind of the overall auto finance market, but a lot on FinTech and a lot of the tech developments that we’ve seen in the auto finance space, and then we have our Buy Here Pay Here report, which covers the Buy Here Pay Here, the market in the US and then separately, we have the Auto Remarketing Canada magazine, which is focused specifically on the retail and wholesale auto markets in Canada. And then we’ve got you know, a whole bunch of daily and weekly newsletters that we send out, kind of tailored to those specific pieces, of automotive and, and then, of course, we have associated with all that we have our conferences, kind of that are our motto is in person in print and online. And so we things that I write about, you know, for our daily newsletters will go into the print magazine, that will also be, you know, might be a topic we discussed in our live events. But to answer your question about the crazy story. I don’t know if it’s the craziest but certainly is the biggest. And I just celebrated 15 years of being here. Thank you. Um, it really I feel I’ve been there forever that’s gone by but it’s been a lot of fun, but it’s

Ilana Shabtay 3:39

really seen the industry evolve like you’re in your news from 15 years ago to now?

Joe Overby 3:46

Yes, I mean, it was, you know, companies that didn’t even exist, you know, in 2007 are now publicly traded and, you know, companies that, you know, have merged, but the biggest news that I think that we’ve covered in that time, probably, you know, aside from the GM and Chrysler bankruptcy process back in, oh, 809 probably was the ADESA or car global selling its US ADESA auctions to Carvana. You know, they’ve been one of the biggest companies we’ve covered over the past 15-plus years. And didn’t think I’d see the day when a company, a wholesale company would sell auctions to a retail company, but yeah, it’s happening more and more. And do you?

Ilana Shabtay 4:40

I so I thought you were gonna say once you were talking about that bankruptcy, I thought you were gonna say that COVID I don’t know why I said that to you. And also it was. I mean, it’s so insane to see the car market just from COVID Like not even during COVID How’s the post? COVID? It’s been nuts. But that probably had a crazy toll also on someone who was doing two or two live events a year, is that accurate? or

Joe Overby 5:11

We had that in 2020. At that point, we had three conferences. So we had our auto market in Canada, auto Wenzel summit, and Used Car Week. But yeah, I guess I kind of bought it. Yeah. COVID. So that when things started to just hit the fan, and things started to shut down, you know, mid-March 2020. And Nick covers our auto finance pieces, we were every sink for about a period of like two or three weeks, and every single story we wrote, had to do with COVID. You know, whether it was, you know, updating like auctions shutting down, you know, finding its companies doing loan forgiveness, you know, dealer what dealers, dealers happen to do all digital sales, every single story we wrote, you know, for two weeks was COVID related. So, yeah, on second thought that that actually might be the craziest period of

Ilana Shabtay 6:09

reporting for me well, because it was your reporting on such a crazy thing that was affecting the industry. And then it was also affecting your workflow, because Oh, no, outline event. So that was probably a huge, huge hit. Not necessarily. You probably figured everything out by now. But I’m talking about your events. So tell us a little bit about this specific event that’s coming up. Used Car Week now is from what I remember, it was usually in Vegas, and it’s going to be in San Diego for the first time in a while or the first time.

Joe Overby 6:46

First time since 2013. Wow. And typically, we’ve done we’ve had probably worst, more so more regularly, we’ve had it in Vegas, at Red Rock. We’ve switched between there and Scottsdale, Arizona. And a few years ago, we had it in Palm Springs, California. But usually, we’re somewhere in

Ilana Shabtay 7:12

in the warm weather. Oh,

Joe Overby 7:15

yeah. That is by design. Yeah, and the hot southwest. And, yeah, we’ve added San Diego back to our regular rotation. And yeah, it’s that we’re excited about going there. It’s, you know, I was there back in, in 2013, when we had it there. And it’s a beautiful location, a beautiful city. And, you know, you can’t really beat San Diego weather and the middle of November, especially here on the east coast, where it’s, you know, we had frost warnings this morning, and it was about 37 degrees outside. So I’m looking forward to getting out there to San Diego in a couple of weeks.

Ilana Shabtay 7:56

Yeah, for sure. And what’s the nature of that conference? What type of people come vendors or dealers like

Joe Overby 8:02

yeah, so it’s really it kind of spans the whole spectrum of a used car, automotive, and really all of our, all of the like segments that we cover. So and it’s divided into two blocks, we have the first block which covered which includes the pre-con, which is retail automotive, and the auto fin con, which is auto finance. And then the repo con, which kind of gives them a good sense of the recovery and collection space. Attendees in the first half of the week. You know, we have dealers we have, you know, the vendors, people who work who sell to dealers, you know, different tech companies. We have a lot of auto auctions, the banks, banks, and then companies that work with banks, and you know, the other kind of auto lending community. And then in the second half of the week, the second block is the national remarketing conference, which has been kind of our flagship event covering the wholesale auto auction industry. And then we added a conference last year and we’re, this will be our second year with it’s called the NAVIcon, which stands for The National Auto Venture & Investors Conference. And so that really dives into the whole like the not just kind of the Wall Street and Silicon Valley investment piece of it. But also, you know, a lot of the startups a lot of the new tech companies that are emerging, and a lot of the topics there are about kind of just just how companies grow from, you know, an initial startup and you know, how they get funded and eventually be publicly traded or sold. And that conference kind of walks attendees through that entire process. The second block of the week really is a lot of auto auctions, a lot of consigners you know, the people selling cars at auctions, we have a lot of You know, vendors, companies that work with the Auto Auction community. And then because of NAVIcon, we’re getting a lot more startups a lot more, you know, venture capital and investment community, folks, and that second half of the week. But one thing I’ve noticed, just from looking at our registration numbers this year, a lot of people are the majority of people who are coming in Used Car Week are staying the whole week, or they’re at least, you know, signing up for both blocks. So you really have, you know, dealers, and auctions and people who might be in retail people might be in wholesale, people might be in finance, they’re all intermingled. And, you know, because the sessions are held concurrently, you know, somebody who’s a dealer, go to a session that’s meant for auto finance people and kind of learn something new.

Ilana Shabtay 10:50

That’s yeah, that’s really great. And I feel like that’s also different content than other conferences offers. So it’s nice to see some refreshing content out there. You know, when I’m very focused, obviously, on the digital side is a technology for automotive dealers, but when I go to conferences, I very much feel like a lot of the content is repetitive. So it’s nice that dealers have an opportunity to get some fresh content. So I’m sure they appreciate it.

Joe Overby 11:16

Yeah, we hope so. Yeah.

Ilana Shabtay 11:19

Do you think there’s going to be a lot of talk about the used car prices? So I know that a lot of what has been happening in the used car world is that prices shot higher than I think I mean, it was a record right this year, with inventory shortage and other challenges that came our way. What was that? Like? First of all reporting on that? And what have you seen? What do you predict? And then do you feel like that’s going to be a focus of the conference? Or do you feel like it’s kind of in the past for them, or it’s been kind of, you know, over, you know, spoken about at this point?

Joe Overby 11:53

Well, we will have one session that comes to mind that really will focus in on that my colleague, Nick Zulovich, is going to be moderating a panel with Billy four or five different auto economists, and analysts from the black book and Cox Automotive, and car believe and interplay. And they’re really going to get into both how, you know, overall economic trends, but also use car pricing trends. And that’s really been such a big story for us for the past, really two and a half years, because of largely because of COVID. And everything that fallout from there. I mean, you had April 2020, use car prices just tanked, because nobody was, nobody was able to get out and buy used cars. And then sort of that summer, they started rising again, and really, you know, all through 2021. And most of 2022, they’ve been at record highs, because of things like the production shortage, the chip shortage, the production shortage, and increasing demand as the economy recovered. So yeah, it’s been something we cover, we actually do every week BlackBook sends out an analysis of how the cars performed, how car prices performed at auction the week before, and we kind of dissect that analysis that they put out. And then Cox Automotive puts out a similar analysis once or twice a month, and you know, a lot of these different people we follow, you know, kind of are constantly updating prices. So it’s always top of mind for us. I believe it was

Ilana Shabtay 13:35

Do you package that and then report on it, or do you just ingest it for your own knowledge, and then figure out which stories would be the best based on what you’re seeing?

Joe Overby 13:44

Yes, what we do is when they put out when, when they put out, you know, an analysis, whether it’s, you know, car global, or JD Power, Cox, whoever it is, just want to take that information and write a story from it. And we might include, you know, information from two or three different sources just to give a kind of a more holistic, broader picture. But yeah, we, we do tend to use a lot of that information and sort of, you know, use that data and put, put it into our own words and put our own spin to it, what we think is happening. And, you know, a lot of times a lot of these companies that share this information will also, you know, provide kind of video analysis or they’ll post conference calls with the media so we can get a little bit more context and color and maybe ask some questions and add that to our stories. But yeah, it’s something we’re constantly reporting on. And, you know, in September, I think it was the I don’t have it right in front of me, but it was the first time and I think it was 18 months at least, that the Manheim index showed a year-over-year decrease. Yeah, So it’s Yeah, prices are still at record highs. I mean, you know, I think the number with the Manheim index, you know, it was a pretty big deal last year when their index hit the 200 level. Hit the 200 level for the first time ever, and it’s remained above 200. Ever since then. If I’m remembering correctly, but so it’s Yeah, they’ve come down prices have come down from record highs. But yeah, it’s been slowly coming down from super high levels. So you know, I’ve had it, fine people, you probably get the same thing working in the auto industry. We’re friends and neighbors and family a lot. I’m buying. I’m buying a used car, a new car, what advice can you give me? You know, what I’ve been telling them? When I get that question that new car prices, I don’t think are coming down anytime soon. But looks like you know, this fall period. And then the winter, it might be a better time to buy a used car than it was, you know, this summer?

Ilana Shabtay 16:07

Yeah, it’s Yeah, it is really funny, especially since people think that I have like the hookup to get some data definitely not attainable because some shifts are shortage, but I have the power to get my hands on that inventory and deliver to deliver it with you know, without a three-month wait. So yeah, definitely. No, and it’s good. It is good to get your insight on what you think the price will be. I tend to agree and I think new car prices will be above what we would have wanted them to be for the next while. I think that’s also just because of inflation and other things. But hopefully, we’ll get some normalcy with a used car. I don’t know, we’ll see. It’s been like such a wild ride for automotive. So I don’t know, what else do you think we have in store for us next year, another pandemic, another shortage?

Joe Overby 17:02

Man, I think I think, you know, the economy and the auto industry and society, in general, could use a break from this big news. I think some normalcy would be nice. I think one thing I reported on yesterday so it’s kind of top of mind but you know, being President Biden signed the inflation Reduction Act and as part of that, it includes a tax credit on used electric vehicles, it’s the first time there’s ever been a tax credit for us electric vehicles and they and in the story, we had an Auto Remarketing today you know, a lot of this is from a company called recurrent that provided the state of but most used cars don’t meet the threshold and get that tax credit so they’re just too expensive essentially it only applies to cars that are $25,000 or less. So one of the things they mentioned was that you know dealers and other people selling these used electric vehicles may be incentivized to lower their price you know below 25 grand you know in hopes of getting out offering the consumer that tax credit Yeah, and it also includes

Ilana Shabtay 18:25

the 25k threshold is that’s for use only are also new.

Joe Overby 18:30

No, I think it doesn’t include a new tax new electric vehicle tax credit but I’m not sure it’s the 25,000 only is only applicable to the use cars because

Ilana Shabtay 18:41

you will basically never be able to get the break right

Joe Overby 18:45

right. But one of the things they said one of the recurrent in its analysis said that one of the biggest beneficiaries will be plug-in hybrids are also included in that in that EV tax credit so a lot of those actually are below 25 grand and so you know dealers who have those on their lots may see a spike but all that to say I think the use be used every industry is something we’re watching closely especially as those cars begin to make their way into auctions and the wholesale side of the business.

Ilana Shabtay 19:24

Yeah, I think that’s gonna be a really interesting segment of automotive. So we’ll look out for price trends EVs use DVS and I think any other information that you guys want to find out about us it’s Auto Remarketing, I mean that’s where we go for the info so thank you so much for all the info today Joe, and everyone should be tuning in. Also, Joe has his podcast, Auto Remarketing Podcast. How often does that go out?

Joe Overby 19:51

We usually do about two to three episodes a week.

Ilana Shabtay 19:55

Awesome services weeks you can tune into that as well to see what’s happening in the US car world. Thank you again for joining us. And if you like this episode go to insideautopodcast.com. You can find us on all your favorite podcast apps. Thank you so much.

Outro 20:12

Thanks for listening to the InsideAuto podcast. Check out our other episodes with top entrepreneurs and industry leaders.