COVINGTON, Ky. — Selling a used car is easier right now than buying one.

That’s according to experts who say the coronavirus pandemic is causing used car prices to rise.

“We’ve sold probably more cars in the past month than we’ve sold in 6 months,” said David Vonboker, who owns Davon Auto in Covington.

He’s been in the used car and auto shop business for more than two decades.

“We kind of deal in the gray market of rebuilt title cars which we can offer for about 70 percent of retail value,” Vonbokern said.

That means he fixes cars that have been totaled or have minor damage and resells them to customers.

But he said the cars are getting harder to come by.

“They’re hot. We can’t find inventory. We’re having trouble getting 'em even at the total level,” Vonbokern said.

The coronavirus has reduced the supply of inventory of new cars and brought on an unusual spike in used car prices.

“In the book, the Kelley Blue Book, the NADA book, that everybody uses, the values have jumped on average couple thousand bucks over the past few months,” Vonbokern said.

In fact, data shows that the average listing price increased to $21,600 in July.

That’s $700 more compared to in June. 

“The bigger corporate dealerships are begging for cars. They’re advertising. We get customers all the time, that you know (say), 'we got a notice that they want to buy my old car back and they’ll give us x-y-z.' They’re paying top dollar for those used cars just to have inventory,” Vonbokern said.

The combination of factors also includes customer behavior. Patterns show they are more financially responsible and interest rates are more favorable adding to the increased demand for used cars.