Worcester Ranks as 9th Most Affordable City in U.S. for Used Cars

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

GoLocalWorcester News Team

Worcester has been ranked as the 10th most affordable city to buy a used car in the United States, according to CarGurus.

Worcester is ranked 10th behind Boston and Providence at 8 and 9 respectively, and ranked ahead of Tampa, Florida and Chicago, Illinois at 11 and 12 respectively.

Miami, Florida is ranked as the most affordable city to buy a used car, while Fresno, California is the most expensive.

“While staying local makes sense for most car shoppers, they also may not be aware that car prices do vary across the country. Expanding a car search to a nearby city can sometimes yield significant savings, and for those truly driven by price, it might be worth it,” said Lisa Rosenberg, data analyst at CarGurus.

Overall, the analysis showed a strong concentration of higher used car prices in cities on the West Coast.

The Method

CarGurus applied mathematical models to analyze and compare millions of car listings and help car shoppers find great deals in their local market. For the analysis, CarGurus compared Instant Market Value (IMV) data on over 5 million used cars listed for sale in the largest metro areas in the U.S. to determine how prices stack up in different cities.

Analysts compared prices on used cars (model years 2001-2016) in each metro area to the nationwide average for comparable vehicles, then averaged the price differences for the individual cities studied to determine an overall percentage difference for each city versus the national average.

Metro areas are defined as the area 50 miles around the city center.