With new car prices averaging close to $50,000, more buyers than ever are going deeper into debt to finance vehicle purchases.
Almost 30% of recent new car buyers were underwater on loans for their trade-ins, meaning they still owed more on their old cars than they were worth at the time, according to new data that was recently released by Edmunds.
Edmunds said the average amount of negative equity, or remaining balance, on cars traded in in the second quarter of 2026 was $6,884, which the group said was up from an average of $6,754 in the second quarter of 2025 and also the highest for a second quarter on record.