There is no single "days to sell" number, and the three you will see do not measure the same thing. The cleanest like-for-like pair is from iSeeCars: for February 2026, the average 1- to 5-year-old used car took 53.0 days on market and the overall new-car average was 49.8 days. The sample behind the used figure is over 960,000 sales. Behind the new figure it is over 790 sales, excluding Tesla (iSeeCars, fastest-selling cars study, checked 2026-10).
- Daily interest
- $2.63
- Daily total (interest + overhead)
- $2.63
- Total holding cost over 45 days
- $118.36
- Break-even price drop
- $118.36 (1.0% of cost)
Calculator assumptions: a $12,000 unit at 8% APR held 45 days with $0 daily overhead; replace with your own numbers. Estimates only. Also available as the standalone holding cost calculator.
So new and used are close on that clock, and the new number rests on a far smaller sample. The other two clocks are below.
LocalIQ™ market snapshot
What top flip candidates are asking right now
| Model | Listings | Median asking price |
|---|---|---|
| GMC Sierra 1500 | 632 | $29,972 |
| Honda Civic | 5,396 | $15,000 |
| Honda Accord | 4,176 | $15,999 |
| Ford F-150 | 3,134 | $24,000 |
| Toyota Corolla | 3,040 | $14,500 |
| Nissan Sentra | 3,004 | $9,880 |
| Toyota Camry | 2,510 | $17,082 |
| Hyundai Elantra | 2,396 | $9,499 |
LocalIQ™ asking-price median · 24,288 listings · updated every 6 hours. National, last 8 model years; asking price is your resale ceiling.
What does iSeeCars measure?
iSeeCars defines the metric as the number of days the average car takes to sell, in days on market. Its methodology: the days each car was listed for sale on iSeeCars.com, aggregated at the make and model levels.
| Group | Average days on market | Sales analyzed |
|---|---|---|
| Used, 1 to 5 years old | 53.0 | over 960,000 |
| New (overall, excluding Tesla) | 49.8 | over 790 |
Source: iSeeCars, February 2026. Two cautions:
- The sample sizes differ by more than a thousand to one. A 3.2-day gap on 790 new-car sales is not a precise gap.
- It is one month, on one site. The listing clock starts when the car is listed there.
What does Cox Automotive measure?
Cox Automotive publishes days' supply, which is a different question. Its days' supply is based on the daily sales rate for the most recent 30-day period. It answers: at the current pace, how long would today's inventory last?
What Cox reported in the pages we checked (2026-10):
- New vehicles: 77 days' supply at the start of September 2024, matching the level reported in early June. The article cites a first-half 2024 average of 83 days (Cox Automotive, new vehicle inventory, August 2024 report).
- Used vehicles: a total used-vehicle days' supply of 52 at the end of July 2022, covering unsold used vehicles on franchised and independent dealer lots (2.46 million units) (Cox Automotive, used vehicle inventory, July 2022 report).
These are older reports. Cox publishes newer ones, so check its inventory pages before quoting a current number. Also notice what days' supply is not: it is not how long any one car took to sell. A lot with a 52-day supply can still move individual cars in a week.
What does CarFlipIQ measure?
In our Q3 2026 data, the average timed used-car sale took 14.6 days and 70.0% sold within 15 days (n=32,691 timed sales). We observe marketplace listings, and days to sell is the average of last seen minus first seen over sold listings seen on at least two crawls. Most sold listings (81.3% in Q3, n=133,064) were visible under three days and are not timed, so the figure is for the part of the market we can time. We do not measure new cars. See how long it takes to sell a used car and the Q3 study for definitions and per-model figures.
Why do the numbers disagree?
Four reasons, none of them mistakes.
- Different start points. Days on market starts at listing. Ours starts at first sighting by our crawler. Days' supply has no start point at all.
- Different populations. Newer dealer-lot cars versus marketplace listings, including private sellers.
- Different clocks. A ratio of stock to sales pace versus a per-car duration.
- Different periods. February 2026, Q3 2026, mid-2022 and 2024.
Which one should a flipper use?
For setting a holding cost, use the clock closest to your resale channel. If you list on marketplaces, our per-model days to sell is the nearest. If you sell through listings on a car-shopping site, iSeeCars' days on market is the nearer comparison.
Then compute the cost. Floor plan interest is unit cost times APR divided by 365, and our holding cost calculator turns days into dollars. Cox Automotive writes that once a unit moves past the 60-day point, you should start thinking about frozen capital (Cox Automotive, "Three Floor Plan Finance Formulas Every Dealer Should Know"). Read more in floor plan cost per day.
A practical routine:
- Look up the model's days to sell in your state on the market reports.
- Never subtract one source's number from another's.
- Run both a 15-day and a 45-day scenario through the calculator before you set a max bid with the max bid calculator.
What does a new car tell a used-car buyer?
Not much about speed, directly. The new-car figures above come from different sources, periods and sample sizes than the used ones, so they do not tell you how fast the model you are about to buy will move. For that, look at the days to sell and the asking price of that used model in your market, not at the headline on new inventory.
The takeaway
When someone quotes a days-to-sell figure, ask three things: what clock, what cars, what period. Then use that number only against itself. For your flip, the number that matters is the one for your model in your market.
See days to sell for the exact model you are buying.
CarFlipIQ shows local asking prices and days to sell for any year, make and model. 5 free car analyses, no credit card.
