The New Equilibrium: Where Georgia's Used-Car Market Settled After the Excise Shock
Sixty days on, volume has recovered and prices have re-based — the market did not bounce back to February, it landed somewhere new.
The Shock and What Followed
Georgia's used-car import market absorbed a significant policy event on April 1, 2026, when excise tax rates were revised upward. Events like this rarely resolve cleanly: prices spike, volume freezes, and the market enters a period of price discovery that can stretch for months. The question this report addresses is simpler and more operational than predicting long-run equilibrium: where did the market actually settle in the sixty days that followed?
The AutoBridge listing dataset, filtered to passenger cars listed since February 1, 2026, with an asking price of $2,000 or more, provides a month-by-month record of new supply and median pricing through mid-June. The answer is clearer than the headlines suggested: volume dipped but did not collapse, and prices rose to a new plateau that has since held steady across three months.
New listings per month (Feb–Jun 2026)
Feb: outlier — pre-shock positioning, high cleared share · Jun: partial month (through ~Jun 15)
February Was Not the Baseline
Any trajectory story requires a starting point, and February 2026 is the obvious candidate. But February is an outlier that should not be treated as a clean pre-shock reference.
The month produced 15,089 new listings — more than double any subsequent month — at a median price of $8,700. The low median reflects composition, not a price level the market will return to. February's inventory skewed toward already-cleared, lower-cost units: at 51.4% customs-cleared it is the highest cleared share in the five-month window, and that composition — cheap, cleared stock rushed to market — explains the depressed median price. The elevated listing count likely reflects pre-shock positioning: sellers accelerating intake before April 1.
March, at 6,458 new listings and a median of $13,500, is the cleaner baseline. It is the last full month before the excise change took effect, and its composition — 41.4% cleared — is consistent with the months that followed.
February Was Not the Baseline
Any trajectory story requires a starting point, and February 2026 is the obvious candidate. But February is an outlier that should not be treated as a clean pre-shock reference.
The month produced 15,089 new listings — more than double any subsequent month — at a median price of $8,700. The low median reflects composition, not a price level the market will return to. February's inventory skewed toward already-cleared, lower-cost units: at 51.4% customs-cleared it is the highest cleared share in the five-month window, and that composition — cheap, cleared stock rushed to market — explains the depressed median price. The elevated listing count likely reflects pre-shock positioning: sellers accelerating intake before April 1.
March, at 6,458 new listings and a median of $13,500, is the cleaner baseline. It is the last full month before the excise change took effect, and its composition — 41.4% cleared — is consistent with the months that followed.
New listings per month (Feb–Jun 2026)
Feb: outlier — pre-shock positioning, high cleared share · Jun: partial month (through ~Jun 15)
Median listing price by month (Feb–Jun 2026)
Feb: outlier — pre-shock positioning, high cleared share · Jun: partial month (through ~Jun 15)
The Dip: March and April
March and April are nearly identical in listing volume: 6,458 and 6,531 respectively. This symmetry is notable. April was the month the excise change landed, yet new listing flow did not contract further. Two forces likely balanced each other: some sellers paused while others rushed transactions through before the full market absorbed the new cost structure. The net result was no net collapse in supply.
Median prices moved modestly higher: $13,500 in March, $14,000 in April. The $500 step is consistent with sellers passing through a portion of the new excise cost while absorbing the rest in margin. Cleared share held flat at 41.4% and 41.6%, suggesting no dramatic shift in import composition during the shock months.
The Recovery: May
May's signal is the most important in this dataset: 8,287 new listings at a median of $13,800, with 44.3% of active inventory customs-cleared. Volume recovered to roughly 130% of the March–April floor. Prices did not revert — the median settled between the March and April readings, not below March.
This combination — volume up, price stable — describes a market that has absorbed the shock rather than continued to adjust. New-listing flow normalized at the new asking-price band, and early sell-through data confirms the recovery is not supply-side only: sold transactions in the clean post-shock cohort (listed_at ≥ Apr 1) more than doubled from April (695 sales) to May (1,461 sales), while archived listings held roughly flat (2,425 → 2,418). June is a partial month (135 sales recorded to date), so no trend should be read from it yet.
The Dip: March and April
March and April are nearly identical in listing volume: 6,458 and 6,531 respectively. This symmetry is notable. April was the month the excise change landed, yet new listing flow did not contract further. Two forces likely balanced each other: some sellers paused while others rushed transactions through before the full market absorbed the new cost structure. The net result was no net collapse in supply.
Median prices moved modestly higher: $13,500 in March, $14,000 in April. The $500 step is consistent with sellers passing through a portion of the new excise cost while absorbing the rest in margin. Cleared share held flat at 41.4% and 41.6%, suggesting no dramatic shift in import composition during the shock months.
The Recovery: May
May's signal is the most important in this dataset: 8,287 new listings at a median of $13,800, with 44.3% of active inventory customs-cleared. Volume recovered to roughly 130% of the March–April floor. Prices did not revert — the median settled between the March and April readings, not below March.
This combination — volume up, price stable — describes a market that has absorbed the shock rather than continued to adjust. New-listing flow normalized at the new asking-price band, and early sell-through data confirms the recovery is not supply-side only: sold transactions in the clean post-shock cohort (listed_at ≥ Apr 1) more than doubled from April (695 sales) to May (1,461 sales), while archived listings held roughly flat (2,425 → 2,418). June is a partial month (135 sales recorded to date), so no trend should be read from it yet.
Median listing price by month (Feb–Jun 2026)
Feb: outlier — pre-shock positioning, high cleared share · Jun: partial month (through ~Jun 15)
Where the Market Stands Now
The current active snapshot (28,419 cars) provides a cross-sectional view of where the stock sits today. Median asking price is $12,000 — below the $13,500–$14,000 monthly-listing medians because active inventory includes older, lower-priced stock listed in prior periods. The interquartile range runs from $6,900 to $18,800, a spread that reflects the market's breadth across budget segments rather than price instability. Average model year is 2017.5, and 43.4% of active listings are customs-cleared.
June partial data (3,944 new listings through mid-month, median $13,500, 44.8% cleared) projects to a monthly pace consistent with May. The price band is holding. Cleared share continues its gradual drift higher as new excise-compliant inventory normalizes.
The New Equilibrium
The data points to a market that has found a new stable state rather than a market in ongoing adjustment. Several features define that state:
New-listing volume has recovered to roughly 8,000 per month, below the distorted February peak but above the shock-period floor. The $13,500–$14,000 median price band has now held for three consecutive months across varying monthly volumes — that persistence is the strongest evidence of genuine re-pricing rather than a temporary spike. Customs-cleared share (41–45%) has stabilized, suggesting import composition is no longer shifting in response to the policy change.
What has not happened is a reversion to February's $8,700 median. That level was associated with a composition of inventory that no longer exists at scale. The market's equilibrium is higher and, so far, durable.
Where the Market Stands Now
The current active snapshot (28,419 cars) provides a cross-sectional view of where the stock sits today. Median asking price is $12,000 — below the $13,500–$14,000 monthly-listing medians because active inventory includes older, lower-priced stock listed in prior periods. The interquartile range runs from $6,900 to $18,800, a spread that reflects the market's breadth across budget segments rather than price instability. Average model year is 2017.5, and 43.4% of active listings are customs-cleared.
June partial data (3,944 new listings through mid-month, median $13,500, 44.8% cleared) projects to a monthly pace consistent with May. The price band is holding. Cleared share continues its gradual drift higher as new excise-compliant inventory normalizes.
The New Equilibrium
The data points to a market that has found a new stable state rather than a market in ongoing adjustment. Several features define that state:
New-listing volume has recovered to roughly 8,000 per month, below the distorted February peak but above the shock-period floor. The $13,500–$14,000 median price band has now held for three consecutive months across varying monthly volumes — that persistence is the strongest evidence of genuine re-pricing rather than a temporary spike. Customs-cleared share (41–45%) has stabilized, suggesting import composition is no longer shifting in response to the policy change.
What has not happened is a reversion to February's $8,700 median. That level was associated with a composition of inventory that no longer exists at scale. The market's equilibrium is higher and, so far, durable.
Methodology
AutoBridge listing dataset; filter: passenger cars, listed_at >= 2026-02-01, price_usd >= $2,000. Monthly new-listing counts by listed_at date. Sell-through proxy from sold/archived counts (clean cohort listed_at >= 2026-04-01). Active-inventory snapshot figures are a point-in-time cross-section.
28,419 active cars (snapshot June 16, 2026) + monthly new-listing inflow Feb–Jun 2026. Sell-through cohort: listings with listed_at >= 2026-04-01. February (15,089 listings, $8,700 median) treated as pre-shock outlier; March (6,458 / $13,500) used as clean baseline.
Monthly listing flow Feb–Jun 2026; snapshot June 16, 2026.