Best Places To Buy A Used Car In Maryland

Memorial Day weekend is here and that means a lot of savvy car shoppers will try to capitalize on the best deals. According to an online service that helps compare car prices, shoppers in Maryland looking to get behind the wheel of a used car this weekend may want to head to Montgomery, Howard or Prince George's counties.

The best city to buy a car in Maryland is actually Bethesda, and the best county is Montgomery County. Shoppers who buy a used car in Bethesda pay $972 less for a car. Buyers in Montgomery County save an average of $775 on the car.

Autolist says Maryland ranked No. 7 in the country last month for vehicle affordability. A pre-owned car here typically costs $401 less than the national average.

Here are the top 10 cities to buy a used car in Maryland:

1. Bethesda, average savings: $972
2. North Bethesda, average savings: $930
3. Gaithersburg, average savings: $913
4. Rockville, average savings: $893
5. Potomac, average savings: $873
6. Aspen Hill, average savings: $777
7. Germantown, average savings: $762
8. Wheaton, average savings: $757
9. Silver Spring, average savings: $600
10. Waldorf, average savings: $221
11. Ellicott City, average savings: $220
12. Columbia, average savings: $214
13. Catonsville, average savings: $127
14. Towson, average savings: $73
15. Baltimore, average savings: $65

Here are the top 10 counties to buy a used car in Maryland:

1. Montgomery County, price difference: -$775
2. Howard County, price difference: -$127
3. Prince George's County, price difference: -$10
4. Baltimore County, price difference: +$21
5. Anne Arundel County, price difference: +$68
6. Calvert County, price difference: +$172
7. Charles County, price difference: +$176
8. Harford County, price difference: +$180
9. Frederick County, price difference: +$191
10. Talbot County, price difference: +$392
11. Dorchester County, price difference: +$402
12. Cecil County, price difference: +$494
13. Carroll County, price difference: +$498
14. Washington County, price difference: +$592
15. Caroline County, price difference: +$678

The prices of used cars can vary significantly in counties in the same general geographic area, Chase Disher, product manager for growth and analytics at the company, tells Patch. Knowing that information can empower shoppers.

“The buyer knows that they can actually go 20 minutes west or east or something, and potentially find a better deal on a car,” he says.

Those looking for the best deals might consider heading to an urban area, where there’s often more competition. That usually leads to lower prices.

“There tend to be more dealers, a lot more inventory and therefore more competition, so that tends to drive prices down,” he says.

But if you can, buy that sweet ride in Florida or California.

“Without a doubt, Florida tends to be the cheapest state consistently,” Disher says. “Often when I’m going to look at some of the top data I need to scroll past a bunch of Florida cities because that’s just single-handedly the best place to buy a car.”

The company aims to provide consumers and the automotive industry data to better understand local trends.

Every month, Autolist refreshes its entire car-buying database and crunches the numbers for each city and county where it has statistically significant data. The firm compares the cities and the average price across them for different vehicles.

“I'm looking at California right now and I can see that, you know, Aliso Viejo is the cheapest city within all of California and the average price of a vehicle is $1,500 bucks less than other vehicles,” Disher says.

If you want see information for a specific city or county and see how it stacks up to others, head over to the Autolist website and type in the name of a city.

Autolist, based in the San Francisco area, is a metasearch automotive marketing platform. The company aims to provide the best search experience for finding a new, used or certified pre-owned vehicle.

The company has between 5 million and 8 million listings at any given time.

Disher notes the company’s data is based on listing prices and doesn’t include any taxes or other fees.

Patch reporter Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.