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I was car shopping back then and while I can't comment on the lightly used market the mid and low range were reasonable (I was at a food delivery company at the time, so that was the sort of shopping I did.) if you weren't looking for a truck or SUV. My goal was under 10 years old, 100k miles or less, and under $10K and there was a decent selection even accounting for my weird tastes (I wanted something not silver, white, or black, and it had to have a stick shift.). I was closing in on a Mazda 2, and early 2010s models were running for about $7500 at the time.
I actually blundered into a private party deal that I couldn't pass up, a loaded one year old Mazda 3 with 15K miles for $17K. It was retired lady's recently passed husband's car, a stick shift that she couldn't drive, had one minor scrape on the bumper, and the interior reeked of cigarettes but otherwise it was mint and I knew how to fix the cigarette smell so I offered her NADA "rough trade-in" and she took it. The bank had it valued at $21.5K, and on that note interest rates were lower then. I was able to put 20% down and finance the rest of it for 2% interest.
Funny enough, I never liked that car all that much (It's a perfectly nice car but doesn't feel particularly "fun" to drive. It's too SUV-like and the tall gearing makes it feel slow.) and sold it once but wound up getting it back (The guy I sold it to died and left it to me because he owed me a ton of money.). I will say that it's been perfectly reliable and if I was looking to recommend a compact car to someone who doesn't want to pay the Honda/Toyota tax I would go with a 2nd or 3rd Gen Mazda 3 without hesitation.
By contrast, the lightly used market for stuff I want now is mostly ridiculous. An 8-10 year old Civic Si with under 100K miles runs over $20K and even the cheapest Type-Rs are pushing $30K, with a lightly used example pushing $40K. Another issue for normies is that the mid-2010s had several "dud" cars that appear nice but have major problems that should be avoided and infest the "affordable" end of the used car market. I'm talking about Nissans with their CVTs, Ford Focuses with the Powershift automatic, Hyundai/Kia products with the Theta engines that blow up, GM SUVs with the Ecotec 4 cylinders, Fords with the 3.5 V6 that has the nightmare water pump, etc.
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