As gas prices stay high, Americans are starting to have second thoughts about their SUV loving lifestyle. Everyone seems to be starting to sing to the tune, “I want my, I want my, I want my MPG.” The MPG tune was popularized by Toyota’s massive ad campaign trying to sell their fuel efficient cars and while people aren’t necessarily trading in their SUVs for Toyotas, they are increasingly putting them up for sale.

On April 30th, 2008 the Craigslist blog released figures on it’s for sale section of cars and trucks and recreational vehicles. The graph focuses on July 2007 to March 2008 for sale listings. For the cars and trucks for sale national data, the increase has been 120% in listings and the recreational vehicles for sale national data has seen a 100% increase in listings. While the Craigslist listing growth graph doesn’t go into April, it is hinted on the blog that April is still seeing the same type of growth trend.

When looking at the Craigslist listing data and comparing it to U.S. Retail Gasoline Price charts, you can see that July 2007 was after the period America had to deal with $3.00 a gallon gas. Although there is some lag time in the price rises, you can see that for each bump of increase in retail gas price, Craigslist saw stronger and stronger gains in the listing growth rates. When you look at February of 2008, when gas price started to climb to the sky, the listings growth on Craigslist for cars and trucks and recreational vehicles reacted perfectly in line with the gas price increase.

Looking at the correlation between gas prices and gas consuming products being sold, you start to wonder if there is anything else seeing similar growth curves. In fact, a recent article released by the Associated Press which you can read here, discussed Craigslist’s overall site growth since July of 2007. All for-sale listings combined have shot up to 70% in the same time period the more specific graph covers above. When looking at March of 2008 alone, the listings on Craigslist have actually doubled to about 15 million compared to 12 months ago at the same time.

When referring to Compete.com data it shows Craigslist’s overall increase in unique US visitors for a 12-month period at 86.7%. The CEO of Craigslist was quoted saying the rate of growth was “moving above the usual trend line.” What seems to be of concern however, is the desperation that seems to be coming commonplace on Craigslist, as mentioned in the AP story titled, “Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet.”

The rate of increase in for sale listings is not just isolated at Craigslist.org either. There are other websites that have been mentioned as seeing dramatic increases in their listings like AuctionPal.com seeing a 36% listing increase above normal growth rates and LiveDeal.com seeing a 10% listing increase. Even though the U.S. is not technically in a recession, the mood of Americans seems to be pointing in the opposite direction as they offload their luxuries and valuables to try and afford skyrocketing food prices, gas prices and deal with issues like job loss.

If you’re in the market for an SUV, valuables or antiques it seems now is probably better than ever to find deals. Best of all for both buyer and seller, Craigslist, the true shining star in this growth curve is 100% free in most areas of the country. If gas prices push above $4.00 a gallon for the national average the inventory of SUVs waiting to be purchased looks to be creating a buyers market. We’ve seen what supply and demand can do to the housing market and it seems cars, luxury goods and valuables are next in line and can be found on your local Craigslist.