CS, Scud, Speciale - Has the market stalled?

[suigeneris]

I'm in the market for a Scuderia and having looked at LHD am now tempted to spend the extra for RHD. There are arguments for/against future values of both but RHD Scuderia is a comparable bargain having risen only 50% (£110-130k to £180-200k) vs circa 150% for CS (£80-100k to £200-250k) over the last 2 years.

However, being in this position of choice - as I'm sure a reasonable number of others are, I'm rather stunned by how many cars are available and just not selling - there are around 24 x 360CS, and 37 Scuderias and over 40 (?) Speciales available. I've never seen so many Scuds at any one time (there used to be 8-10 at a time available) and some of the RHD cars have been advertised for months.

Dealers have no incentive to start chopping prices to sell (their debt is cheap) but if this is a new established price level, why arent they selling? Is there a general consensus among people in a similar position to me that it'd be crazy to buy now rather than wait and see what happens over the next 6 months? But what - if anything, is going to change the market when dealers debt is so cheap to maintain, unless theyre not selling anything and need to service monthly payments by selling something..?

All the talk about values is indeed boring and if the market wasnt so odd right now I'll gladly spin the dice and buy something I can enjoy, but I'm sure like many others I dont want to spend £180k on a car and end up taking a bath on it!

[suigeneris]

subirg said:

If you want to know where the speculator driven market is going, look at the results from the Monterey auctions last weekend. Bloodbath. This hasn't filtered through to the dealer pricing yet though. Clearly in denial. Ferraris seem to be dropping fastest but that's not surprising given the enormous run up the brand has had over the last few years - far out striping all others. A correction is due. No one knows how deep it will go. Buy for pleasure not investment potential.

In that case anyone who doesnt want potential to take a bath with wait, but how much can they really change. I cant imagine Scuds going back to £130k and if there is a "correction to the mean" as the graph posted suggested, I imagine £180k cars may come down to maybe £140k-150k, so putting a cheeky offer in now may not yield too much downside risk... the only issue I've found is most dealers have such short memory of things just going up that theyre less willing to "deal" as they used to be.

Frankly all of this gets very boring. Its easy to say when you do have money, but the only real commodity is time and I want to enjoy something now. I suppose I am just too cautious to throw caution to the wind but it seems this is the current mood with many others as well...

[suigeneris]

KenC said:

There are not 37 Scuderia for sale on Pistonheads, just 37 adverts in that section.

I count around 30 for sale and a handful of wanted/sold/16M ads ...still far more than the 8-10 at a time that used to be the case.

[suigeneris]

I wonder if the market does have a correction whether LHD or RHD will take the biggest hit. LHD market has larger audience in Europe (especially with a weak pound for these to be exported back, although that hasnt helped UK LHD sales recently), but if the correction is Europe wide you're in a bigger boat as supply is so much higher. Similar arguments for RHD having a lower supply but also potentially lower audience, although some argue it'll always be the stronger bet.

Head tells me to spend under £100k on something thats had less of a swing and wait it out... heart says RHD Scuderia!

Edited by suigeneris on Tuesday 23 August 21:20