Used car prices

[somnv]

Sorry if this has been covered before recently, but how do people feel used car prices are at the moment? Or are heading in the near future? I had heard they were on the up recently with people staying away from public transport and maybe also not buying as many new cars. But will used car prices then come down again soon with people spending less overall as the economy declines?
I'm sort of thinking mid range cars, like 5 years old, etc. Not proper petrolhead stuff though.

[Drive it fix it repeat]

All car prices seem strong to me at the moment, more so for normal cars. March April time I was looking forward to prices dropping, not the case from what I’ve seen annoyingly.

[Jamescrs]

Used car prices are strong currently due to lack of supply in the market and strong demand for a number of reasons. Whether there will be a comedown in quarter 1 of 2021 is any ones guess. There's various schools of thought on it.

One says there will be an influx of used cars as people lose their jobs if there is a recession, another says that used car prices will stay strong as people look to save money and go for used instead of buying brand new.

I think all anyone can do is make a best guess currently it's like any other market.

[vikingaero]

18 months ago I bought my Mum a Honda Jazz last year for £10,499 which I thought was a good value given that Honda dealers were charging £13k.

Back in August I was sorting out the insurance renewal and on some comparison/insurer sites, they do a mini car check and estimate the cars value for insurance purposes. I was pretty surprised to see that the replacement value in August was £13,800.

I've since renewed on another Jazz and the Passat and again estimated values from Insurers have gone up a couple of thousand on each car.

[samoht]

Just checked 350Z prices yesterday. Main thing is there are far fewer cars for sale it seems than when I bought in Sep last year, down from 20+ to fewer than ten. The actual asking prices look pretty similar to me, although it's hard to tell due to how few cars there are.

I suspect that the Z isn't a car that non-car people will buy just to get around, and to some extent its target market may be suffering economically, so maybe not surprising that it's not seeing the price rises of something hot like a nearly-new Jazz.

[ZX10R NIN]

Prices are pretty much the same but the amount of choice is the more limiting factor & whereas before if you were looking a smart Focus you'd have 80+ to choose from whereas now that's down to below 40, obviously this is dependent on budget.

[Jag_NE]

Out of sheer boredom I’ve been looking at the same types of car that I was looking at two years ago (when I bought) and even factoring in for a bit of inflation, prices seem to be much stronger at present. My presumption was restricted supply has cranked the prices up.

[AlexNJ89]

I've noticed that amount of cars for sale is about half the usual amount.

Also, any half reasonably priced private sale ad gets snapped up by a dealer with a £2k premium on top.

[Lester H]

I tend to watch prices at a few independents, two I’ve bought from. As a result of the so called lockdown I’ve done more of this recently. Conclusion: no movement. I do wonder how long some outlets are prepared to hang on before reducing the screen price though.

[Lester H]

somnv said:

Sorry if this has been covered before recently, but how do people feel used car prices are at the moment? Or are heading in the near future? I had heard they were on the up recently with people staying away from public transport and maybe also not buying as many new cars. But will used car prices then come down again soon with people spending less overall as the economy declines?
I'm sort of thinking mid range cars, like 5 years old, etc. Not proper petrolhead stuff though.

It’s still of direct interest despite some comment under the covid umbrella. You make the pertinent point that many of the public still buy used cars and there will be fewer signing up on PCP . The bread and butter cars ( non PH as you put it) will also in general be lower mileage.There is also much comment on the overly fussy and “bling” appearance of so much brand new stuff.A comment on my amateur “research” just below this post.

Edited by Lester H on Tuesday 8th December 11:07

Edited by Lester H on Tuesday 8th December 11:08

[VR99]

Jamescrs said:

Used car prices are strong currently due to lack of supply in the market and strong demand for a number of reasons. Whether there will be a comedown in quarter 1 of 2021 is any ones guess. There's various schools of thought on it.

One says there will be an influx of used cars as people lose their jobs if there is a recession, another says that used car prices will stay strong as people look to save money and go for used instead of buying brand new.

I think all anyone can do is make a best guess currently it's like any other market.

I'd agree with this.

In general used prices across the board seem up, I own a MK1 Focus and vaguely recall last year you could get a reasonably clean MK1 petrol for £1.5k ish or less....I'm sure you still can but they all seem much closer to the £2k mark now...it seems dealers are cleaning up with the clean private sale cars then selling on for a nice mark-up.
I like anyone else who is not an expert on the car market have no idea what's good value or not these days but my thinking is that I'm more likely to get a better deal (room for negotiation) on a £13-15k car at a main dealer than anything in the £2-£8k range.. everything has been bumped up across the board it seems.