House price car trend?
USED car prices may be mirroring current house price trends, by once again beginning to rise.
As with the housing market, the root cause of this is identical – lack of supply, coupled with rising demand.
Online retailer carsite.co.uk reckons some three year old cars have risen in value by 10 percent since spring alone.
That’s as much as £1100 on the price of a secondhand model.
Admittedly, the sample basket of cars was extremely small, but the findings are supported by evidence from CAP – 81 out of 83 car manufacturers have seen average values go up between January and July.
Alistair Jeff, spokesman for carsite.co.uk, says ‘It’s basic economics – demand is outstripping supply, which is pushing prices of certain models upwards.
‘At present, there are few signs of a slowdown in this trend, so the more time buyers spend trying to find that cheaper deal, the more it might end up costing.’
The message for used car buyers is clear: holding off buying may, in the long run, end up costing them more…
Used car stock levels ‘in crisis’