Used value rise slows
March 11th, 2010 by Richard Aucock
USED car prices are still rising but the rate of improvement has slowed to an average of just £20.
BCA reports the marginal average rise equated to an average month-on-month increase of 0.3 percent.
Why the slow in improvement? Well, it’s not because the market is losing enthusiasm, says the BCA Pulse report. It is because values are being compared to a market which, 12 months ago, was beginning to recover!
This means that while values remain an impressive 6.9 percent up on last year, the disparity is starting to reduce rapidly. For example, year-on-year figures in January were up 15 percent.
In December, they were ahead by 29 percent…
BCA Director Tony Gannon said ‘supply and demand remains well balanced in the used market, and February has been a much more typical month following the weather-affected start to the year.
‘Fleets are the winners this month as values continue to show consistent growth, thanks to limited supplies and strong demand.’ Values in this sector improved by 1.4 percent.
Nearly-new values recorded an improvement too – the 6.0 percent rise is the second highest on record.
‘With lower numbers than the fleet and part-exchange sectors, model mix has a greater role to play and BCA recorded some significant results for nearly-new cars in both manufacturer closed sales and Top Car and Prestige sales during February.’
Budget models felt the pressure, though. This, said Gannon, ‘was a little surprising… but with supplies increasing substantially for the second month running, demand did well to keep up.’