If you’ve been hoping to get a great price for the car you’ll be selling in the near future, it’s good news all-round. According to the latest round of figures, used car prices have once again taken a healthy shot in the arm and improved for the month of April.
The latest Pulse report from BCA suggests that the national average price for a used car at the end of April was £7,553, representing a full £166 increase from the figure recorded a month earlier. According to the report, £7,553 is the highest monthly average for the year so far and is just one place behind the highest used car price average ever recorded.
April has for the past few years proved to be anything but a positive month for the used car scene, with rather gloomy declines being recorded for April 2013, 2012 and 2011. Both standard dealers and fleet sectors recorded excellent gains for the second month straight, painting a pretty positive picture ahead of the summer.
The £7,553 figure for April represents a 2.2% increase over March’s performance, though at the same time CAP Clean performance came out at 95.77%, which was 2.5 points down from the month prior. That being said, CAP Clean performance was still up by one point from April 2013 and the monthly average for April 2014 beat out last year’s by 16.6%, or £1,051. In addition, average mileage for used cars was recorded at a lower 55,500 miles, while the average used car age for the month came out at 61 months – also down from the prior month and year.
“While average values continue to surge ahead, the market was much tougher in April than we have seen so far this year,” said BCA UK operations director Simon Henstock.
“Buyers were presented with greater choice as volumes rose and conversion rates came under pressure as a result,”
“As in previous months, demand remains strong for the best quality retail cars but less attractive or poorly presented vehicles must be valued competitively and in line with condition in order to attract buyers and sell first time,”
“The premium and luxury end of the market remains very strong with buyers happy to invest six-figure sums for the right vehicles.”
Going forward, it’s largely expected that values for used cars will hold out pretty much as they are right now with no severe slides or hikes predicted for the near future at least.
“With Easter typically representing a watershed in terms of demand, the market is now moving into a period over the summer months when we expect values to remain relatively flat,” Mr Henstock added.
“Families are now thinking about paying for their summer holidays, and we still have the distractions of the Football World Cup to come. History tells us these massive sporting events have notable if short-term effects on the retail sector and therefore impact on demand in the wholesale car market.”
Emma Ward
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