Has the Market changed drastically?

[mypropaganda]

My Chinese built Polestar 2 is pretty solid. Granted I’ve had more visits to the (Volvo) dealer than I have with any of my previous BMWs (0 visits for them) but it’s most been software issues that have been resolved through OTA updates which don’t really have much to do with the build quality as such.

[highway]

Having read this thread, my own experience is contrary to it. I sold my last car- a low miles 2 year old 440 Cab with mega spec, to a dealer. They paid strong money for it.

I always buy used cars privately and I’ve got a reasonable war chest ready to go again. There’s a 718S on AT that looks good. Offered 2k off asking price, less than 5%, rejected immediately.

A lovely Elise Sprint- overpriced at £45k, sold immediately at the weekend. 
Trawling the usual classifieds reveals less and less interesting cars advertised privately. I think many people just sell to Motorway, CarWow or dealers, especially as their offers on late year, low mileage stuff are quite generous. A lifetime Auto Trader ad is £90 and if you want to sell privately, you may wait a long time, especially if you are selling something common, that dealers are advertising at much the same price. 
I’d consider a 991, 981S, 718S, G series M4, post 17 Elise, 4C Spyder and several other cars. 
I don’t see anyone selling any of those cars, if the mileage and spec are desirable, at anything close to a ‘distress’ level. I don’t see prices dropping at all. The post 17 Elises I referenced, were low £30’s pre Buttercup. All £40k plus now- 3 years on. Same with 4C.
Please point out the bargain cars now available that I have missed- I see nothing but  dealers asking yesterday prices and private sellers who still think there is a chip shortage and their car is worth more than those on a main dealer forecourt. 
 

[ATM]

9 hours ago, highway said:

Having read this thread, my own experience is contrary to it. I sold my last car- a low miles 2 year old 440 Cab with mega spec, to a dealer. They paid strong money for it.

I always buy used cars privately and I’ve got a reasonable war chest ready to go again. There’s a 718S on AT that looks good. Offered 2k off asking price, less than 5%, rejected immediately.

A lovely Elise Sprint- overpriced at £45k, sold immediately at the weekend. 
Trawling the usual classifieds reveals less and less interesting cars advertised privately. I think many people just sell to Motorway, CarWow or dealers, especially as their offers on late year, low mileage stuff are quite generous. A lifetime Auto Trader ad is £90 and if you want to sell privately, you may wait a long time, especially if you are selling something common, that dealers are advertising at much the same price. 
I’d consider a 991, 981S, 718S, G series M4, post 17 Elise, 4C Spyder and several other cars. 
I don’t see anyone selling any of those cars, if the mileage and spec are desirable, at anything close to a ‘distress’ level. I don’t see prices dropping at all. The post 17 Elises I referenced, were low £30’s pre Buttercup. All £40k plus now- 3 years on. Same with 4C.
Please point out the bargain cars now available that I have missed- I see nothing but  dealers asking yesterday prices and private sellers who still think there is a chip shortage and their car is worth more than those on a main dealer forecourt. 
 

I follow some threads on Pistonheads and one in particular where people are discussing auctions of Porsches on Collecting Cars

Recently lots have been ending with reserve not met where as before they were not

So from this we can deduce that Porsches [on Collecting Cars] are not selling as well as they were

Now these are expensive cars 50 - 150k so possibly not typical

Also I follow another thread talking about how many Porsches are in stock at Porsche dealers - the numbers are up

Also another thread just talking about the prices of GT3 cars for sale and again there are people saying prices have come down for cars that are selling

So it definitely feels like the market has changed or is changing

And it is not just me saying this

[BrianJ]

Interesting that there are also 43 new 718s for sale on the Porsche web site currently. I haven't checked this very often but there have definitely been long periods over the last couple of years when there weren't any.

[Mattman42]

I've obviously been watching the 987 gen 2 PDK listings for a few weeks, not exactly a large selection which got reduced when applying my budget. Hardly any new listings appearing, same 6-10 cars across a variety of platforms, none selling.

A couple have reduced their prices slightly (i.e. less than £1000) but even that doesn't appear to have made much difference. Difference between dealer and private prices is minimal as well, unless you are talking about Porsche specialists who crank up the price.

Some silly prices being asked for gen 2 S models, higher than pre-buttercup times - they are going to be for sale for a long time

[highway]

The values of stuff priced north of £80k is a separate market. You start breathing rarified air at that point. 
I like the 981 but I don’t see that 11 year old cars should reasonably be £30k plus anymore. 
Likewise 2017 Elises with asking prices at 6 years old, of what they were brand new. 
loads of stuff has been pumped up over the past 5 years. If we return to pre pandemic levels of depreciation,

would that be a bad thing?

[Menoporsche]

1 hour ago, highway said:

The values of stuff priced north of £80k is a separate market. You start breathing rarified air at that point. 

no no, that's nitrogen, goes in the tyres apparently.

[ATM]

1 hour ago, highway said:

The values of stuff priced north of £80k is a separate market. You start breathing rarified air at that point. 
I like the 981 but I don’t see that 11 year old cars should reasonably be £30k plus anymore. 
Likewise 2017 Elises with asking prices at 6 years old, of what they were brand new. 
loads of stuff has been pumped up over the past 5 years. If we return to pre pandemic levels of depreciation,

would that be a bad thing?

I agree that the more expensive stuff is different.  And maybe we see ripples there first.  I dont want to be too doom and gloom but surely this has to trickle down to us mere mortals.

 

I think we had 3 problems:

1. Cars suddenly got expensive after Buttercup

2. People were flush with low interest loans

3. Both 1+2 above added up and made people believe you could buy cars and not lose money because - insert your own beliefs here - EV cars and no more ICE - people will never sell - good cars are hard to find etc etc etc

 

Now we are coming back to reality and we have to question these

1. I think this was due to various reasons which have all clearly gone now - chips shortages / people wfh so don't need boring cars and want interesting cars etc etc etc

2. This has clearly gone now

3. I think people were just believing whatever they wanted to make them believe - it is different now - if it really is different them we just pay more for cars but is it different all of a sudden or is this just people building a reason around prices going up to rationalise prices going up - who know

 

 

My view is we had a supply shock and we also had a lot of money sloshing around [Buttercup bail out loans / cheap finance deals / I have even seen some people talking about interest only car loans ] and we saw prices rise for all of the above but this has gone now so prices returning to some sort of sense of normality is to be expected

 

The question is then well if they return to some sort of normality and stabilise or will the higher interest rates affect everything else and force prices down.  I think the answer to this has to be yes but we might not have seen this yet.  We might just be working of the froth from the initial price shock.  Obviously some sellers still believe they can ask higher prices.  And maybe some buyers are still paying these because they don't realise prices have softened. 

I dont know.  I am just guessing.  But if you could get cheap car finance before then cars seemed an easy purchase.  And if you saw them going up then it was also easy to think they would keep their value.

But when prices start to drop they can drop fast.

I see a lot of news about house prices being cut.  Sellers dropping prices more than ever before in last x number of years.  So if this is happening to houses it must be happening to cars.  You cant have falling house prices and rising car prices.  That makes no sense.  If houses are falling then cars need to.

Sure the cheaper cars cant really drop much so the middle will get squeezed.  This is where we exist.  In the middle.  If someone has sold their 80k car and they want some cheaper fun they may buy a 30k car.  And therefore maybe the upper end still sees life.  Again just me chatting and guessing.

Houses are dropping.

Expensive cars are dropping.

Interest rates are Up.

Cost of Living is Up.

This surely has to have a negative affect on cars priced in the middle.

[highway]

WTF is this ‘buttercup’ that keeps being mentioned?

Someone please show me a sports car,

currently advertised, low miles,

good spec, not a CAT- that is in anyway priced ‘cheaply’ I can’t see any. I just see no end of privately advertised cars at dealer level. 

[Menoporsche]

Buttercup is the forum's auto-edit of C ovid.  The word got too contentious a couple of years ago.

[highway]

Ahh the inglorious vid. Where our beloved chancellor took out the cash hose and sprayed £50’s over the masses. Without ever thinking to mandate they would ‘eventually’ have to pay it back. No, best give ‘some’ the best holiday they’d had since being at school, pay them up to £2.5k per month, let them bitch and moan about being bored. Then wait for them to start moaning how interest rates are up and inflation is soaring. 
Best not talk about it!

[GTSMarky]

5 minutes ago, highway said:

Ahh the inglorious vid. Where our beloved chancellor took out the cash hose and sprayed £50’s over the masses. Without ever thinking to mandate they would ‘eventually’ have to pay it back. No, best give ‘some’ the best holiday they’d had since being at school, pay them up to £2.5k per month, let them bitch and moan about being bored. Then wait for them to start moaning how interest rates are up and inflation is soaring. 
Best not talk about it!

So true & the payback just had to come.  Part of the trouble is a generation of people that expect something for nothing and have no concept of national/global economics.

[Mattman42]

9 minutes ago, highway said:

WTF is this ‘buttercup’ that keeps being mentioned?

Someone please show me a sports car,

currently advertised, low miles,

good spec, not a CAT- that is in anyway priced ‘cheaply’ I can’t see any. I just see no end of privately advertised cars at dealer level. 

They are out there, but you have to put a lot of leg work in these days to find them, and if/when you do spot them, you have to jump on them quick to get a deal. I was on the usual websites every day for a few weeks before I bought mine.

There are also a lot of fake ads around, even on AT, so you need your wits about you.

As others have said, a lot of people are opting for the easy way of selling now using Cazoo, WBAC etc so a lot of the "bargains" don't even make the classifieds and end up with a margin elsewhere. My nephews JCW mini is a good example, Motorway gave him £14k for it - within a week a dealer 'oop north has it up for £17.5k - at £14k it was ok, at £17.5k its just expensive.

Before buttercup, i picked up my wife's car from a friend who was trading it in - the dealer lowballed him, but he didn't want the hassle of selling so i was able to get it for a couple of hundred more than trade in price - according to similar on AT at the moment, they are still going for more than we paid, so i was lucky.

 

 

[Codfanglers]

As always, eBay and FB is the place to advertise if you are desperate and eBay "sold" listings a good barometer of how much someone is willing to pay for any particular model.   

If the actual price of a car hasn't fallen in the last year, inflation has still effectively dropped its value by 10%.

 

[ATM]

12 minutes ago, GTSMarky said:

So true & the payback just had to come.  Part of the trouble is a generation of people that expect something for nothing and have no concept of national/global economics.

Exactly

 

News Flash

 

If the government hand out money - we all end paying for it

 

The government makes no money - they just take in taxes and then give it away in benefits or spend it on stuff or their own wages

 

However our government are now spending more than they get in taxes, a lot more

 

This is inflation - This is what makes price rise not the other way round

 

Government over spending makes our prices higher

 

It isnt complicated

[highway]

Given that the news keeps telling me there is a cost of living crisis, interest rates are up month on month etc etc, why aren’t used performance cars plummeting?

[ATM]

5 minutes ago, highway said:

Given that the news keeps telling me there is a cost of living crisis, interest rates are up month on month etc etc, why aren’t used performance cars plummeting?

Go back to page 1

 

WBAC valuations dropping 5k in a week

 

Or 20%

 

Is that plummeting?

[daz05]

27 minutes ago, ATM said:

Go back to page 1

 

WBAC valuations dropping 5k in a week

 

Or 20%

 

Is that plummeting?

No I think you are exaggerating personally.

[Codfanglers]

1 hour ago, daz05 said:

No I think you are exaggerating personally.

Just checked the WBAC price on my car. It's at 42% of what they were quoting just over two years ago. I've not seen one fit for the road for sale anywhere their price though.

[Nobbie]

It seems like there maybe a bit of a standoff in the used car market at present for Boxsters with sellers holding out for the high prices of the last couple of years, whilst buyers are expecting prices to drop and are waiting it out.

Many people do a WBAC valuation on cars they are looking to buy as a bit of a sense check or when selling to set a backstop for offers and so a sustained drop in WBAC valuations is likely to feed through to used prices eventually. I certainly wouldn’t be paying asking price on most of the currently advertised 981s. Time will tell.

[highway]

BMW put my 440 up for £4K more than they paid me for it. I don’t resent that at all. Time they’ve paid VAT and what not I actually thought it reasonable. Porsche dealers (indies as well) seem to want £10k plus if they outlay £30k. 
WBAC are vague for valuations. For reference the dealer buying my 440 paid over £6.5k more than their somewhat uncomfortable valuation. 
Again, I invite anyone to point at any interesting, low miles, well specced car, that’s priced even vaguely cheaply. 
 

[Bike Loon]

23 minutes ago, highway said:

BMW put my 440 up for £4K more than they paid me for it. I don’t resent that at all. Time they’ve paid VAT and what not I actually thought it reasonable.
 

There is no VAT on used cars, only when new.

[moonshine]

7 minutes ago, Bike Loon said:

There is no VAT on used cars, only when new.

dealers pay 1/6 of the margin in VAT on second hand cars

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-vat-margin-scheme-for-second-hand-vehicles

Edited September 19, 2023 by moonshine

[Bike Loon]

1 minute ago, moonshine said:

dealers pay 1/6 of the margin in VAT on second hand cars

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-vat-margin-scheme-for-second-hand-vehicles

Thats Crazy... how can they keep getting VAT on an item? It always used to be when new and should be a 1 time charge... thieving gits!

[Menoporsche]

When I bought the orange one s/h from a dealer in Germany I was personally vat exempt but normal Germans weren’t. So yes some places charge.