The average price of a used car in June 2021 was £14,276 – a record year-on-year rise of 11.1 percent.
What’s more, the pace of price growth is increasing, with June figures alone increasing 8.1 percent from May, setting another record in the process.
Auto Trader says the latest data marks 15 consecutive months of used car price rises and is due to ‘huge levels’ of consumer demand.
Compared to the pre-pandemic month of June 2019, the number of people searching for used cars on Auto Trader went up by a third. Consumers also spent 25 percent more time looking for second-hand vehicles on the platform than in 2019.
Despite rising prices, cars are selling more quickly, too – an average of 23 days in June 2019. Two years ago, cars took a working week longer to leave retailer forecourts.
‘High demand will continue’
“Whilst supply constraints have compounded the situation, this massive acceleration in used car prices is being driven by record levels of demand in the market,” said Auto Trader data and insight director Richard Walker.
“We’ve barely started to catch back the 1.7 million ‘lost’ transactions in 2020 while retailer showrooms were closed.
Coupled with the strong levels of disposable income and savings, as well as improving consumer confidence and low interest rates, we can expect very high demand to continue for the rest of this year.”
Price rises will eventually begin to ease, added Mr. Walker… but not yet.
“The steep trajectory we’ve been recording will begin to balance out as pressure on supply chains eases and the current levels of demand soften. However, we have every confidence we’ll see strong levels of price growth for a good period of time to come.”
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