The average price of a used car fell by 1% month-on-month in the latest Auto Trader retail data, despite transactions and consumer demand remaining strong for the traditionally quiet time of year.
The data, which is for the month until November 15, saw significant price growth in cars aged more than five years old (up 2.2% year-on-year) while those over 10 years old were up 8.4%.
Increased supply of younger cars, however, has seen prices fall for those less than five years old by 4.5 per cent. This has resulted in an overall year-on-year fall in prices of 2.3%, based on Auto Trader’s daily pricing observations.
It noted that consumer demand has been growing though for all segments, age groups and fuel types, up 6.9% compared to November 2022, while supply is only up 3.2%.
Auto Trader’s own market health metric, which looks at potential profitability based on real-time supply and demand dynamics, is therefore up 3.6% compared to last year.
On average, cars are taking 31 days to sell in November and this is the same speed as Auto Trader has seen for the past three years – but faster than pre-pandemic November 2019.
Electric cars are the fastest to sell, taking an average of 25 days compared to 31 for both petrol and diesel.
The fastest selling car in early November, however, was the petrol hybrid Jeep Compass aged less than a year old at just nine days to sell. You can read the top 10 below.
Supply levels for cars aged one to three years dropped 6.9% in the month while demand was up 9.5%, resulting in a 17.5% increase in market health. Meanwhile supply for cars under 12 months old grew by 29.9% but was outpaced by strong demand up 31.7% pushing market health up 1.4%.
Demand for both ICE and alternative-fuelled vehicles increased in the month too, with petrol up 2.7%, diesel up 0.7%, plug-in hybrids up a huge 37.6% and full/mild hybrids up 51.1%.
However, with demand up 69.1% for electric cars and supply up 12.9%, this sees a 49.7% market health for EVs in November.
Auto Trader’s director of data and insights Richard Walker said: ‘Although the younger end of the market is being squeezed by increasing supply levels and renewed pressure from new car offers, it’s promising to see that consumer engagement from our 10m monthly visitors remains robust across all segments of the market.
‘Used car supply is increasing, but critically it remains behind demand, which makes any sudden or significant drop in retail prices unlikely.
‘With a large proportion of the market still recording strong price growth, car buyers are clearly prepared to pay the retail market value, and so I would urge retailers not to risk profit potential or a self-fulfilling prophecy by making knee jerk reactions based on trends in trade values.
‘Cars continue to sell, and importantly, quickly – by buying and selling fast, there’s little time for small changes in value to be felt. So, my advice remains unchanged; price to the market to sell quickly, and don’t give up your profits unnecessarily, follow the data.’
October 17 – November 17, 2023
1. Jeep Compass petrol hybrid – up to 1 year old
Median days to sell: 9
2. Kia Niro electric – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 11
3. Hyundai Ioniq petrol plug-in hybrid – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 12
4. Mercedes-Benz A-Class petrol plug-in hybrid – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 13
5. Renault Zoe electric – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 14
6. Mercedes-Benz A-Class petrol hybrid – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 14
7. Vauxhall Combo Life petrol – 3 to 5 years old
Media days to sell: 14
8. Hyundai Ioniq petrol hybrid – 1 to 3 years old
Median days to sell: 14
9. Volkswagen e-Golf electric – 3 to 5 years old
Median days to sell: 14
10. Renault Zoe electric – 1 to 3 years old
Median days to sell: 14.5
