News

BCA: March posts highest values so far this year

Advert

Time 7:39 am, April 8, 2014

BCABRITISH Car Auctions’ latest Pulse report shows a further increase in average car values, making March 2014 the highest monthly value this year and the third highest on record.

Headline average value was up by £57 to £7,387 last month with BCA putting the rise down to a shift in models thanks to an influx of dealer part-exchanges.

Year-on-year, March 2014 was ahead by £387 but the average mileage fell slightly to just over 56,000 miles.


Meanwhile, for the first time this year, nearly-new values improved. BCA also saw a value rise of £381 for fleet & lease plus a £109 increase for dealer sectors, both reaching record levels.

Simon Henstock, BCA’s UK operations director, said: ‘Despite volumes remaining significantly higher than we have seen in recent months, demand was very strong across the range of stock on offer at BCA in March.  We saw greater volumes from dealer part-exchange sources and a small increase in fleet & lease volumes. This shift in the model mix meant the headline figure could have been even higher as the individual product sectors saw quite significant value uplifts.

‘As we said last month, used car demand remains very strong, particularly for retail quality vehicles. But as Easter approaches, the market is showing early signs of softening and, with the March new registration figures being the highest in a decade, this will generate more volume into the used car arena. If supply starts to outstrip demand, there will inevitably be some downward pressure on average values, particularly for less attractive or poorly presented vehicles.’


He added: ‘Sellers should keep close to the market and work with their remarketing partner to ensure their vehicles are sensibly appraised and realistically valued to sell first time.’

Rebecca Chaplin's avatar

Rebecca has been a motoring and business journalist since 2014, previously writing and presenting for titles such as the Press Association, Auto Express and Car Buyer. She has worked in many roles for Car Dealer Magazine’s publisher Blackball Media including head of editorial.



More stories...

Advert
Server 108