12:06 pm, July 6, 2021
Used car prices were up by over 11 per cent in June driven by ‘record customer demand’, new figures show.
Auto Trader’s latest Retail Price Index showed prices rose year-on-year and like-for-like by 11.1 per cent last month.
Based on daily pricing analysis of circa 900,000 vehicles, the average used car asking price stood at £14,276.
June marked the 15th consecutive month of price growth, and was the highest single month-on-month price growth ever recorded by Auto Trader’s Index.
June rise was up from the 8.1 per cent increase seen in May.
Auto Trader said the price growth was reflected in the increased traffic to its platform.
In June it recored 66.6m cross platform visits, representing a 34 per cent increase on the same period in 2019.
Consumers also spent 10.1m hours researching their next car on the marketplace – a 25 per cent increase.
Auto Trader data also showed it took an average of just 23 days for new stock to leave forecourts – five days faster than June 2019.
The company says dealers are reporting record used car sales performance, with Q2 2021 volumes increasing around 12 per cent on the same period in 2019.
It added it’s also seeing fewer dealers adjusting prices on fewer vehicles, as well as a notable increase in the number of retailers making positive price adjustments across their forecourts.
In the final week of June, of those retailers making daily adjustments, 37 per cent increased their sticker prices, which is up on the 32 per cent recorded in May and 22 per cent in April.
Meanwhile, diesels are more popular than ever with used prices jumping from 10.2 per cent year-on-year in May, to a massive 13.1 per cent growth in June.
The average used diesel price stood at £14,706 last month.
We have every confidence we’ll see strong levels of price growth for a good period of time to come
It marks the highest single level of growth recorded since Auto Trader began tracking used prices in 2011.
The average price of a used petrol car last month was £12,836, which is a 9.6 per cent year-on-year increase – three percentage points higher than the already significant growth recorded in May (6.5 per cent).
Used volume EVs, meanwhile, increased 9.2 per cent year-on-year (£22,050) last month.
Auto Trader said that while average prices of premium EVs continue to contract, down seven per cent year-on-year (£44, 441), it’s slightly less pronounced than the 8.7 per cent drop recorded in May.
The firm said the decline in prices is due to the very strong levels of supply in the market, outperforming an otherwise very robust level of consumer demand.
Auto Trader’s director of data and insight, Richard Walker, said: ‘Whilst supply constraints have compounded the situation, this massive acceleration in used car price is being driven by record levels of demand in the market.
‘We’ve barely started to catch back the 1.7m ‘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, it’s safe to expect very high demand to continue for the rest of this year.
‘The steep trajectory we’ve been recording will begin to balance out as pressure on supply channels 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.’
