Car valuation websites estimate my car to be worth a lot more than the price I paid 6 years ago

ColonelCabbage

Bought my 2010-made car in September 2018 from a private owner for about £1,500. Over five years and 27,000 miles later, the car is worth between £1,480 (says autotrader) and £2,000+ depending on which website I consult.

Can someone explain this magic? Are these pages bogus? Have car prices increased horribly in the past 5 years?

daveyjp

Effects of Covid where car sales stopped and new cars were difficult to source, used cars attracted a premium. 

 There has also been significant inflation in new vehicle prices, so more buyers are buying used.  

Our 7 year old car is worth about the same as we paid for it at 1 year old. 

Grumpy_chap

ColonelCabbage said:

Bought my 2010-made car in September 2018 from a private owner for about £1,500. Over five years and 27,000 miles later, the car is worth between £1,480 (says autotrader) and £2,000+ depending on which website I consult.

Can someone explain this magic? Are these pages bogus? Have car prices increased horribly in the past 5 years?

Buying a car at around £1.5k is the sweet spot if you acquire a good example that proves reliable.  So long as it stays in good condition and reliable, the car has little value to lose (it will eventually reach £500 scrap).  There are the COVID impacts still lingering plus, and possibly more significantly for older cars, if this is petrol and ULEZ-compliant an artificially induced increase in demand for cheaper compliant cars, which has the effect of increasing value coupled with the removal from the market place under the scrappage scheme of slightly older cars, thus creating a void.  This effect will vary depending upon location.
If you are looking to sell privately, you have little to lose by advertising to try to recoup the full initial purchase cost and achieve the magic "zero depreciation" outcome.
As a comparator, what are WBAC or similar indicating for the car?

facade

According to the latest WBAC "valuation" on Friday my 2019 car is worth 33% more than I paid for it new.

I wish I had bought 4 of them.....

forgotmyname

Same,  bought a 2013 car in 2018 and during lockdown the buy your car websites offered double to what I paid.

The problem with that is all the cars for sale were also doubled in price so selling would have been pointless.

Goudy

forgotmyname said:

Same,  bought a 2013 car in 2018 and during lockdown the buy your car websites offered double to what I paid.

The problem with that is all the cars for sale were also doubled in price so selling would have been pointless.

Yes while it appears the increase in value of your car is a good thing, every possible replacement has also shot up.

A few years ago Britain's cheapest new car was £5995, ok very few bought that one but they did buy the £6995 model.
It's now more than £14,000 for the cheapest new car (I am purposefully ignoring the Citroen Ami, that's not a car)

Even before Covid the market was hotting up.
I bought a cheap used 2016 Sandero Stepway as stop gap as some !!!!!! stole my car.
I ran it for a year in and in early 2020, just before the first lock down I sold it for £900 more than I paid for it.

I could have hung out for a bit more but my new car was due at the dealers so wanted it gone.
I picked the new one up on lock down day and that's only lost a small percentage, even after 4 years.

But the trouble is if I sold it, what was once a £20k new car is now £28k or more so I'm no better off.

Herzlos

There was a point where if you were trading from old to new (in stock) you could do so for peanuts, or if you were downsizing or not replacing a car you'd make a fortune.

For example when I was looking at the start of 2022 I could buy a 2019 base spec model for £18k, or a 2021 top spec model for £20k. Though I was kicking myself because I nearly bought a pre-registered one in 2020 for £13k before everything went mental.