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Price rise at auction is good news for sellers

BCA saw huge interest in the first full week of auction trading as buyers competed strongly for cars. BCA’s Andrew Hulme reports.

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10 January 2012

BCA saw huge interest in the first full week of auction trading as buyers competed strongly for cars. BCA’s Andrew Hulme reports. In the first full trading week of the year, we sold nearly 13,000 vehicles – over 80% of the vehicles put through auction.

This is ahead, significantly, year-on-year. Average values have crept up from December at L4895. But remain around L550 behind 2008 figures over a similar period.

However, this isn’t out of the blue. There were signs of improvement late in 2008.

There was a stabilising of the market in the second half of November. And a firming of demand in the L2,000 to L5,000 price sector.

Sellers realised that it was imperative to sell their stock. Those that prepared their vehicles to a high standard, valued them accurately, and ensured the right documents were present attracted large crowds of buyers. And improved prices relative to the market norm. This trend continued into December.

However, we must be cautious: the first few days of the New Year are like a honeymoon period. And we all know they don’t last forever.

Professional retail buyers were starved of vehicles over the festive season, and are currently busy replenishing their forecourt stock.

This has given an exceptional boost to conversions and prices. The real test will be over the coming weeks and will depend on the retail demand those dealers experience.

Our dealer customers inform us there is currently a disconnect between retail activity, which is slightly better and wholesale activity, which is significantly better. It is quite possible values will settle back over the coming weeks.

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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