Why Now Could Be A Good Time To Lease A Car

Saturday, 28. February 2009

Whilst used car prices are having a negative effect on lease rates as they counter the bonuses given away by manufacturers there has been a mild glimmer of hope during January. British Car Auctions have reported on average a 6% increase in used car prices following several months of continued falls. At the same time they reported that the average price was £1,000 less this January than it was last January so the situation is still pretty poor. Much of this increase is down to fewer cars being available as people and businesses hold onto their cars for longer, as I pointed out last week, in itself building up some potential explosive demand as soon as we come out of this recession. Manheim, our other leading auction house, has also reported similar results in its auctions but don’t get too excited as there have also been a number of price rises announced by many manufactures including VW, Ford, Vauxhall, BMW and Citroen. This may seem daft as we are all given the impression that there are fields of unsold cars just waiting to be virtually given away but this isn’t true. I have had 3 different clients ask me for quotes on Mini’s this week (this is the company that recently laid off 850 workers) following trips to Mini dealers, non of whom was prepared to give a discount on a Mini. And I am also struggling to find any great deals to offer as most manufacturers cleared out all their overstock at the end of last year to improve their year end figures and not carry stock over into the current year which everyone knew would be a worse year than last when it comes to car sales. There are however some stirrings so I am hopeful that we may see some reasonable deals soon so keep watching our weekly deal of the week and our new price list which should be out very soon. By Graham Hill