{"id":7445,"date":"2015-05-11T14:56:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=7445"},"modified":"2015-05-11T14:56:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:56:16","slug":"used-van-prices-falling-as-uk-vans-get-older-says-auction-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/7445","title":{"rendered":"Used van prices falling as UK vans get older, says auction firm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James

James Davis, head of commercial vehicles at Manheim<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite the sustained increase in new van registrations\u00a0seen over the last year<\/a>, the average age of used vans hitting the UK’s auction rooms keeps on rising, according to leading auction firm Manheim.<\/p>\n

According to the firm,\u00a0the average price of a used van fell by a whopping 13% to \u00a34,090 in April, compared to April 2014.<\/p>\n

This is a topic that I’ve been following in some detail<\/a> here\u00a0on the van blog<\/a> over the last year, but this is the strongest evidence yet that the market really is turning.<\/p>\n

However, it may not be\u00a0quite that simple: the average age of these used vans is rising, too, making it rather more difficult to understand how much of the fall in prices is due to age, and how much to market conditions.<\/p>\n

What’s more, the level of change is different in the three main sectors of the van market.<\/p>\n

Car-derived vans<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although the average mileage seen on car-derived vans was broadly flat on the same period last year, at around 71,000 miles, average age increased significantly,\u00a0rising by five months.<\/p>\n

Almost half (49%) of\u00a0car-derived vans sold\u00a0in April 2015 had an average age of 101 months (8.5 years).<\/p>\n

Small panel vans<\/h3>\n

As with\u00a0the smaller car-derived vans, the average age of small panel vans has remained broadly flat over the last year, and currently averages 82,650.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0the average age\u00a0of small panel vans has risen by 10 months over the last year, and\u00a0reached 78 months (6.5 years) in April.<\/p>\n

Large panel vans (>3.0 tonnes)<\/h3>\n

Year on year, the average age of large panels vans increased by just six months, while April saw this figure rise by four months to 65 months.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, 36% of this segment sold in the month had an average age of 125 months (10 and a half years). This equates to a ’54’ reg licence plate, suggesting that firms are finding that these big vans will happily run to much higher ages than smaller vans and cars.<\/p>\n

What’s next?<\/h3>\n

James Davis, Manheim’s head of commercial vehicles, says that the surge in supply seen earlier this year has now washed through the system and van prices could rally into the summer:<\/p>\n

“I predict de-fleet volumes will now fall as we approach the summer. According to supply and demand used prices are likely to rally; towards January levels but no higher. Care needs to be taken with sub two year old product as the guides see relatively small volumes.<\/p>\n

“Incentives on new vans will drive demand and values in this age bracket. Despite auction volumes of this age profile being relatively small, an average of just over 5% in many segments, the price differential of used versus new must be significant enough to make it a compelling retail proposition.”
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought the second part of Mr Davis’ comment was particularly interesting, as it highlights the effect of promotional pricing by van manufacturers on used prices:\u00a0manufacturers can drive used prices down by discounting their new vans. Used vans must be cheap enough\u00a0for the discount to outweigh the disadvantages of buying used.<\/p>\n

I’m not convinced that we’ve seen the bottom of the shake-out in the used van market: with used prices and demand\u00a0having risen\u00a0almost continuously\u00a0for several years, I suspect it will take at least a few more months for the\u00a0market to\u00a0reach a new balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Average used van prices fell by 13% in April, on a year-on-year basis, according to Manheim. The question is how much of this is related to rising average ages, and how much to weakening demand for used models?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1842,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7447,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions\/7447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}