The latest on used car prices

The latest data from our Retail Price Index shows that the average price of a used car last month was £16,492. Month on month, the market has shown a modest decrease with prices down 0.6% vs October. November 2024 was in line with historic norms and marks the fifth consecutive month of improvement in year-on-year pricing trends, reflecting robust retail demand.

 Cars are selling two days quicker than 2023, taking 31 days to leave forecourts. Electric vehicles sold even more quickly last month, at 28 days, with three-to-five-year-old EVs selling within 22 days on average.

Despite audience activity and fast speed of sale, our data also shows that up to £26.5 million in potential profit has been missed by retailers who are under-pricing sought-after stock compared to average market values.

The continuation of fast sales rates is being fuelled by still-resilient consumer demand, combined with the ongoing constraints in certain segments of used car supply. Whilst stock levels were down -6.6% in November, despite seeing the first MoM decrease since July, YoY demand sat at +5.5%, resulting in a strong market health of +13.0% YoY.

The November figures show the average price of a used petrol car down 4.7% at £14,710, diesels down 5.8% at £14,077 and electric vehicles priced 11.7% lower at £26,390. The typical plug-in hybrid has lost 10.5% year on year at £30,598.

The outlook is also positive with our forecasts showing the used car market is expected to maintain the strong growth momentum of the last two years and rise from an estimated 7.61m sales this year to around 7.70m in 2025.

Despite the political instability of a general election and a challenging economic backdrop, used car demand remained extremely resilient this year, as reflected in the 975.0m visits to our platform over the last 12 months, up 70m on 2023. The predicted 2025 growth means the market will be within just 3% of pre-pandemic volumes.