Used car prices have been ridiculously high in Australia for so long, but with 2023 on the horizon and the new car shortage on the way out, that’s set to change, right? Wrong, as it turns out.
The last two years have seen the car market get hotter than a vinyl singlet, thanks to a myriad of factors (most of which can be boiled down to one: COVID-19). Most obviously, the pandemic has made the prospect of public transport far less palatable for many. We’ve also seen road trips, off-roading and the #vanlife spike in popularity…
What’s been even more significant is the disruption to global trade and manufacturing COVID wrought, the impacts of which we’re still dealing with – such as the global computer chip shortage. The long and the short of it is this: used car prices are really high right now, there’s been a shortage of new cars and people are flipping new cars for ridiculous profits at ridiculous rates.
Conventional wisdom would suggest now that the worst of the pandemic is over and things are getting back to normal, prices will start to simmer down, meaning Aussies should consider selling their cars before summer / before 2023. That was our working theory, at least – but it turns out that’s unlikely to be the case.
DMARGE spoke exclusively with Mike Sinclair, Editor-in-Chief at Carsales (Australia’s largest car classifieds so they know what they’re talking about) who suggests that it’ll still be a while until new car stock levels get back to normal in Australia:
“As long as new car stock levels remain to be challenged, there will be pressure on used car prices, and the outlook is still for many brands to be stock-constrained through to the end of 2023 and perhaps beyond.”
Mike Sinclair
It’s a prognosis shared by many car dealers in Western Australia (who are no strangers to dealing with stock shortages), as this report by The West Australian relates.
In short: there’s no need to rush and sell your car whilst prices are still high because it’s likely to remain a seller’s market for a while now. That’s bad news for people looking for a car, though. At least bikes are still cheap.
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