Residual values start to stabilise, reports Auto Trader

A recurring theme of the Fleet News Quarterly Market Insight in association with Auto Trader has been the falling residual values over the course of 2024, particularly for nearly new cars.

However, the market has been more stable moving into the fourth quarter, according to data from Auto Trader and is broadly performing in line with seasonal norms, reports director of automotive finance Rachael Jones.

“We've got strong demand and supply softening,” she said. “If we look at September, just our most recent pricing trends that we've published, stock levels were down just over 5%. But demand was up 8% so that’s a healthy balance. Average prices seem to be quite strong at the moment compared to kind of the seasonal norms that we always track generally.”

Auto Trader has been monitoring pricing since 2011 and September prices on average reverse by 0.6%; this September they only fell back by 0.3%.

“Looking ahead to next year, we don't see any major change; there's no sign of these dynamics changing massively,” Jones said.

“We map out the car parc and look at the cycles of change and what supply is coming back into market from new car and so on. We don't see the supply side of things changing too much.”

She also believes there is no reason to assume that demand will drop off either, resulting in a more stable pricing environment.

However, she adds a caveat: “That's dependent, of course, on everyone playing sensibly. Last year, we saw a massive change on a pricing perspective, when the market moved to follow the wholesale trends. So if that doesn't happen, we'll be in more stable place.”