The average price of the used car, the first purchase option for Spaniards, drops again almost three years later. According to the coches.net barometer, last February it fell by 1.1%, compared to the same period of the previous year. It also falls in the quarterly and interannual comparison, according to the data collected by this portal specialized in the purchase and sale of vehicles.
Since August 2020, something similar has not occurred. In the entire historical series since January 2020, it had only done so on two other occasions: in August 2020 (2.1%) and the previous month, July 2020 (0.6%), two months marked by the effects of the pandemic in the Spanish and world economy.
The specialists of this portal agree that this drop confirms what the previous monthly barometers already pointed out: a paradigm shift in the price of used cars. It seems that prices have peaked.
According to the barometer, the first sign of this change in trend came in October 2022, when year-on-year growth, for the first time in more than a year, was in single digits. That month it was 8.6%. In November, it went to 5.4%. 2022 would close with a rise of 2%, which went on to a negligible year-on-year growth of 0.1% in January. Despite the drop in the average price of used vehicles, the cost stood at 19,305 euros.
"The fall in the prices of second-hand cars is the result of the gradual recovery of its offer, a consequence in turn of the stabilization in the delivery of new vehicles and especially in the business segment, which are the ones that directly improve the stock of used vehicles, which benefits from company fleet renewals”, says the institutional manager of coches.net, Marcel Blanes.
By communities, Asturias is once again the community with the highest average price: 20,524 euros on average, as well as being the only region that exceeds 20,000 euros. They are followed by Catalonia, with an average price of 19,834 euros; and closes the podium, Madrid with 19,769 euros. The cheapest are Extremadura (16,422 euros), La Rioja (17,910 euros) and Cantabria (18,049 euros).
Used vehicles continue to have a lot of pull among Spanish buyers. According to data from Ideauto for cars.net, sales in February 2023 grew by 1.2% compared to the same month in 2022. The most demanded were diesel, gasoline and electric, in that order.
In terms of age, according to the scale, the largest volume of cars sold corresponded to the segment of those over ten years old. Specifically, 99,218 units, which represent 58% of the total. And the used car brands most requested by buyers were SEAT, Volkswagen and Peugeot, followed by Renault and Citroën.
According to data from the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac), 47% of the vehicles that circulated on Spanish roads and streets in 2022 are more than 15 years old. This figure rises to 63% in cars over ten years old.
