You can usually find them on almost every arterial road or on the Internet: used cars. Sometimes very cheap, sometimes expensive and well-kept, sometimes almost ready for scrap. The choice online and offline is often overwhelming. But, like so much, that has changed since the corona pandemic hit. There is less choice of vehicles, and used cars in particular have become much more expensive. The diesel in particular costs more than a year ago, reports the Deutsche Automobil Treuhand (DAT). Burkhard Weller, managing partner of the Weller automobile dealer group, estimates the price increase at five to seven percent. Particularly popular models are sometimes up to ten percent more expensive. But why?
In the corona pandemic, much fewer new cars were bought and produced due to production stops and long waiting times. At the same time, due to the home office and lack of demand, companies and landlords invest less often in company and rental cars; these are usually resold as used cars after a short period of time. They have only recently started increasing their fleets. This means that far fewer used cars can be offered for sale so far. The number of daily admissions has also decreased.
The already smaller number of cars is now meeting the pent-up demand of buyers who did not buy any cars during the lockdown and were able to view them on site. In addition, many who otherwise got by without a car buy a used car out of fear of the virus. So these have become more popular during the pandemic – more demand, less supply.
According to a DAT survey, stocks have never been so low. Young used cars in particular are missing. 77 percent of dealers reported that it was currently difficult to buy vehicles. They are currently in short supply. So the dealers don’t have to sell them cheaply either.
This applies not only to young used vehicles, but also to older models. “If the younger car is not on the market, you take a car that is a year older. That pushes through to the bottom,” says Ansgar Klein, head of the Federal Association of Independent Motor Vehicle Dealers. The price hike is likely to continue until early 2022. Also because there are still problems in the production of new cars due to the international semiconductor crisis. Some hope that the dealers will not overdo it with the prices anyway – after all, they are still only used cars.