Second hand car prices will continue to rise

“I don’t see a light in the tunnel in the next year or even two. Used car prices are likely to continue to rise amid the ongoing new car supply shocks caused by the metals crisis, chips and so on.”

Lyubomir Dorosiev, deputy chairman of the Association of Automobile Importers (AIA) told BTA. According to him, huge demand on the secondary market of cars is observed not only in Bulgaria, but also in the countries of Western Europe.

“It was a taboo for Westerners – there everyone bought a new car every two, three years. Now they’re in crisis, and so are we. The lack of new cars fuels the demand for used cars. That is why they are so expensive. My view is that we will not see a different situation any time soon. Prices can go down if demand stops to some extent and the supply on the market is very high, but at the moment there are no conditions for that. At the moment abroad the issue stands like this – there are 7 – 8 dealers lined up for a used car. We are almost playing auction and raising the price of the car we want to buy, which is very ridiculous,” Dorosiev explained.

Large companies prefer tenders

“Large companies dealing with the sale of second-hand cars and having offices in different cities are increasingly choosing to sell their goods through auctions. This, Dorosiev said, guarantees them a better profit. Thus, if a car is offered at a price of 5,000 euros, it can rise to 6,000 or even 7,000 euros at auction. More and more Bulgarian dealers are participating in such auctions. And in some cases they manage to buy goods at a good price,” Dorosiev reported.

90 percent of the cars in the largest auctions in Pernik, Sofia, Dupnitsa and Plovdiv are imported from Italy, he said.

“Right now in Italy the market is very big. But we are seeing a resurgence in markets like Germany, and Switzerland. Because the Swiss franc was quite low and now it is quite high. It is noteworthy that more and more cars are imported from France, which used to be a taboo. There is a huge market in England, but there you know the steering wheel is right-hand drive, and such cars are almost not in demand in our country,” Dorosiev said.

Source: Pariteni