Finance Levels Way Up As PCPs Expire And Hit The Market
Vehicle data expert CARTELL.IE reports that the proportion of vehicles offered for sale (across all years) with finance outstanding is 12.5% – up from 11.5% in January and 9.5% in June 2016. Cartell.ie also reports that more vehicles for certain key registration years are being offered for sale with finance outstanding than in 2016. From a sample of over 5,906 vehicles offered for sale and checked via the Cartell.ie website so far in 2017, the figures show that more than one third of vehicles registered in the last three years are offered for sale with finance outstanding.
In the case of one-year-old vehicles (2016) the levels of vehicles offered for sale with finance outstanding has risen from 31.58% for the full year 2016 to 36.83% so far in 2017 – representing an increase of 16.62%. This means there is now almost a two-in-five chance of a one-year-old vehicle bring offered for sale with finance outstanding.
Similarly in the case of two-year-old vehicles (2015) there is a 32.64% chance of a vehicle being offered for sale with finance outstanding based on checks on Cartell.ie in 2017.
Graph 1: Percentages of Vehicles with Outstanding Finance by Registration Year checked on Cartell.ie (Source: Carstat, Cartell.ie)
Graph 2: Historic Percentages of Vehicles with Outstanding Finance checked on Cartell.ie (Source: Carstat, Cartell.ie)
Statistics published by Cartell.ie indicate that buyers have a one-in-three chance (33%) of purchasing a three-year-old vehicle (2014) with finance outstanding. Even older vehicles are regularly offered for sale with finance outstanding – 8.97% of all 2010 registered vehicles offered for sale had outstanding finance against them.
John Byrne, Cartell.ie, says: “33% of all three-year-old vehicles (2014) checked so far this year on Cartell.ie have finance outstanding. This is up from 26.8% of three-year-old vehicles (2013) checked last year on the site. The rise is probably due to expiring PCPs where owners are testing the market to see if they can return a higher price than the Guaranteed Minimum Future Value (GMFV) guaranteed by the dealer.
What’s really concerning is that 34% of all vehicles registered in the last three years are offered for sale with finance outstanding.
In terms of the overall picture 12.5% of all vehicles checked with Cartell.ie so far in 2017 have finance outstanding. This is up from 11.5% in January and 9.5% in June 2016. These are very significant jumps. A buyer is advised to check a vehicle for outstanding finance as the finance house owns the vehicle until the last payment has been made – the bottom line is that you can lose the vehicle.”
