Assume you want to buy a car that is easy to resell in case you need to get rid of it in a hurry. Where can a person find a list with how easy it is to resell a car (ie, how long it normally stays on the market when someone tries to resell it) and how well it maintains its value and depriciates? Are the two related, ie is a car that depreciates fast also one that is harder to resell and visa verca?
IIRC, Consumer Reports tells you how well a car holds its value.
Is how well a car holds its value related to how hard/easy the car is to resell when it is used?
I would say yes. Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords hold their value quite well and are usually easy to sell.
Here in Colombia, Chevrolet sells Swift and Corsa. I bought a 2003 Swift (made by Suzuki) for 30,000,000 pesos ($10,100.) The Corsa Evolution (made by Opel) at that time cost in the neighborhood of 34,000,000 pesos. Right now, the value of the Swift is 24,000,000 pesos and the Corsa is valued at 23,000,000. So, it appears that the Swift has better value retention. I think that Japanese made cars retain value better than most.
Well, almost any car is easy to sell if you set the price low enough. The question is more meaningful if we stipulate recovering a reasonable percentage of the purchase price.
How easy it is to resell a car, ie how long it normally stays on the market when someone tries to resell it, is almost entirely a function of the price you ask for it. A lower price will obviously sell a car faster than a high price all else being equal. As for depreciation, many different companies release reports. Here is one example:
Top Ten Cars that hold value the best after five years:
BMW Z8 54 percent
Mercedes Benz C class 54 percent
Mini Cooper 53 percent
Porsche 911 53 percent
Porsche Boxster 53 percent
Lexus SC430 52 percent
Acura TL 52 percent
Honda s2000 52 percent
Dodge Viper 52 percent
Lexus GS300 52 percent
Here are the bottom 10:
Hyundai Accent 20 percent
Kia Spectra 22 percent
Chevrolet Cavalier 23 percent
Dodge Neon 23 percent
GMC Sonoma 23 percent
Dodge Intrepid 24 percent
Pontiac Sunfire 24 percent
Pontiac Grand Am 24 percent
Chevrolet S-10 24 percent
Dodge Stratus 24 percent
I know price is going to play a huge role in reselling, but there have to be some cars that are just more in demand and as a result you can charge more relative to blue book and sell them quicker. I assume some cars like the Camry (I have heard the Camry is the best selling sedan in the US, I don’t know how true that is) are in demand while something like a $60,000 mercedes has a low demand as only a tiny minority of people can afford it, therefore its harder to sell and people sell it for a lower percentage of its new price.
I figure how well a car holds its value is strongly tied into its demand (if no one wanted a certain car it would lose its value alot quicker than a car that people wanted to buy) but I can’t really find what the coorelation is or if there is a study strictly on resale value (ie, how many weeks a car is on the market and how much of its original value it held when resold).
IIRC, the Blue Book price is an observed value, not a calculated one. So it will go up or down as demand does.
Also, in real life, it can be very hard to resell a non-sports car with a manual transmission. A smaller market who doesn’t like to pay a lot of money anyway.
Outside of price, I think the only thing that affects how “easy” it is to resell a car is the size of the market. I think Accords and Camrys are easy to sell because there’s a large number of cars on the market and a large number of buyers. The actual value of a 1998 Accord EX with 86,674 miles, AC, and leather seats is pretty well known. Buyers and sellers can both be confident that they’ll get a relatively fair deal.
Now what about a 2001 Alfa Romeo whatever with 12,000 miles and a ding in the right rear quarterpanel? Who on this board can even guess? Basically, both sellers and buyers will be especially cautious to find a fair valuation for the car because neither wants to get screwed in the transaction, so I think that would be a “harder” car to sell.