Black Horse Used Car Price Tracker – How we compile the data
Background
Black Horse is the leading independent motor finance company in the UK. We receive numerous applications for Car, Caravan and Motorcycle Finance every month and this information lets us monitor the prices that customers actually pay for their motor vehicles.
New car prices are already tracked in detail. Used car prices are also closely monitored, but usually from the perspective of auction and trade prices. What makes the Black Horse Used Car Price Tracker totally unique is that it is based on retail price trends.
How we do it
The Black Horse Used Car Price Tracker is calculated by taking vehicle prices from all Black Horse proposals, which have been accepted for car finance, since October 2002.
- Vehicle are classified into four groups:
- Convertible, Cabriolet and Coupe
- Estate
- Hatchback
- Saloon
- These are sub-divided into three age categories:
- Used to 6 months old
- 6 to 36 months old
- 36 to 72 months old
- Very low and high mileage vehicles are excluded from the index.
- Exceptionally high or low vehicle prices, which would distort the average, are removed from the group.
- The average price for each group is calculated.
The index is based upon prices as at December 2002, calculated from October to December 2002 prices, and then set to 100. The index is then calculated quarterly by averaging the price of vehicles within each band.
A rolling three month figure is then compared to the Index Base point to determine whether prices have gone up or down.
In September 2005 the index was reviewing over 1,000,000 actual used car prices.
Nigel Williams, a Senior Black Horse spokesperson says, “Our index is based on proposal data we’ve gathered from our dealers, at the time of launch this is based on over 1,000,000 real vehicle transactions. It is interesting to see how different vehicles have different price trends. As one of the country’s largest independent Motor Finance providers, the ability to monitor used vehicle prices is very important for us, and it can provide potential buyers with the additional information they need to help them choose a vehicle.”