P Car market.

[fastfredracing]

Just a thought. I have not been following the P Car market lately . It seemed as if last year at this time P Cars were bringing real strong money, maybe the most I have seen in my young Porsche trading days. Has this economy softened the market any? Is now a good time to pick up anothter 911. I scan craigslist, and I see everybody dumping their toys( trucks, quads, motorcyles, muscle cars/boats/ vacation properties etc...) I,like everybody else, have been watching my bottom line preparing for the dim future, but now may be the time to buy???

[mike55]

It's fast becoming a buyer's market for pretty much anything, including P-cars. Lots of good deals to be had from what I've seen.

[Zeke]

Older cars are not easily financed and the home equity self funding is gone. I know some collector ins cos like Haggerty did financing on collector cars, but I don't know about today. So, you just have to have plain ol' cash. The next thing that usually occurred in better times was that someone sold one car and rolled the money into another. I believe this process is in a bind as well. Consequently, anyone who is impatient will end up dropping their price. In turn this will hurt the market.

It might be a tad early to tell, but I think most used Porsches are going to go down in value. It takes exceptions to make rule.

[KarlCarrera]

I'd be inclined to agree with Mike. Watching the market for toys, Porsche's included, I have seen some pretty good prices for everything. I figure my car is down $2-4,000 easily from what I paid. I did alot of research prior to purchase, and my price 2 years ago was about in the middle of the pack for what I got with all the records from day one. Not sure I could turn mine loose for $15,-16,000.

Karl
88 Targa

[nostatic]

At this point I'm quite happy I sold my car in Feb. I was able to sell one of my bikes last month but I priced it fairly aggressively. There are lots of clueless sellers out there that are upside down and think that the market should cover what they owe. I try to avoid that situation by putting down a fair chunk on the few things I have financed (right now only car and bike) so that if I had to sell at a fire sale price the note is covered. Evidently not many think that way...

[djmcmath]

I'm watching prices, and they're all over the board. I'll see 80's Carreras for the same prices as early 996s. The lowest prices on the 80's cars seems to be in the very low teens -- occasionally dropping to $10-$12K. 964s seem to be holding a little better. 993s seem to be holding pretty solid -- I haven't seen any particularly unusual deals on those. 996s? The first couple years of 996's seem to be going for under $30, sometimes well below $30. The first time I saw one for $24, I thought it was a fluke. Now I've seen quite a few, which makes me wonder what's wrong with them?

If you're in the market to buy, and you have cash available, I recommend waiting until after Christmas. My used-car-salesmen acquaintances have explained that January is hard, but February is desperate. It's after the Christmas rush, but before tax-time, so people are as broke as they'll ever be. Sales are through the floor, and sellers are generally more willing to do absolutely anything to move cars. That's definitely true of dealers, though perhaps less true of individuals.

Todd -- I agree about the nutty buyers. "My product is worth more than what I paid for it," as if market forces have no power over them. Bizarre. It's true across the board, sellers in denial -- 3.2L cars listing for $30K, tiny little houses in the Bad Neighborhood listed at pre-crash prices, etc. Weird.

Dan