Second hand market offers turn around offers potential savings to leasing customers.

Over the last 12 months or so the used car market has been struggling with little trade taking place. With the consumer market the way it is things are designed to be new and used at the current time of purchase.

This is just one of the reasons why the leasing industry has become such a popular method of car ownership over the past few years.

The prblem with the slump in second hand car sales is it has a knock on effect to the price of leasing. If the sell on value is relatively poor then the lease price has to go up affecting our customers.

Despite 12 months of dcline in the second hand market Nationwide have endeavoured to keep their prices low. Now recent results suggest that the previous decline is fading and the market picking up. Results from September at the British Car Auctions indicatd a reprieve in the downturn.

If this continues it will reduce the price to lease cars as their residual value will remain high.  Auction values averaged £4,812 over the month, compared with £4,765 in August.

However, September is usually one of the strongest months for average values and the figures show that year-on-year values are behind those for the same period 2007.

BCA’s Tony Gannon commented: ‘Used car values have fallen significantly during 2008, but September’s average values offered some relief for vendors as prices crept up, even if only marginally.

‘While it would be foolhardy to suggest this heralds a recovery for used market prices, it was a welcome change from what we have seen in recent months. Despite this small improvement, it is the third month running that the average auction value has been below the £5,000 threshold and, compared to earlier in the year, values remain down by around £1,000.’