With Apologies : Market Data

With apologies to those who find this a subject that causes seemingling endless frustration, the latest market data is below. All data is UK RHD only.

Fig 1: Raw data. Screen Prices (initial and final advertised) (1974-2009) and actual auction prices (ex-premium) (1989 -2009
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This analysis makes the change a bit clearer.
- The bottom of the market still aspires to increases in value
- The froth at the top of the market has gone - perhaps because the best examples are not being offered, although the detail suggests that this is not the case
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- the upper quartile price is down
- median is up, mean flat
- lower quartile still rising
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- Estimates are down
- Actuals are always below upper estimates and usually below lower estimates (2009)
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This graph shows the increase or decrease in screen price giving a feeling for the direction of price pressure.
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2009 is YTD Sept 09.
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Enevitably more recent offers take time to be sold, but the volume in sales is down significantly.
The "never sold" data is unreliable prior to approximately mid 2007 when I first started to collate it as accurately as I can.
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Data periodically asked for in the forum.
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No need to apologize. You have done some very impressive work here. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind:
-Is “final advertised price” what the name implies or is it market analyst’s lingo for actual transaction price? It is my impression that, at least here in the US, the advertised price is never reduced – except perhaps on eBay. Instead, a lower price is negotiated in private at the time of the sale. Perhaps you do things differently in the UK. How were you able to access the final price?

-In Fig 1, is every red dot (initial price) supposed to have a matching blue dot (final price)? If a car is advertised only once, would it be shown as a single red dot? And what are the red dots doing on the horizontal axis (at the 0 price level), just serving as time markers?

Technicalities aside, most of the charts seem to indicate that we are well into a stage with a very forceful increase in price levels. Unlike the 1989 spike, which was very sharp and narrow, the current rise has a broader base and is supported by higher volume. It is also emerging from a rising baseline, indicating more staying power this time. Looking at Fig 1, you get the distinct impression that the price levels want to go even higher…

Most of us do not think of our Dinos as investment vehicles (ouch!), but the market price affects us all in very profound ways, whether we like it or not. I found your market data most interesting.
Thanks again,
Lars

 

THAT is SO awesome........hat's off to doing that project for the last 35 years!

Man, that's just beautiful to look at......

 

What was the song going like? Money, money, money,...

 

Great work, did you do any adjustments for inflation?

 

Thanks for your interest. Answering your questions:

Final price represents the last published offer or screen price, not the (private) actual transaction price (which I can only rarely access). The reductions observed are reduced screen prices by dealers/private ads which have been rare but are now more common.

Each car is shown as a red dot when I note it coming onto the market, and a blue dot at its last or current price. I have been collating the data for a few years now but with stuff pre- 2000 the tracking of time in the market is shakier because the data sources are typically classified ads.

The red £0 dots are either a) no sales at auction, or b) POA offers by dealers prior to my starting the collection of data.

It's always interesting to see how the data is interpreted: Buyers see what they want to and owners similarly.

 

I did do this once, but the data here is raw data. I am not sure that doing the adjustment tells you that much to honest. You really need to have a "Dino maintainence" adjuster to show how the costs of ownership have varied since the cars were new.

 

It's actually created (prior to 2000) by reading 30 odd years of classified adverts in various magazines (ie about 400 magazines per title) over about a five year period, but once you've done that laborious manual exercise maintaining the data is easy enough. I started for the same reason the Dino Register started years ago - I was thinking about buying one and didn't know what a fair price was - then it got a bit obsessional!

There are 1021 individual offers for sale in the data set - much of it's been integrated into the Dino register by Matthias so it's out there to be checked.

 

It's always interesting to see how the data is interpreted: Buyers see what they want to and owners similarly.[/QUOTE]

True, true. But I can see now that I did not properly convey that I was actually expressing alarm at the rising prices (as I see them). I am actually on both sides on this matter: I am in the process of moving back to Europe. Since my car is a very original and correct US version, I had planned on selling it in the US and then look for another Euro Dino in Europe. That is now pretty much out of the question. Prices in Europe are just too high, measured in our declining dollars. If I sell my car, I will never be able to afford another one in Europe.

The only one of your charts that was slightly ambiguous and a bit difficult to interpret – at least for me – was Fig. 5 showing the price momentum. It shows clearly the negative momentum during 2008, similar to the years after the 1989 peak, only to turn cautiously positive in 2009 (as I read it). Looking at it again, I am not so sure, now… Perhaps I am guilty as charged.

You state that the froth at the top of the market has gone. That may be true but the froth seems to be returning, at least in continental Europe. I noticed that on www.mobile.de the two highest asking prices are 179,000 and 200,000 Euros (US $265,000 and $296,000!). To me, that is froth. To us in the US market, such prices are simply astonishing.
But all this is just the interpretation and opinion of one amateur observer, and a worried one at that!

Thanks for the explanation on the red dots. It all makes sense now.

 

My (now deceased) mechanic used to joke about the maintenance, saying Dinos were expensive because "that's what they spent on them, over the years, to keep them from rusting into the ground"...

My uncle owned one when new, and nodded in agreement when told that statement!

True of ALL Ferraris, I suppose.....

 

absolutely. My 355 had rust under the lower windshield... I LIVE IN ARIZONA! we get like 2 inches of rain a year. That car has never even been in the rain. The car gets washed seldomly because it usually just sat in the garage... I was so proud of my car because it didn't have rusty door sills like the other 355s... then I changed the windshield...