Vehicle Market Value Calculator

Vehicle Market Value Calculator: How to calculate the true market price for your car or find out how much a car is worth.

What Affects Vehicle Market Value?

1. Age and kilometres are the obvious factors.
2. Car depreciation is usually the biggest factor affecting resale values, especially lesser-known brands. The amount is usually related to the supply and demand of that particular make, model and even colour.
3. Buying habits have changed enormously resulting in smaller cars or city cars becoming more popular than traditional larger family cars.

Of course, there are other variables to factor in like:

• Repairs and serviceable parts that need replacing because they’re worn out. The vehicle’s service history can help you assess.
• If the vehicle has a valid safety certificate
• Logbooks including a service book.

Now when you’re buying a used car the seller is usually asking the price he/she owes the lender or finance company. No law against that and not what the car is worth. The good news is calculating a true market value for a used car is easy if you follow this simple formula and do your research. You will have your used car price guide.

How to Get Private & Trade Car Prices in 3 Steps?

The Red Book car value guide is a great tool for selling cars, trading or buying used cars. This is where you can find private and trade valuation prices for different makes and models of vehicles on the Australian market. Including list price when new. Other information includes:

• Running Costs
• Car Insurance
• Vehicle Overview
• Optional Features
• Full Specifications

1. Go to the RedBook website (opens in a new tab) and under the cars tab, you will find the research tab.
2. Put the make, model and year into the valuation tool then click the “Search” button
3. You will be displayed a vehicle match, from here you can click “More Details” to see the car’s valuation and other details of that model displayed.

Once you have chosen your model then scroll down until you see the Valuation Prices in the top right corner

Let’s say you have the Maximum Private Price (Retail Price) of $15,000 & Maximum Trade-In Price of $12,600. Both are based on the Minimum Average Kilometers.

Use the retail (private price guide from RedBook) and trade-in values (from RedBook) to estimate car value then use the formula below to calculate the true market value.

Vehicle Market Value Calculator to Calculate True Market Value

If the vehicle has a retail value (Private Price Guide as shown in the image above from RedBook) of 15,000 dollars and a trade-in value of 12,600 dollars (Trade-In Price Guide as shown in the image above from RedBook) the total is 27,600 dollars. 27,600 dollars divided by 2 is 13,800 so the market value of the car will be 13,800 dollars. The true market value is the average of the retail and trade-in values.

How to Negotiate Buying a Used Car?

When buying a used car it’s important not to accept the seller’s asking price and to know these three things before you start negotiating to pay the right price. It’s a fact that cars depreciate once they are driven off the showroom floor, how much depends on many market influences. This depreciation can be hard for some sellers to accept because they may have an encumbrance on the vehicle – An outstanding loan attached.

For the seller to be able to sell the vehicle he/she must be able to pay back the outstanding amount to the lender so you can buy the vehicle with a clear title.

You don’t want this to be a negotiating factor because you could end up paying more than the current market price just so the seller can pay out his loan.

How Much to Offer Seller?

To pay the right price for the private sale of used cars you need to negotiate but before entering into negotiations you need to know three things:

• The seller’s asking price
• Market price
• Your offer

A seller will usually disclose the asking price but if not you can ask them this question,

“What price are you hoping to achieve?” (NOT “What is your best price?”)

You want to open the negotiation and using the words hoping to achieve allows for more room when negotiating.

The market price to determine your offer comes from your market research using this calculator less its condition. Learn what to check when buying a used car to assess its condition using the Street Smart Tool Kit.

Also Please Note:
The information contained on this page is for general information purposes only.
All reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that this information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. Also If you believe that any information we have displayed is inaccurate, please contact us immediately and we will take all reasonable steps to correct it. Finally, this information is a guide only and cannot be used as a reference to a point of law.