Average monthly values for LCV’s slipped back in May according to BCA’s latest Pulse Report, but still remain well-ahead, year-on-year.

Used LCV’s averaged £4,466 in May, after reaching a record level of £4,693 across the board in April. The fall of £227 was equivalent to a 4.8% decrease and all three main sectors posted lower values compared to April.

However, the market remains well ahead of the values recorded in 2009 and average monthly values have hovered around the £4,500 mark all year. To put this into context, the £4,000 ‘price barrier’ was breached for the first time in December 2009 and the market has not looked back since. Year-on-year comparisons show that May 2010 values are £871 (or 24%) ahead of the corresponding month last year.

Despite this price reversal, CAP figures for used LCVs averaged 99.95% across the board, although there was a little downward pressure from last month in the bigger volume sectors – fleet & lease down one point at 99.79% and dealer part-exchange down four and a half points to 99.71%. Nearly-new LCV CAP values actually improved by over a point to 105.73%.

Duncan Ward, BCA’s general manager commercial vehicles commented “There has been a subtle slowing of demand in the used LCV market over recent weeks. Following month after month of rising values and records being established, this may come as a surprise to market watchers, but we are now entering that period of the year where prices have tended to slow.”

Ward added “Despite what we saw last year, values cannot keep rising inexorably – common sense suggests eventually the market will revert to type and we will start to see the peaks and troughs of a typical annual cycle. We have been telling our customers for some time that we expect prices to stabilise in 2010 and they have – at a significantly improved level above 2009 values. It is likely that the used LCV market values will experience a more traditional pattern this year.”

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