Luxury car sales in Australia rev up

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

Cashed up buyers are speeding to the dealership, with luxury vehicle sales rising for the seventh consecutive month. 

In January 2020, the annual total of luxury vehicle sales rose 0.1% to 88,473 vehicles sold, according to the CommSec Luxury vehicle index which has now risen for seven months.

According to CommSec Chief Economist Craig James, the rise in luxury car sales exactly matches the gains in house prices. 

Source: CommSec

"The wealth effect of higher home prices, the cuts in interest rates and the rise in household asset values has allowed top end buyers to update their rides," Mr James said.

Mr James noted there's a chance the continual rise in luxury car sales will translate to the rest of the lagging vehicle market, with new car sales figures underperforming for the better part of the last two years. 

"The hope is that the strength at the top end of new vehicle and housing markets will extend to broader strength for new vehicle sales, home sales and home prices," he said. 

To gauge luxury car sales, CommSec tracks the sales of Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Bentley, Ferrari, Hummer, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Lexus, Lotus, McLaren, Maserati, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Morgan, Porsche, and Rolls Royce. 

According to the figures, many luxury car buyers prefer to purchase quality used vehicles rather than new vehicles. Loans to buy new cars in December were up 6% on a year ago which is the fastest gain in almost three years.

Annual sales of Lexus were at all time highs in the year to January, and sales of Rolls Royce were just shy of reaching record highs. 

Looking for a new car? The following car loans have some of the lowest fixed-rates on the market:

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Disclaimers

The entire market was not considered in selecting the above products. Rather, a cut-down portion of the market has been considered which includes retail products from at least the big four banks, the top 10 customer-owned institutions and Australia’s larger non-banks:

• The big four banks are: ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac
• The top 10 customer-owned Institutions are the ten largest mutual banks, credit unions and building societies in Australia, ranked by assets under management in November 2019. They are (in descending order): Credit Union Australia, Newcastle Permanent, Heritage Bank, Peoples’ Choice Credit Union, Teachers Mutual Bank, Greater Bank, IMB Bank, Beyond Bank, Bank Australia and P&N Bank.
• The larger non-bank lenders are those who (in 2020) has more than $9 billion in Australian funded loans and advances. These groups are: Resimac, Pepper, Liberty and Firstmac.

Some providers' products may not be available in all states.

In the interests of full disclosure, Savings.com.au, Performance Drive and Loans.com.au are part of the Firstmac Group. To read about how Savings.com.au manages potential conflicts of interest, along with how we get paid, please click through onto the web site links.

*The Comparison rate is based on a $30,000 loan over 5 years. Warning: this comparison rate is true only for this example and may not include all fees and charges. Different terms, fees or other loan amounts might result in a different comparison rate.

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