How does COLOR affect a car’s value?

Mythbuster: the color of your car does NOT affect its insurance premium! It can, however, greatly impact its resale value.

A recent study by iSeeCars compared the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Prices (MSRP) of more than 650,000 recently sold 3-year-old used vehicles. Here are some highlights from their findings:

🛞 The average depreciation rate of a car is 15%.

🛞 Bold colors tend to hold their color best, so their value depreciates very little. For example, yellow cars only depreciated an average of 4.5% over three years! “Yellow is among the least popular car colors with the lowest vehicle share and is commonly a color for sports cars and other low-volume vehicles that hold their value relatively well,” said iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “Because yellow vehicles are so novel in the secondhand marketplace, people are willing to pay a premium for them.”

🛞 More “neutral” colored cars tend to depreciate in value more quickly, with brown having the worst rate of 17.8%. Brauer explains, “If a color doesn’t resonate with enough used car shoppers it will hurt resale value, even if it’s uncommon.”

More here.

Whether you are buying a new car or planning reselling your current car, be sure to carefully consider its color!