I have been watching the value of these cars for a while now and just wondering what the majority opinion is on how far down the value will go before it basically stops. I have seen some recently in the low $30s which I think is mind boggling for such an amazing car!

 

i was just offered $31,500-33,000 (dependinn upon final inspection) from a dealer on trade in.
$31.5 ! unbelievable.

 

It's trade in. Did you expect him to give you retail?

 

what i find troubling is the value seems to match mid mileage 993 coupes. while i do think they were the best air cooled 911, mine stickered for 68k in 96. but our tt's are only worth 30K! wtf

 

I try not to bother with that it's worth to the general public, I value what it's worth to me.

I'd pick up another 996tt in a second for 31k.

When selling it, I see some concern. However, I was glad the prices were low when I picked up my 2nd 996tt. I looked into selling it and cringed, knowing what I have into it and what they book for is crap by comparison.

You also see a lot of younger drivers getting into these cars since they are hitting the affordable range of someone with a low 40k income. I think it can hurt the value as you have less-experienced drivers who get the car because it's a porsche, ruin it or wreck it, or ditch it because of the high maintenance costs. It's been mentioned on the board several times, somewhere along the line of, "You may buy the car for $3x,xxx, but remember you're still maintaining a car that sold originally for $1xx,xxx"

The 996tt also had that bad wrap for interior and exterior (headlight) design. While I personally like the 996 GT2 look and the interior has grown on me, many in the porsche community have rejected the 996 in terms of style.

I love my 996 and I can't justify the 30k+ difference for a 997. While VTG's are impressive with a reflash, a set of upgrades and supporting mods can be had for well under the 30k difference.

Just my $0.02

 

I doubt it will drop a whole lot more. Even compared to two years ago, the value isn't that much lower (for a good one at least). I haven't seen very many TT's in the low 30s in great condition with a good maintenance history.

 

I bought a 996 BECAUSE of the headlight design. Shows ya how much *I* know.

A few more details before it arrives... 04 Speed Yellow TC, manual, 25K miles, multiple owners but clean CarFax and, more importantly, a healthy and thourough PPI by a 30-year Porsche mech. Zero body work, well maintained, desirable (to me) options like yellow belts and gauge cluster, carbon fiber trim, etc. Paid less than $50k. I credit the season, being a no-nonsense buyer, and a very professional seller. It will need its 30k service and some tuning to accommodate the RPi exhaust and its awful droning, so there's still more to pay... but still. I'm okay with it.

-V

 

Most 30k examples are 'high' mileage - 75k+
or they have a ding on the record.

I've paid well over book for cars for certain things such as:
-Original owner with extensive paperwork
-Clean history report
-Resposibily owned and maintained by an older individual (older being 35+)

 

One of the reasons I felt comfortable buying this car was because the values hadn't fallen much in the 2+ years I was looking. However, more recently I got to thinking about how when I started looking the economy was still in pretty bad shape which is not good for luxury goods. So perhaps as the economy improves our cars that would otherwise be decreasing in value are staying mostly the same. Then at some point the values and economy will be corrected and then the values will decrease at a more normal rate.

I hope I'm wrong and the values will mostly just fall from slipping into the high mileage bracket or other dings against a clean car.

 

Same here! I started following the prices 2+ years ago as well. After I didn't see much of a change anymore, I pulled the trigger. Once a car gets down to about 35-40% of its initial value, it really doesn't drop much anymore. That's my experience with (import) cars at least.

 

Not sure how a person like that could afford a 996TT, unless they lived with their parents at home . It is still a $40k car with the maintenance of a $100k+ one.

 

Depends where you live. $40k/year can go a lot farther in some areas than others.

 

here is a semi-random example. I sold a 95 M3 for $17k in 2002. It was a 7 year old car that originally retailed for ~$40. Today, over 10 years later, I can probably buy a similar one for under $10k. While it continued to depreciate, it is clear that the majority of the depreciation happens in the first 5 years. In fact, i would have been glad to keep it given less than $1k dep. per year (before maintenance of course) My 2001 has 93k miles and runs great. Not planning to sell it for $30k....

 

Yeah, disposible income is key here.

I'm pushing some miles on my 2001 996tt as well. I enjoy the damn thing so much, but its far from where I want it to be. It's slowly getting more and more track duty, but it's still a weekend car. I picked mine up fairly cheap and have more into it than I would ever get back, but that's the story with all modded cars - I never expect a monetary return; however, I do expect some excitement when I get behind the wheel.

 

The only cars I've seen for low 30s are usually tiptronics, less desirable colors, and/or high mileage. It's still common for nice examples to be selling in the low 40s. I'd guess depreciation is a hell of a lot lower over the last 3 years than about 90% of the other cars on the road. So don't worry about it too much.