carwow, the UK’s online car buying and selling marketplace, has revealed that Birmingham is the UK’s car-selling hotspot over the last six months.

carwow analysed location and postcode data from its ‘Sell My Car’ service and found that it’s the UK’s second city, Birmingham, that comes out on top. Bradford and Leeds in Yorkshire, and Manchester and Cheshire, also make up the top 10. The table is dominated by London regions, though, with four local authorities – Barnet, Croydon, Bromley and Hillingdon – all finishing up in the highest car-selling postcode rankings.

carwow found drivers from Birmingham have sold the highest number of vehicles on the platform over the last six months, with the average car being sold in just 32 hours, and for £15,272.50. But it was just down the road, in Solihull, where the highest average sold price was to be found, at £18,789.59. This is likely down to the average age of cars sold on carwow from Solihull being just six-years, rather than a more typical seven to eight years.

Across the country, the average price of used cars sold using carwow’s Sell My Car service in November was £14,580 – nearly a 12% increase from January 2022.

Despite the promise of high financial reward for selling, earlier research in March** from carwow found that many customers approached the process with apprehension. Over half of drivers said they’d held on to a car for too long to avoid the process of selling it, while one in three were worried they wouldn’t get a fair price.

Commenting on the findings, carwow’s consumer editor, Hugo Griffiths said:

“The regional variances in used-car values our data shows are significant, and while there are a number of factors at play, the growth of local Clean Air Zones (CAZ) means these differences are only likely to grow over coming months and years.

“The announcement that London’s ULEZ is to expand, for example, was followed hot on the heels by the commencement of Bristol’s Clean Air Zone, with Birmingham’s CAZ already being operational for over a year beforehand, and other cities across the UK to follow suit in coming years.

“Given the precedent set by the repeated growth of London’s ULEZ, the areas covered by Clean Air Zones are likely to follow suit, and we can expect to see older, non-compliant cars become meaningfully less valuable in areas close to the borders of these zones.

“Motorists are therefore going to have to become much cannier both about what cars they choose, and where they buy and sell them, with online players like carwow helping ease or eliminate some of the geographical difficulties drivers might otherwise experience.”