Anyone want to take a stab at this...I'm trying to imagine what a plane will be worth in 15 years. Let's say a 10 year old SR-20, purchased for $200k now. Let's assume a new or remanufactured engine will have the same number of hours at that time and the plane will be kept up reasonably with technology. In today's dollars, do you think it could be worth half? More or less? Just curious what some of you think.
Too many variables to predict... See below.
Aren't there historical graphs out there depicting asking prices vs year for Bonanza/Cessna etc?
Could'a swore I saw that.
Even if you had it, I don't think it applies to something like a Cirrus.
The conventional wisdom quite a while ago was that you could buy a new airplane and its value would go down for the first 7 years or so and then start going back up, very slowly. It would never go up in inflation-adjusted dollars, but it would go up in the number of dollars. However, that no longer seems to hold true, for a couple of big reasons:
1) New, sexy composite airplanes. Compare how a new 172 depreciates compared to an SR-20, I bet it's pretty different. Same for a 182 or 206 vs. an SR22. People WANT the Cirrus, and they attract plenty of buyers from outside aviation circles. You probably don't buy a brand new 182 unless you have a specific mission in mind for it. So, I would expect to see the older-design aircraft depreciating faster initially. However, you also have some people who keep buying whatever the new hotness is that Cirrus offers, so the supply of used Cirrus airplanes increases faster than the supply of used Cessnas. Now, that supply of used Cessnas started quite a bit larger, so Cirrus has a long way to go to catch up, which brings us to the second point:
2) "Jumping the gap". Hardly any small airplanes were produced between 1986 and 1997 because of liability concerns after the Cessna seat-track lawsuit until the General Aviation Revitalization Act was passed. Because of the big gap in model years, there's also going to be a big gap in prices there, so demand for the later airplanes will increase slowly until they get to the point where more buyers can afford to "jump the gap" and buy the newer airplanes. There will be a tipping point where that pool of buyers starts to get big enough to prop up the prices of the older "new" airplanes and keep their values up, but who knows when that will be or the magnitude.
Looking at the SR-20 specifically, it came out in 1999 so it's only been out for almost 20 years, and you're trying to guess 15 years into the future... There are zero 35-year-old Cirruses right now. Who knows how well they'll stand up to the test of time? There could be an AD that comes out that causes their value to plummet within the next 15 years, or they may be really well-regarded, standing up to time very well, and in high demand. And who knows what inflation will be.
So, I guess I would say that my "stab" is this: If you buy a $200K SR-20 today, it will be worth somewhere between $0 and $500K in 15 years.
