Afavorite pastime is surfing the online used airplane ads. I check the market value of what I already own, I’m interested in what’s available if I wanted to trade up and I’m curious about obvious trends in used airplanes. It’s a non-scientific exercise, but one from which I can draw some conclusions.
One conclusion is that I have a very inflated view of what my airplane is worth. Thankfully, it’s not for sale, but if it was I’d be lucky to get back what I paid for it almost 20 years ago. That’s after adding easily 35 percent of its value in upgrades over the years, and goes against the long-term trend that airplanes with X capabilities were always going to be worth Y money. It wasn’t that long ago, however, that the market reflected the value of those upgrades and would have rewarded me substantially, if not completely. Another conclusion is the market values well-equipped airplanes more than those that aren’t. Nothing new there; just confirmation.
