I am not sure the evidence suggests Cirrus depreciate more quickly than a TB20 or a Mooney.
My opinion is based on direct conversation with a US based aircraft broker friend.
It is also rooted in reading articles on aircraft depreciation in the aviation press written by brokers and dealers of single piston aircraft.
Cirrus produce lots of glossy ads and before you know it every new PPL wants a plastic fixed-gear jelly mould to fly around in. Cirrus have a great marketing strategy and a huge marketing budget.
What a triumph of style over substance they are.
Equally Cirrus' giant advertising spend buys lots of column inches and loyalty from the aviation press in this country. I remember reading a gushy article on a cirrus with a slightly bigger engine and better go-faster stripes than the last one very recently. We are all victims of bias in the media.
For example, a quick search shows Trade-A-Plane has an almost new 2008 Mooney for $538K and the closest model 3 years later with 520 hours is $340K. A Cirrus of the same vintage and the same hours is $369K and a 2008 model is $450K which would suggest on a very limited sample the Cirrus has done better.
Trade-A-Plane's own stats would suggest there is little in it comparing like for like.
Fuji - You're the one not comparing like for like.
Oh, I just figured out what you meant, you obviously mean comparing a normally aspirated Mooney ovation2 with a turbocharged cirrus? The Mooney gives a similar cruise speed, and double the range but on a fraction of the fuel. Or is this not what you meant? Shhh! Best not tell the cirrus drivers out there.
A manufacturers market will undoubtedly be affected by confidence. Diamond's customers have suffered a set back with the Theilert debacle and prices have suffered. Mooney have not helped themselves by stopping production - will they survive, probably, but who knows for sure.
I agree entirely - Mooney have probably saved themselves by stopping production.
The single most significant impact on values is a manufacturing going bust. Confidence evaporates as fast as the cost of parts rises.
Mooney are still producing parts, servicing + repairing aircraft and covering existing aircraft warranties.
Their strategy is to hunker down and wait out the recession. They have not gone bust.
All that said the market is not what it seems at the moment. No one is paying the head line price for anything and therefore it is very difficult to establish what is selling and for how much.
Absolutely. Asking prices are fantasy at present. This is why the trade-a-plane statistics fall down. They are what people are asking for - not what they are getting. In a market flooded with cirruses prices have to be driven down. The aircraft is only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it.
I will tell you what my ovation 2 sells for over the next couple of weeks if you are interested.
Last edited by scooter boy; 29th Mar 2009 at 10:12.