The Bank of England has reduced the interest rate today to just 0.5%. Okay, what has this got to do with personal number plates you may ask?
If you have money in a savings account with a bank or building society, the amount of interest you receive is generally determined by the base rate. The base rate is set by the Bank of England. Interest rates are used to either encourage you to spend money, or save money. The idea being that if you are getting a poor return on your savings, you are more likely to think about buying that new car, new house, or whatever else it is that takes your fancy.
If you have a meaningful amount of money on deposit and rely on the return from your investment, the cut in interest rates may cause you to look at alternatives. The three main options are property, equities (stocks and shares) or some form of savings scheme. However, it now seems people are willing to look at other options outside the traditional three with fine art, collectible watches and gold receiving higher levels of attention since interest rates began to tumble.
So I will now present the investment case for personalised number plates. You may see an attractive number plate on a nice car and think the owner has more money than sense. In some cases you would be absolutely right, but not in every case. I could pick any one of thousands of registrations as an example, but it is the 5th day of March so lets use the registration 5 M.
The registration 5 M was sold in May 1995 at auction for a hammer price of £13,700. The price would have been subject to v.a.t. and various other costs, so in the interest of fairness let's round it up to £20,000. If 5 M was offered for sale today and the buyer was looking for a fast completion, £60,000 would probably get the job done. If the seller was in no particular rush to sell, he or she could easily slap a price tag of £100,000 on it. Just to show I have not been over optimistic with my estimates, I note that M 2 is currently being offered for sale at £150,000+.
I am not going to do the sums for you, but if you had put £20,000 into property, equities or a savings account in 1996 I am sure you would be happy to walk away in the next month with £60,000 in your pocket. Do consider that you would also have had the pleasure of displaying a fine personal number plate on your car for the past fourteen years.
The choice is yours of course and whatever you decide will be right for you. I can only make you aware of what others, including myself are choosing to invest in right now.
Have a look at our current
cherished number plate stock.
