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Residual value experts Glass's is predicting 2015 will be the most significant year since the recession for the used vehicle market, and is also expecting the General Election to have an impact.
Rupert Pontin, Glass's head of valuations, explains: "Like any major national event, [the General Election] will have a dampening effect on used car sales, especially as the result looks uncertain at this distance.
"Immediately afterwards, whichever stripe of major party gains power, there is likely to be a new round of austerity measures and also tax increases, damaging both spending power and consumer confidence."
Fleets can expect an increase in used vehicle supply this year, after tracking a supply increase of between 1% and 1.5% every month over the past few months of 2014.
Pontin says: "The increase in supply is set to continue during the rest of the year, having an overall downward effect on prices.
"For a long time, we have been in a low-supply situation against a gradually improving macroeconomic backdrop, but that cycle has started to come to an end in recent months and that change will characterise 2015.
"Our longer-term forecast is that all of these factors will continue to take even greater effect in 2016, with even more pressure on prices through reduced demand and increased supply."
But Pontin said there was unlikely to be a similar scenario in the new car market.
"Here, we expect sales to stay strong, simply because manufacturers need to ensure that factories continue working as close to capacity as possible and will offer finance to make sure this happens.
"However, later in the year, we believe that it is likely the deposit levels required for these finance deals will start to fall in response to macroeconomic effects."
The BVRLA echoed Glass's view, expressing concerns that continued growth in new registrations and aggressively priced retail personal contract purchase (PCP) offers could put pressure on used vehicle demand or create an oversupply for certain used models.
However, the BVRLA said it was confident the industry could meet the challenge with a greater use of technology and market data within the remarketing process to avoid peaks and troughs in supply.
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