Car salesmen kill time at a secondhand car market in Beijing. [Wang Jing / China Daily]

The secondhand car market has entered the off-season in the capital, forcing franchisers to lower the price - and the bargain-basement prices could hang around until at least September.

While some experts think the market will pick up again in the fall, others say secondhand cars may be selling for reduced prices for the next two to three years.

"Almost all types of secondhand cars are cheaper right now, from high-end cars to low-end ones, because the period from June to August is typically the off-season for the used car market," said a sales manager from the Oriental Foundation International Auto Mall Market, surnamed Wang.

Wang said that even though prices have been falling by thousands of yuan, sales volume during the past two months still fell by 40 percent.

At Beijing Yayuncun secondhand car trading center, customers were so rare that some salesmen were sitting together, chatting or playing cards.

Various types of vehicles were parked in the lots, with very few customers walking around checking prices.

"I heard even Volkswagen, whose price is always stable, is much cheaper during this year's off-season, so I thought, maybe, I could get one at a good price now," said a customer surnamed Zhang, who hoped to buy a secondhand VW for between 70,000 and 80,000 yuan.

At the capital's largest dealership for used Audis, all 70 vehicles, which were manufactured between 2001 and 2004, stood still in the parking lots.

"Business is deplorably dull this year, even for the off-season" said a salesman named Zhao Rulu, who has been selling secondhand cars for 10 years.

"Last week, when the temperature was higher than 35 degrees Celsius, there was not a single customer," he said.

Zhao said his crew sold more than 200 cars in the first two months of 2010, while last month's sales volume was less than 30.

"The secondhand car market is getting worse year by year," said another salesman, named Sun Zhiqiang.

"In 2003, each one of us could make more than 30,000 yuan every month but, last year, I only earned 80,000 yuan for the whole year," he told METRO.

Both Zhao and Sun blamed the slack market on the astonishing growth in the number of cars in Beijing, which is approaching five million.

"There are so many cars, while the number of potential buyers is much smaller," said Zhao. "Cars in Beijing are on the verge of saturation. Look at the traffic jams out on streets."

Sun said he is expecting the market to get better in September, just as it did in the past.

However, others were not so positive.

Wang Meng, marketing director of the Huaxiang secondhand car trading center, said the markets for both new and secondhand cars are slack now and may not revive for the next two or three years.

"The market for new cars is even worse than secondhand cars right now," he said, adding that there are bubbles in this market.

"Honda Accord, which is priced at 22,000 dollars in the United States, costs about 29,352 dollars in China," Wang told METRO.

"In the past few months, the inventory of some new cars has equaled the sales volume for five months, far exceeding the normal stock level. Usually, we stock only about as many cars as we can sell in one month."

He said it's hard to see the market picking up again without massive price cuts; a situation he says is likely for both new and secondhand vehicles.