The Occasion Barometer:
a daily score for the used car buying climate
23 July 2026 · 6 min read
Investors have the Fear & Greed index: a score that shows at a glance whether the stock market is driven by fear or greed. For anyone looking for a used car, nothing like it existed. Is this a good moment to buy a car? Until now the answer required counting listings yourself, comparing prices and following the market for days. That is why we built the Occasion Barometer: a daily score from 0 to 100 that summarises the buying climate on the used car market of Belgium and the Netherlands. This article explains transparently how that score comes about, which data sits behind it and how you use it.
What the Occasion Barometer measures
The barometer summarises the market every day in a score from 0 to 100, inspired by the Fear & Greed index from the investment world. The reading is deliberately kept simple:
| Score | Climate | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 55 - 100 | Buyer's market | More supply than normal and/or falling prices: buyers have choice and time |
| 45 - 55 | Calm | The market moves within its normal range |
| 0 - 45 | Seller's market | Tight supply and/or rising prices: well priced cars disappear fast |
A score of 68 therefore does not mean every car is cheap. It means supply is ampler and prices are softer than in a normal week, which gives you as a buyer more choice and more room to negotiate than average.
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 50, the neutral midpoint. From there three components push the meter up or down. Each of them measures a different aspect of the buying climate and each is derived directly from the listing data itself.
- 01Supply volume. The number of listings coming online today, compared with the same hours on the preceding days. More supply than normal is better for buyers and pushes the score up.
- 02Price momentum. Today's median price compared with the weekly average. Falling prices are better for buyers and push the score up; rising prices push it down.
- 03Deal density. The share of listings priced below the 25th price percentile of their brand, compared with the normal baseline of roughly 25 percent. More sharply priced listings than normal means a higher chance of a good deal.
Each component is capped. A single odd day (a public holiday with few new listings, a brand that happens to receive a run of expensive examples) therefore cannot swing the meter to an extreme. The barometer only really moves when multiple signals point in the same direction.
The data behind the score
The barometer runs on roughly 50,000 listings per day across five platforms: 2dehands.be, Marktplaats.nl, AutoScout24 BE, AutoScout24 NL and Mobile.de. Together they cover the bulk of the private and professional supply in the Benelux plus the German market. How those platforms compare is covered in our comparison of 2dehands, Marktplaats and AutoScout24.
Two things matter for interpreting the score correctly. First, it is based on asking prices, not sale prices: what a seller asks is publicly visible, what a buyer eventually pays is not. Asking prices do react quickly to market pressure and are therefore a good thermometer for the climate. Second, the history is locked in every night, so today is always compared with a fixed reference of the preceding days and the score never changes retroactively.
What you do with it in practice
When the barometer is high, supply is ample and prices are falling: take your time, compare multiple listings and negotiate harder than you normally would. Concrete techniques for that are in our guide to negotiating with a private seller.
When the barometer is low, supply is tight and well priced cars are gone within hours or even minutes. Our data on how fast used cars sell shows why speed is everything then: in such a market whoever calls first wins and that only works with an alert.
The barometer tells you whether this is a good period. Combine it with two other free tools: the best time shows at which moment of the day most new listings come online and the deal radar shows which listings are currently priced strikingly below market. Together they answer three questions: is this a good period, when during the day should I look and which deals are live right now?
Reuse the score for free: open API and widget
The score exists to be used. That is why the Occasion Barometer is freely reusable through two channels, both free of charge:
- APIThe open JSON API at autoflip.eu/api/barometer.json returns the current score, the label and the components in machine-readable format, no API key required.
- WIDGETThe embeddable widget is a badge with the current score that you place on your own website or blog with a few lines of HTML and that updates itself daily.
The only condition is attribution: credit autoflip.eu as the source next to the score. If you write about the used car market, build a dashboard or want to give your readers a daily market indicator, feel free to embed the widget or read the API. Journalists and researchers may quote the score and its history freely in articles and publications. Everything is on the barometer page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Occasion Barometer?+
The Occasion Barometer is a daily score from 0 to 100 that summarises the buying climate on the used car market of Belgium and the Netherlands. Above 55 it is a buyer's market with ample supply and falling prices, below 45 a seller's market with tight supply, in between the market is calm. The score is calculated from roughly 50,000 listings per day across 2dehands.be, Marktplaats.nl, AutoScout24 BE, AutoScout24 NL and Mobile.de.
How is the Occasion Barometer calculated?+
The score starts at 50 (neutral) and moves on three components: today's supply volume compared with the same hours on the preceding days, price momentum (today's median price compared with the weekly average) and deal density (the share of listings priced below the 25th price percentile of their brand, compared with the normal baseline of roughly 25 percent). Each component is capped so that a single odd day cannot swing the meter to an extreme.
Is the Occasion Barometer buying advice?+
No, the score is indicative. The barometer describes the climate of the market as a whole, not the value of an individual car: even on a day with a low score a specific listing can be an excellent deal. Use the score as context alongside your own research and comparison.
May I republish the Occasion Barometer score?+
Yes, with attribution to autoflip.eu. The current score is freely available through the open JSON API at autoflip.eu/api/barometer.json and there is an embeddable widget (a badge showing the current score) for websites and blogs. Media and bloggers may quote the score as long as autoflip.eu is credited as the source.
Know the climate, catch the deals.
Autoflip monitors 2dehands, Marktplaats, AutoScout24 BE+NL and Mobile.de: the same data behind the barometer, delivered as a Telegram alert within seconds when a car matches your filters. 14 days free.
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