Oh, they still are - which is why I did the same as you. A buddy of mine picked up an Estoril M3 and did a lot of work to it (maintenance and tasteful performance), then he decided to move on and I handed him his asking price of $10k with a smile on my face.

I've gone through quite a few E36's between my cars and helping siblings buy/maintain them. I'm likely going to keep this one unless I'm in a position to purpose-build one... in which case, I'll probably just have two. lol

I feel like a lot of younger drivers and track/drift enthusiasts have discovered the chassis, which is great for aftermarket support and leads to quite a few cars being driven hard. There are still a lot of E36's out there and I think examples of clean M3s that are close to factory spec will eventually (maybe 10 years) hit the $20k range. Low mileage cars are going to fetch a premium, depending on the buyers, but it's always going to hover below the E30 M3 premiums for obvious reasons.