Other than doing price research, how do you "know your market?" I assumed things like desirability and availability would be reflected in the asking and selling prices.

Guys asking "firm" prices on cars that are priced above or just market do not get any attention from me either. I do expect to buy under market. And I always do. As mentioned above, when BUYING, you make your bucks. Still true, even if you do not buy the car to re-sell. The good thing is that in a highly populated area, you usually have plenty of cars to chose from and you can look until you find someone who is giving you a good deal. Sometimes it takes someone who is worn down from dealing on CL for a couple weeks and you show up with cash in you pocket ...

G

Yep. Get the car really clean and polished, take good pics with a real camera, do your homework locally and price it to sell. I want anyone who comes out to look say "Wow this is a great car!". Bam! If I don't get it sold in two weeks I consider wholesaling the car because I missed something in the price or demand. I tried to sell a Silverado last year. I thought it was a $5k car and several online price points made it look like it would go for $8k. I listed at $7.5k thinking it would move but there is just no demand for a hi miles Silverado locally. 3 weeks later I wholesaled the car for $4k.

I also usually add a tag line like "Local sales, cash in hand only. No lowballers, tire kickers, scammers or thieves. " This eliminates wasting time with 100 bogus txt offers from shady-gradys.

Housing prices are mostly outrageous these days.
New car prices are $20-30k baseline.
Buyers are already in debt. Along with their parents.

The used car market should pick up in the next few years.

Silverado's are tough to sell period. :rolleyes:
Also that leaves out half the fun. Try OBO/Trade. A lot of cool stuff, and sketchy things people will send you pictures of.

Some interesting and useful insights here. I've done some of these myself with my motorcycle ad, it's been ups since the beginning of February with no bites. I priced it $250 under what dealers are selling similar condition /mileage of the same make/model with nada

Knowing your market definitely matters. I may just let this thing to go a dealer for 75% of what I am asking for. I dunno - I cant sit on it forever. Any advice from the brain trust?

I understand..........and you made my point for me. Saves everyone time. ;)

This is more of the "Toyota factor" than any thing else. I bought a Tacoma last year and could not believe the buying frenzy that surrounds Toyota pickups. After I had it for about 6mo decided it was not my thing. I had cleaned it up then sold it for more than I had paid for it to the first person that looked at it. For whatever reason Toyota products are easy to sell and bring top dollar.

Yeah, the Toyota Tacoma's are super hot right now. I was considering one and did some research and checked out some stuff via an employee discount program through my work. I have been getting called non-stop now by dealers who have one Tacoma (maybe) and they want to sell it for $2-3k over MSRP.

Obviously the Tacoma is not the truck for me (these are the 4x4, 4 door models mind you).

I look around and F-150s and while not looking at 4x4s in those otherwise comparable for much less with much better ones out there on the used markets with a year's worth of miles.

So, this brings me to a question I have to the experienced here... I've sold a few used cars in my day and I've done alright with only one car that I hated the deal but needed out of. Still even that one was priced what it was worth in the condition it was in and honest about the issues with it so I can't really complain.

Anyway, I have a car I want to sell. I love it but I actually have two I want to sell but figure I will sell this one first. It's a Cayman, 2007 I bought used a few years ago. Generally well cared for and in great condition with some normal wear and tear. It needs tires, the TPS sensors need to be replaced and a door handle is loose. Should I put new tires/TPS sensors in and get the door handle fixed or try to sell it without that first? The thing with the TPS sensors is that since they are dead and need to be replaced there is a ! on the dash for it. The sensors aren't a huge deal and I had planned on getting them replaced when I put new tires on. I could knock that off the price of the car ($1000 for tires and $250 for the sensors and probably $250 for the door too).

Thoughts? What would you do? If I fixed those things I'd be 'great' instead of just almost great. I'm not sure I would get much more money for it. I'm considering just giving it a week or two up for sale to see how it goes and then if not taking care of the things and then putting it up again.

I skip over ads that have this kind of crap in them. It makes no sense to spend hours scrubbing and polishing a car to sell and then turn potential buyers off because you don't want to spend a few minutes deleting texts.

I would skip the tires for now. I think you should fix the tps sensors and the door handle. Some folks like to get a special brand of tire anyway. ! on the dash would scare me away even though it is a minor fix. Buying new tires you would not get the $$ back.
Good luck with the sale.
Guy

Tires have to come off for the sensors. If I just replace the sensors I have to pay the labor to do that. Feels like I should just do both.

Mike,

I think you'll just have people low balling you if those things are broken- you'll have a much larger audience for a "complete" car rather than one needing a couple things, as minor as they might be.

I would also add that reading a line about "serious buyers only, no scammers etc.," in an ad makes me think the seller is going to be difficult to work with- probably would pass it by.

I would. It was a selling point with the Silverado. "I put new tires on it and was going to drive it another 100k miles, but my situation changed."

I would spend the $500 and simply add that back into the price. The car will reflect better, attract a better quality of buyer, and it will sell more quickly. Much simpler than explaining what is wrong, and having the buyer wonder why the seller is so cheap, and what else he neglected. It may even sell for more than the $500 investment cost you.

That's my reasoning for passing on ads with such verbiage.

The fastest way to NOT sell something is to not post an asking price or (worse still) say "call" (or "$$$CALL!!!$$$). Puke. The less I have to deal with pushy a-hole sales schlockers the better. Most likely my next purchase will be a CarMax or a Carvana type sale so I don't have to deal with it at all - it's just "here's the price - take-it-or-leave it", no pressure, no BS. I really like that model a lot.

Everybody needs to decide for themselves about this. For you maybe max number of responses is important. For me, time is money. I just want one no-BS buyer with cash to come out, test drive, and buy. Putting this disclaimer effectively does this.

Before I started using the " No lowballers, scammers, or thieves" tag, I would literally get 50 responses per hour for several old Toyota fleet trucks I was selling cheap. This resulted in entertaining these worthless tire-kickers for hours each day while they offered me 1/2 my asking price. I can't be bothered with these guys even if it may sour a few legit buyers.

I buy and sell a lot on CL (at least 50 cars and trucks) and I have come to spot the no BS folks quickly. They have their act together, the cars, trucks, amps, guitars are always exactly as advertised, the buyers have cash and show up on time, and the transaction is completely painless. The lowballer guys are always late or no-show, don't have all the cash right now, "can you take this POS in trade" BS. I have no interest in dealing with these flakes and there are thousands of them in every city. YMMV

^^^^^Exactly ! When I see "firm, will not budge", I think to myself, that here is a guy is who is full of himself, and hard to work with.....so why bother.