Tips on selling your car?

jendownunder on 13/03/2014 - 13:05

I am trying to sell my Barina TM Hatchback bought new in Ocotber 2012. It's spotless and only reason for selling is I need a 7 seater as I have had another baby. It has 31000kms, manual, dealer tinited windows. Under warranty until Oct 2015. I put it on at $10990 and I thought this was a good price.

I have had it on Gumtree and Facebook car selling pages for days with not much respose apart from the expected lowballers. A lady has came out to see it twice, last night I thought she was going to buy it but then she left and text me offering me $9000… wewantyourwheels.com.au offered me more than that :(

I've seen a Stavic at a local dealer and he agreed to give me $10000 trade in but i'm just not 100% sure about the Stavic or i'd have taken the deal.

I came back to the lady last night asking if she would come to the asking price I could put 3 months rego on it and do the 30000kms service so it would have full service history. Only reason it hasn't been done already is because I had a feeling i'd have to trade it in so no point in spending the money. But she didn't want to budge from $9000.

I've tried to relist it with a free ipad hoping that would generate some interest but I'm worried i've made it worse as people will think it's a scam!!

Any tips or advice? The car is great and has no issues at all but I am worried my desperation to sell will come across as dodgy…

Automotive

Comments

  • jendownunder on 13/03/2014 - 13:09

    Should have mentioned I'm in WA

    • snappy1234 on 13/03/2014 - 17:36
      +1

      @ jendownunder

      Think mostly the problem is being a manual vehicle !

  • PissLUR on 13/03/2014 - 13:57
    +4

    list it on carsales website?

    • Austin 316 on 13/03/2014 - 15:10
      +2

      Why put the free iPad offer and risk being dodgy? Instead, cut that amount of your asking price, which will sound more attractive to wanna be buyers. Shouldn't make a difference to you as you are anyways going to fork out that money.

      Agree with PissLUR, my brother-in-law had his car listed at lots of places for months to no luck. Then he placed an ad on carsales and the car got sold within a couple of weeks.

  • [Deactivated] on 13/03/2014 - 15:38
    +1

    Buying/selling second hand cars = you never pay the sticker price. Always list for more than you want.

    Relist it for $12,999, then the low ballers will come in at $10,000 and you can see

  • snappy1234 on 13/03/2014 - 17:34

    Hate selling cars, ended up selling my last one to a wrecker just to be rid of it.

    (was pretty rusty tho,mostly in out of sight locations)

  • [Deactivated] on 13/03/2014 - 19:33
    +2

    Here are some tips -

    Weed out the tyre kickers. There are a few ways to do this.

    Ask "When can you buy it?" Set up a time frame for the sale. If they say "In a month or so" your response is "Call me back in a month if it hasn't already sold by then". If they say "I'm ready to buy it any time" or even "Right now" this is what you want to hear. Your next question is "Do you have the money?" - they will either have money ready to go on the spot or they will be gathering funds through finance. This means more delays for you - and your response here is "Once you get approved give me a call". Sometimes, they need to get the car valued etc.

    The 2nd biggest question anyone will ask is "Can you do this price?" or "Will you do it cheaper". Haggling is an easy step for a seller. Make the buyer commit to action to show they are serious - "Come and see the car first and we will talk about price". Anyone asking for a price over the phone is wasting your time. If they continue to ask for a deal - just tell them to show you they're serious and to come have a look at the car. Don't give them the bonus of a good deal without any commitment otherwise they'll just use it to shop around.

    On top of a time frame, you can set up a time limit. I like this method because you're already at the stage where the buyer is ready to make an offer but is still umming and arring and you're not sure if they will go through with it even if you agree to terms.

    Easiest way to do this is "Ok, you have told me you can have the money by tomorrow at 11am, so here's what I'll do: I'll give you the car for $15k, but I'll only do this price until 11am tomorrow. If it's past 11am the price goes back up to $xxx k"

    This might seem aggressive, but remember the last thing you want is someone who agrees on all terms and continues shopping while you wait for them to complete the transaction only to get a text 3 days later saying "Actually mate I found a better deal and I'm sorry but I'm not going to go for your car anymore."

    Finally, don't set your price high and expect a lowball on a high price. Set it at the lowball price and use that to your advantage with the above in mind. I have bought and sold through almost 10 cars now and I can tell you they depreciate so quickly, just drop the price and get more calls and weed out the tyre kickers.

    • [Deactivated] on 13/03/2014 - 20:32
      +1

      Another thing that can pop up is "I have seen the same model for cheaper - can you beat it"

      This comes up all the time. The simple answer is:

      "Buy it! - You'll be doing me a favour. Once that car is sold, there will be less to compete with and in turn I'll sell my car even quicker"

  • backpaqer on 14/03/2014 - 07:56
    +1

    I'd go the trade-in…sure you don't generally get as much for it…but in a way you're paying for the dealer to take care of the work you don't want to do. ie. be available, deal with tyre kickers, hagglers, etc.

  • WT on 14/03/2014 - 21:40
    +1

    you want to give away an ipad, but don't want to pay for an ad in a proper car sales website?!?!

    dumbfounded…

  • Medrad on 18/03/2014 - 09:36

    Suck it up, pay the cost and put on Carsales.com.au

    Really the best way to sell a car nowadays.

  • ilostnemo on 18/03/2014 - 19:31
    +1

    ipad isn't going to persuade anyone.

    putting $11,000 on it, is asking for offers of $9,000

    The fact it's on 31,000 and you haven't done the 30,000 could be a problem regarding warranty.

    If you aren't getting many responses the market is telling you, your price is too high.

    Good Luck, I'm actually selling a vehicle at the moment via gumtree listed $15,500 the guy is coming around with $13,000 but I listed it, and the price knowing id take $13,000 and anything over was a bonus.

  • Cheeper on 18/03/2014 - 22:24

    It is very difficult selling a used car privately. Sometimes you can be lucky.
    Best to advertise it everywhere you can… gumtree, carsales, even a pic on the local supermarket for sale board…. everywhere you can get it out there.

    The free ipad will only attract idiots that fall for that crap… you want someone looking to buy a car.

    I would be tempted to grab the 9k… Barinas are not known for their resale value.

    Was the stavic new or used. I would avoid rare or odd cars.

    I sold a car a while back. Started off with a regular price and nothing for ages. I got sick of this so dropped the price to half of what they were going for. Even then there was nothing until one day I got a "looker". When I backed it out of the garage his eyes popped… even though it was 10 y/o it was showroom original condition unlike the other garbage he had been looking for. He had cash on him so he was off with it new toy very quickly. :-) I'm not interested in going through the sell it yourself deal again, prefer to buy new and scout around for a good deal with t/in.

    Op… What budget do you have and what exactly are you looking for? If you can afford new then you can score a good change over with a trade in at some dealers.

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