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We own two cars in another state, Washington. They are there because we used to live there and used to fly back for the summer and we each wanted our own car while visiting for 2-3 months. We sold our house but left our cars and store them with friends while we are away. One is a VW Passat, 2004. The other is a Nissan Pathfinder SUV 2005.
We know now we will not be spending much more time in Washington and so need to get rid of the cars. We will fly there in July, spend 3 weeks visiting, and then want to sell both of them right before flying out. My question is how to do this? Posting on Craigslist can involve lots of showing which we cannot do while staying with friends for a couple of nights. Selling at a used car lot will be a real loss for us.
We own two cars in another state, Washington. They are there because we used to live there and used to fly back for the summer and we each wanted our own car while visiting for 2-3 months. We sold our house but left our cars and store them with friends while we are away. One is a VW Passat, 2004. The other is a Nissan Pathfinder SUV 2005.
We know now we will not be spending much more time in Washington and so need to get rid of the cars. We will fly there in July, spend 3 weeks visiting, and then want to sell both of them right before flying out. My question is how to do this? Posting on Craigslist can involve lots of showing which we cannot do while staying with friends for a couple of nights. Selling at a used car lot will be a real loss for us.
What would you do in this situation?
Run an ad in the paper. Send it in before you get to town so that the timing is right.
If the cars are going to sell, you will probably get calls right away.
If that fails take them to a new car lot and sell them. That's the price you gotta pay if you want to use your cars right up to the last day.
They're not worth all that much, anyway.
Get quotes from both, they're good for a few days. Throw up a CL ad for a cash only offer on them asking a bit more and see what sort of bites you get. If nothing compelling then go with the higher dealer offer.
I used to sell company cars and had no time to accomplish the task. Best results was quick appointments with used car managers. Armed with book value I could often get fair value, a check, and title transfer done in an hour.
There's not some magical third option. Either you sell the car yourself using an ad-based system or you take it to a dealer/wholesaler and sell it to them. If there's a CarMax nearby, there are also usually wholesalers nearby who will pay a few hundred over CarMax's offer on cars. Another thing you can do is search car listings for cars like yours being sold by small independent dealerships and call them to see what they would offer. They sell cars like yours themselves so they'll usually offer a little more than someone who is going to send it straight to auction.
But by the time you do all of that running to dealerships, you probably could've already sold the car using a competitively priced Craigslist ad. And as far as showing the car, that should be done at a public neutral site so staying with friends shouldn't matter.
You can't really have your cake and eat it too. If you have a short window you can really only advertise and hope it sells and if it doesn't take it to an instant cash offer place like CarMax or a dealer.
My CarMax example: I had a car I ultimately sold on Craigslist for 18.5k. CarMax offered me 14.5k. So they offered ~20% less. They need to make their money too. It's fast and easy, which is why people do it.
I am not familiar with CarMax - what is the difference between it and selling on Craigslist? 5% or 50% or?
We got a quote from CarMax (it's free) before we sold my last car. The price they offered was amazingly close to what the same car was selling for on Craigslist. I think they are very fair, and you can't beat the convenience.
The quote is also good for a week. So you can take the quote to other dealerships and ask them to match or beat it.
Selling on your own is a headache. Lots of calls from people asking if they can make payments, offering a lot less money, etc.
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