Selling my car (need advice)

[Abstract]

I put up an advert for my car, because I need to sell it soon. It's worth around $11,000 Australian, judging by prices being offered by others: a 3.5 year old car, 40000 km (25000 miles), power everything, A/C, etc.

I'm selling this thing for $9500 ($5900 USD) on a website because I need to get rid of it soon. I feel that the price is very aggressive.


My advert has been up for around 6 hours so far, and I've had:

1. An email offering me $7000.

2. A lady who wanted it for far less because she said she found a similar car in Sydney for $7000 (she's full of crap....I checked every car website last night).

3. $8500 from a guy who said he couldn't offer me a single dollar more than that.



Should I raise the price to $10000, knowing that people are going to try and low-ball me? This is already getting pretty silly. I literally just received an email asking me the lowest price I can offer the car for. I'm just going to reply and say $9500, just like my asking price.

When I look at other cars selling for $9500, my car shines in comparison. Seriously. Who wants to buy a 1997 Honda Civic coupe for $8000 when they could buy my 2005 hatchback for $1500 more?

Mine has power everything. His is a Honda Civic.

Mine has an MP3 CD player. His car is still a Honda Civic.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I would raise the price closes to the going rate for your car. Reason for it is when I see something going well below the going rate it raises a lot of red flags to me and makes me think something is wrong with the car. I know you are trying to move it fast. just go about 10-15% going rate. You know you will settle for the price you set it at.

 

[itcheroni]

What kind of car is it?

 

[TheMonarch]

To be fair, Hondas in general have really high resell values, they're really solid cars.


So what kind of car are you selling?

 

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

I would try to get the best price that benefits you and the customer.
Don't be afraid to speak up. You may eventually come up with a good price. If not, I bet a ton of others will see your car too.
Good luck

 

[Abstract]

Yeah, I know Civics hold their value, but I think it has more to do with Australia's used car market. I'm not sure if this is true, but from the research I did before I purchased this car several years ago, it seemed as though Australian cars don't depreciate as quickly as they do in Canada.


Anyway, this is my car. It was Australia's best small car for like 3 separate years, and Hyundai offer Australia's best warranty.

http://www.carsales.com.au/used-car...distance=25&trecs=1&Model=GETZ&PriceMax=10000


It has 1.5 years left on its original warranty. In American terms, it has around 100 hp, 25000 miles on it, a/c, power windows and door locks, 6 speaker CD stereo system that plays mp3s and WMA files burnt on CD, car alarm with immobilizer, dual airbags, and probably a few things I don't remember.

</sales pitch>


I really would bring this car with me overseas if I could.

 

[Sly]

General advice, not specific to your car:

1. Do your research work out what it is genuinely worth, get a P/Ex figure from your local dealership so you not what the absolute minimum value for your car is.

2. Price the car a little over what is is worth. Buyers want to feel they have got a bargain and have squeezed you for every penny. Buyers will always negotiate on the price. If you look desperate to sell / underprice the car, the wolves will be on to you for an easy kill. You need buyers to think you are doing them a favor buy allowing them the once in a life time chance to buy your special car.

3. If the buyer has to travel to see the car thats really good; invite potential buyers to come over to see the car, they need to see the car to full appreciate its condition, spec etc. Don't negotiate until they are sitting in the car. If someone has traveled hundreds of miles to see the car then they are already well committed to it in time and money, you have the upper hand in negotiations.

4. In end be realistic when negotiating, if you get a cash offer to drive the car away that is higher than the p/ex price you already have and you pushed the buyer as hard as you can, take the money. The temptation is to think there may be a better offer just around the corner, the chances are there isn't. If your reasonably happy with the deal, and the buyer is happy, you have a win/win, deal done.

 

[Abstract]

Thanks a lot for the advice, particularly point #3. If I can get them here, they may be more willing to pay what I'm asking since they're probably genuinely interested in the car. And you're right.....this gives me an advantage.



I think it would be uncouth to just jack the price up to what I think the car is worth. However, I did raise it to $9800. If someone wants to negotiate with me, they can wittle the price down to $9300, maybe $9000. If they're always going to negotiate with me,

My goal was to price the car low enough to make it interesting. I actually have a little over 3 weeks to sell this car. That's why the initial low price was important.