Selling your car can so easily go wrong! If you don’t do the necessary research you can end up being badly out of pocket – or worse!
Rogue traders and scam sites operate freely on the web, and even sponsored ads or first page search results are no guarantee against deception and fraud aimed to catch out members of the public who go online in the hope of more easily selling their car for cash.
While an urgent financial need is often the key reason to sell a vehicle as fast as possible, it can be just as much to do with being unable to sell a car. Weeks, perhaps even months can pass and boredom or impatience soon sets in!
Typically, the car may have been priced too high for the prevailing market in a particular area. Many car owners tend to think in terms of the price they want, rather than looking at the marketplace, so they know the ‘going rate’ and a fair price they may reasonably and realistically expect their car to fetch.
The problem is also with perception. Everyone expects they will doing a bit of ‘wheelin’ n’ dealin’ so they tend to ramp up the selling price because they know a buyer will attempt to beat the price down!
It’s also possible to be wary of setting too low a price out of concern that potential buyers may assume that ‘going abroad - quick sale’ really means there’s something seriously wrong deep down in the engine block or steering geometry! On the other hand ‘one lady owner’ or ‘one owner from new’ are hardly reliable selling points!
In other words, it really does pay to spend as much time as you can afford to find out as much as you can about car values in the used car market in the area you intend to sell your car.
Then you may decide that it really would be easier and quicker to sell your vehicle to a reputable dealer rather than wait for the right private buyer and still be disappointed.
Just like your jaw might also do - car values can so easily drop on some car makes from one month to the next!