Asking prices

[Bren]

Searching for a motor has revealed that most private sellers think their car is worth much more than it actually is. What makes it worse is that it is a buyers market - it seems even a reasonable offer is an insult to some. Unless you are buying from autoshite.

 

It could be purely down to a lack of good quality secondhand cars and far too much shit being offered for sale.

 

Looking back, letting my immaculate 76k 07 vectra go for 2450 in April last year may have been a bit rash.

[Kiltox]

Too many private sellers think they are traders is your biggest problem

[omegod]

Facebook sites are full of them, knackered sheds with a weeks MOT up for £500,realistic offers of £250 are met with the reply they could scrap it for more, could they fook ! 

[Kiltox]

Facebook sites are full of them, knackered sheds with a weeks MOT up for £500,realistic offers of £250 are met with the reply they could scrap it for more, could they fook !

Round here there's a new spate of pikeys buying scrap for £50 and putting it up for sale at £350 with no MoT and no effort

 

Worst thing is they're selling them

[garbaldy]

There's a nice clean 91 BMW 318is for only £12k around Edinburgh.

[eddyramrod]

Round here there's a new spate of pikeys buying scrap for £50 and putting it up for sale at £350 with no MoT and no effort

 

Worst thing is they're selling them

That seems to be pretty much what happened to my Saab estate....

[Kiltox]

I've given up selling anything under £250 these days (apart from on here like with my Felicia) - I'd rather not encourage them and would rather give my scrap away for buttons to somewhere that will issue a CoD or someone that will actually use it for something worthwhile

[Mally]

When you are buying they are twice the price. "Everyone wants one of these sir"

When you are selling no one wants them. "Can't get rid of them sir"

[Split_Pin]

On here for a few bob or Cartakeback, that's the only route where you can avoid morons.

 

Saying that, if it weren't for the brave few who offer motors for sale on eBay and Gumtree, this place would be awfy quiet!

[sierraman]

People slate traders but often you are looking at something that priced appropriately. They aren't letting emotions get in the way. It's not them that's gone without a holiday cause it's had to have a new clutch.

 

This is just my experience, but below £500 is usually rarely worth the bother. £7-900 is likely to get you something with some life left in it but not too much that you'll spend a fortune trying to keep it forever.

 

If I saw a car up at £500 and it looked a bag of shit worth £200 tops I just wouldn't consider it. Most recent purchase was a 2003 Focus up at £750. It was as good as the ad said, better in fact, had full history supported by hoards of receipts. Offered £650 and he accepted. Probably because I was as good as my word, turned up on time, wasn't looking for every little tiny fault and made a quick decision. He'd probably had no end of bottom feeders turning up offering their critique of the car finding all sorts of spurious shit then offering £250. Either that or idiots who can barely speak English offering 'best price' over the phone.

[Split_Pin]

Aye if you just don't take the piss then that gets you infinitely further than all that 'oldahhtyeraannnd' stuff.

[HMC]

Maybe it's a reaction against the e bay mentality. However cheap you offer it for a quick sale, there's half a dozen messages offering even less than that. I add a bit more to e bay ads so I end up at a price I'm ok with.

[Timewaster]

They know that they will get knocked down and down by the £50 2nite m8 brigade so they start high?

[lisbon_road]

I have a friend with a Renault Scenic, 54 plate, very clean in fairness and has been very reliable.  She's put it up for £1500.  Proves your point that people think that their cars are worth more than they are, but I think it is nothing new.  

[sierraman]

I have a friend with a Renault Scenic, 54 plate, very clean in fairness and has been very reliable. She's put it up for £15.00. Proves your point that people think that their cars are worth more than they are, but I think it is nothing new.

Edited for accuracy

[Uncle Jimmy]

Too many private sellers think they

Round here there's a new spate of pikeys buying scrap for £50 and putting it up for sale at £350 with no MoT and no effort

Worst thing is they're selling them

 

Oh come on, I'm not often in Cheltenham am I?

[egg]

It's also about the local market isn't it?

 

Sorry to bore on about a fave topic of mine - but if you live in a Kentish coastal town with most places being miles from anywhere (I'm not pretending its the outer hebrides, but still) - chod will generally just be that little bit more expensive, as in general people (including me sometimes,but not most shitters) would prefer to pay a few quid more for a local car which saves them faffing around with driving to Birmingham or something.

 

This probably even truer at the bottom of the market, I think.

[dome]

I always advertise something for more than I expect to get for it to allow haggle room, however if someone tries to make an offer I only listen if they've viewed what I'm selling first. Gumtree is full of fucking dreamers and keyboard heroes who are all mouth and no trousers.

 

If you're a serious buyer you'll contact me, ask some questions, get an idea of movement on price and then view what I'm selling.

Being billy big baws with the low offers and shit chat and generally being like mike brewer with less personality will get you told in no uncertain terms where to stick your offer of less than half the asking price.

 

And breathe. Sorry, not a dig at you OP. Can you tell I had fun selling the Freelander?

[surprisingskoda]

I'm a dealer and I price fair. I have some cars for sale over market value (well actually I don't, they're all sold) because they're above the standard of the cars on the market. People turn up, like, leave hefty deposits them come back and pay what I want.

Partly to do with being a specialist in older cars as well.

Or sometimes they see the focus I was selling for a friend, see the £695 ticket, hear about the 13 months mot, service, new brakes, low owners, new tyres, new bumper, full 1.5 day valet and detail... and offer 500 quid so they use it as a van.

Sod right aff.

Sold it for 625 an hour later. To a repeat customer.

 

Not sure what my point it's, but there you have it.

[Junkman]

This communist social engineering labelled 'Scrappage Scheme' has left its dent in the used car market exactly as I predicted it, and exactly as it was designed.

Please refer to my comments while it was going on, which earned me a Star Letter in Classic Car Weekly, among other, but much mockage by the people who were genuinely and directly affected by it.

 

The end game is called "Agenda 21", not a conspiracy theory, but something published on the UN website and rolled out by unelected bureaucrats on a massive scale.

 

The goal is to equip those self declared "Elite" parasites with ever more Environmentally friendly® electric cars, like the various Teslas and lately the Mercedes-Maybach 6, fuelled by new nuclear power plants built into nature preserves, while ordinary folks up to including the middle class© are priced out of car ownership, so that the Elite® can enjoy their contraptions on empty roads, while the slaves are applauding.

 

I know this is insane. But it's not me who is, it's the ones rolling out this plan.

The very same people (not organisations! the very people!), who told you Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.

[cros]

Land Rover certainly thinks it's products are worth more than they really are, but for the moment there are enough wealthy idiots out there to endorse their ambitions. Pricing a factory restored series 1 bone shaker at around 80000 and managing to shift 25 of them indicates that motor vehicles have completed the transition into rather cumbersome investment bonds.

When the bubble bursts the roads will be littered with broken down 'classics', their Brewer-like owners at the wheel, arms flailing impotently.

[PiperCub]

Aye if you just don't take the piss then that gets you infinitely further than all that 'oldahhtyeraannnd' stuff.

 

IainL, on 23 Aug 2016 - 8:41 PM, said:

Aye if you just don't take the piss then that gets you infinitely further than all that 'oldahhtyeraannnd' stuff.

 

That's part of the problem - with all these BS progs on TV (I work in TV so can say this!) where everyone appears (maybe that word should be in inverted commas) to make big profits on everything from cars to crockery, this means so many idiots - who believe that shit is real - think they are proper big time, wheeler-dealer, Del-Boy entrepreneurs who can emulate what they see on TV in real life. Sadly, few have the brains or even common sense to do it and the rest just waste everyone else's time. 

 

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it extremely hard not to chin anyone who actually uses 'Oldahhtyerannnd' too

[purplebargeken]

I think I have always priced my cars fairly. I tend to get what I ask for them, but then again, most of them are in the couple to 400 quid range which I think is pretty good car buying territory if you keep your eyes open and your wits about you.

 

I will haggle if necessary but I won't take the piss, usually to allow a couple of gallons of go juice to be fitted to the tank. New cars? rarely happens but will haggle harder then, just because.

 

Here is the best place I have bought and sold. No hassles, fair prices and bloody good descriptions, plus decent folk who are not out to screw you over.

 

Mind you, it must be the time of year, but it is getting a little slower to move cars on currently (hint, hint) :)

[BavarianRetro]

I always advertise something for more than I expect to get for it to allow haggle room........

I've gone the other way, now. Pretty much anything I advertise is at a fixed price and the ad states it clearly. No offers. No room for negotiation. Want it? That's the price.

 

I might come and go a little with someone standing in front of me holding folding, but that's it.

 

The asking price has to be adjusted obviously, but it's far easier.

[Captain Furious]

Because at some point in the recent past, every old car became an 'investment'. Only going up in value these, getting rare now, howmanyleft.com says this is the ONLY one left etc

 

People hate to think that the car they paid many thousands for a few years ago is now only worth a couple of hundred, or a swap for a Samsung Galaxy S4 with a broken screen, so they cling to the belief that their 52 plate Focus 1.6 zetec is poised to rocket in value like a Mk1 Escort RS1600

 

Oh, and anything modified, where they seem to think all the money they'e spent on 'individualising' will be added to the value at sale time.

[Jifflemon]

The amount of utter shite out there is astonishing. 99.9% of it, is overpriced shite.

 

Its why we buy any shite.com is making a killing. Idiot decides to sell his car, and after 2 months of dealing with eBay wasters, idiots on the doorstep and sensible people on the doorstep trying to point out why his motor isn't worth what he's selling it for, that desperation kicks in, and they'll accept WBAS.com's stupid low price just to get rid of it.

 

WBAS,com send it to auction, where its bought by another idiot who repeats the process.

 

Whats even worse are the idiots selling "unloved classics" and "barn finds", or more accurately, rotten peices of shite that aren't worth they're scrap value.

[garbaldy]

 

Mind you, it must be the time of year, but it is getting a little slower to move cars on currently (hint, hint) :)

There's nothing current about it it's been stale for months now, I can now officially state that this damn sierra is the worst car I've ever had the misfortune to try and sell, it has taken the crown from the mg,s that sold quicker.

[Tamworthbay]

IainL, on 23 Aug 2016 - 8:41 PM, said:

 

 

That's part of the problem - with all these BS progs on TV (I work in TV so can say this!) where everyone appears (maybe that word should be in inverted commas) to make big profits on everything from cars to crockery, this means so many idiots - who believe that shit is real - think they are proper big time, wheeler-dealer, Del-Boy entrepreneurs who can emulate what they see on TV in real life. Sadly, few have the brains or even common sense to do it and the rest just waste everyone else's time.

 

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding it extremely hard not to chin anyone who actually uses 'Oldahhtyerannnd' too

I have bought cars at massively under the advertised prices on many occasions, none by being a Breweresque dickhead. If you talk to people and explain what the car is really like in a polite way I have never found anyone get arsey, the last one was up at £1100, worth £700 tops BUT the owner didn't know it was a car D and needed £500 of work. When you explain that it makes a difference. Most people would walk (run?) away but I just explained what the car was worth and left the offer with him, he accepted, needless to say it wasn't close to £1100. But I have also made cheeky offers on cars I am not that interested in, always when condition is well below expected from the advert, on the grounds you are taking the piss so why shouldn't I? Sometimes they accept, depends how much they want the car gone.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I recently bought an Audi 100 from Gumtree for £395, it was used for 2 weeks and I'm now advertising it on Car and Classic for £795- taking the piss, I know, but it's still cheaper than other examples out there, including one that hasn't moved or been MOT'd for 2 years.

Anyway ,there's a guy coming on the train on Saturday who sounds super keen, the only thing is he saw the Gumtree ad 3 weeks ago and actually called the original owner whilst I was on a test drive.

This will make for an interesting negotiation as he knows what it owes me and that I'm blatantly trying to make £400( or £350 after doing a wheelbearing) .

Watch this space.

[BavarianRetro]

My view on that one is I don't care what you bought it for or how much you're making or losing. It's irrelevant. You might have been given it or paid to take it away. I don't even think about it.

 

All that concerns me is what it's worth to e now.