Deluded sellers

Berger said:
I didn’t even get any time wasters. I didn’t bother with Facebook or eBay as expect to get that kind of buyer there.

Our Fiat 500 was the top spec model (lounge) average miles, FSH, mint interior, good exterior. New Michelins all round, new battery this year, MOT February next year.

Advertising it under pricing all the traders by at least £500.

It wasn’t an expensive car such that that people would be looking at finance, a young person could save up and buy it.

You’d have expected someone to snap it up as a first car and I didn’t see any issues or delays selling it privately however there doesn’t seem to be any market for this anymore.

Not one phone call, I had about 40 views on autotrader in two weeks at least 50% of those from people I shared the advert with I think.

I wasn’t going to let it sit for weeks when the market seems to be downturning hence selling it into the trade.

Selling process was quite easy, needed a few phone calls/reminder emails to chase collection but then it was collected and paid for when they said it would be in full no hassle when picked up. Got over a grand more than the px figure I’d been given.

A friend found similar with a Mini Clubman, I’d put it down to his car being more niche and higher value: he took it to carzoo or evans halshaw in the end and they bought it from him.
Click to expand...

Checks thread title…

Please don’t take this the wrong way but you are the exact type of person the OP is referencing. If you are looking for only £500 less than a trader then no wonder you never got any interest. In fact the fact you got zero interest should have had you realise it was overpriced upon reflection.

Did your car have zero warranty left and only £500 less than a trader who at least offers some warranty?
 
If you think a trade car sales is going to offer you a hassle free warranty you’re a fool.

Check the other threads on the forum for how well they have gone.

Veiled legal threats, “repairs” being made and prolonged arguments over rejecting the car.

A trader bought the car from me for less than £500 under what I was asking for privately, demonstrating they are happy to work on a relatively small margin (£750-1000).

Checking on AT there isn’t a single car under 7k now which matches the spec/miles/age, so as a private sale I advertised at £6500 dropping to £6250 expecting to have to be haggled by £250, so I was at least 10% underpriced vs the trade.

If the margin between a private sale and trade sale has to be greater than 10% for you to consider buying privately, then it’s not worth selling privately if the trade is buying at this price…

And at this price point, if your budget is 6k, it’s unlikely you have 7k to buy the same car from a dealer.

The car you’d be looking at from a dealer in this case for 6k would likely be a 2015 old shape model or a base spec model.
 
Last edited:
Berger said:
If you think a trade car sales is going to offer you a hassle free warranty you’re a fool.

Check the other threads on the forum for how well they have gone.

Veiled legal threats, “repairs” being made and prolonged arguments over rejecting the car.

A trader bought the car from me for less than £500 under what I was asking for privately, demonstrating they are happy to work on a relatively small margin (£750-1000).

Checking on AT there isn’t a single car under 7k now which matches the spec/miles/age, so as a private sale I advertised at £6500 dropping to £6250 expecting to have to be haggled by £250, so I was at least 10% underpriced vs the trade.

If the margin between a private sale and trade sale has to be greater than 10% for you to consider buying privately, then it’s not worth selling privately if the trade is buying at this price…

And at this price point, if your budget is 6k, it’s unlikely you have 7k to buy the same car from a dealer.

The car you’d be looking at from a dealer in this case for 6k would likely be a 2015 old shape model or a base spec model.
Click to expand...
I think the point is you've got some comeback when bought through a dealer even if it does take a bit of arguing. Whereas unless there's such massive obvious faults that you never should have handed over any money in the first place it's going to be difficult to get anything back from a private seller.
"Warranty" is irrelevant as you've got legal recourse against a dealer (a proper dealer and not some Del boy dodgy outfit).
 
Last edited:
Berger said:
If the margin between a private sale and trade sale has to be greater than 10% for you to consider buying privately, then it’s not worth selling privately if the trade is buying at this price…

And at this price point, if your budget is 6k, it’s unlikely you have 7k to buy the same car from a dealer.

The car you’d be looking at from a dealer in this case for 6k would likely be a 2015 old shape model or a base spec model.
Click to expand...

Now you kinda seem to be getting it. It’s not just about a warranty (regardless of how awful it is). It is more about having legal cover and far more protection as a buyer. Consumer rights for private sales are a lot less than you get with a verified trader. You even alluded to this yourself with people having to go the legal route. They have very limited or even no such legal options when buying privately.

At the price point you were in, the trader margins are smaller and they rely on volume. So the trader price can be a lot closer to the private seller price and as you found out people just don’t bite. At those prices you tried to sell at, unfortunately a buyer will pick a trader almost every single time.
 
Funny if you ran a poll how did people buy their first car, I bet most would be a private sale.
Diddums said:
Why are you talking about your Fiat 500 like it's a V12 Vantage?
Click to expand...
Not entirely sure what you’re getting at here.

The OP was talking about 15-18k vehicles. I was offering experience/opinion at the 6k mark. You’re adding nothing. I’ve sold the car and was happy with what I got for it the replies here seem to be that I should have sold for less than a trade buyer would give to me.

In my example would you prefer to buy a car with alloys, aircon, glass roof, reversing sensors, good tyres…. Or one with steel wheels four mismatched tyres and none of the extras as that’s the difference between the Pop & Lounge trims.
 
Last edited:
Berger said:
Funny if you ran a poll how did people buy their first car, I bet most would be a private sale.

Not entirely sure what you’re getting at here.

The OP was talking about 15-18k vehicles. I was offering experience/opinion at the 6k mark. You’re adding nothing. I’ve sold the car and was happy with what I got for it the replies here seem to be that I should have sold for less than a trade buyer would give to me.

In my example would you prefer to buy a car with alloys, aircon, glass roof, reversing sensors, good tyres…. Or one with steel wheels four mismatched tyres and none of the extras as that’s the difference between the Pop & Lounge trims.
Click to expand...

You said you had no interest from buyers when you tried to sell your car privately. Some of us have told you why they think that is and you keep posting the same debunked responses. The spec is not the problem and the facts speak for themselves.

You had zero interest and you eventually had to sell for less than you “thought” your car was worth.

You can keep believing it was the fault of the buyers who were unable to spot a bargain. Or you can accept it was more likely because people weren’t interested in a private purchase with no warranty or legal cover.
 
ICDP said:
people weren’t interested in a private purchase with no warranty or legal cover.
Click to expand...
For the price advertised. A private sale needs to be significantly lower than a dealer to make it make sense to a buyer. £500 on a £10k car won’t cut it, it would need to be £1.5-£2k cheaper to make a private buyer consider it.
 
ICDP said:
You can keep believing it was the fault of the buyers who were unable to spot a bargain. Or you can accept it was more likely because people weren’t interested in a private purchase with no warranty or legal cover.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing his point. He isn't complaining, he's observing that times have changed and the market is different to how it used to be.

I agree with him. There was a time when a good £5k small hatchback was an easy private sale and many people would take a 10% saving in return for a private sale rather than one from a dealer - it's not as if a warranty on a £5k car was ever brilliant anyway. I once sold a Vauxhall Corsa which I put up for £500 under the similar cars at dealers and somebody drove it away 2 days later for asking price. It was that easy. It doesn't seem like its that easy any more, which is his point.

It's always been more difficult to sell a car privatively the more its worth, the more the car costs the more people expect a warranty or, more likely, require finance to be able to buy it. The point at this was an issue used to be somewhat more than the £6k market.

The private sale cars which are significantly under dealer prices do still sell, but they seem to mostly sell to traders, not to people looking to buy a car for themselves. These people don't seem to exist anymore.
 
Last edited:
[TW]Fox said:
I think you're missing his point. He isn't complaining, he's observing that times have changed and the market is different to how it used to be.
Click to expand...

Sorry for snipping your post but I’m not missing the point and the fact you think it used to be different is irrelevant. The thread is about deluded sellers who refuse to accept reality.

My point is simple. If your privately listed car is not getting any interest you need to reassess your assumptions on the worth of your car. That is the same for cheap runabouts or expensive classics.

My experience of private selling for about £5k and up has always been you need to be undercutting traders by at least £1,000 - £1,500 before you get some interest. The more expensive the more you have to undercut unless you are selling a car with remaining manufacturers warranty. When you get to the point you’re only undercutting by £500 on a car with no warranty, most buyers think what’s the point.
 
Last edited:
So what should I have sold the car for?

If trade sellers are retailing starting at 7k?

You seem to suggest less than the figure I got for it: which would indicate that there is no private market at this price point and I achieved the best price I could which I was happy with. As stated it was above my negotiated px.
 
Last edited:
Berger said:
So what should I have sold the car for?

If trade sellers are retailing starting at 7k?

You seem to suggest less than the figure I got for it: which would indicate that there is no private market at this price point and I achieved the best price I could which I was happy with. As stated it was above my negotiated px.
Click to expand...
You’d probably have not had any serious buyers at anything over £6k.
 
Berger said:
So what should I have sold the car for?

If trade sellers are retailing starting at 7k?

You seem to suggest less than the figure I got for it: which would indicate that there is no private market at this price point and I achieved the best price I could which I was happy with. As stated it was above my negotiated px.
Click to expand...

I’m suggesting that basic logic should indicate your asking price was too high. Or you would have had people showing interest.
 
So we are agreed then. Zero private market. Nobodies going to advertise private sale 6k when you can sell to trade for 5828.
 
[TW]Fox said:
This has basically happened though. Compared with 10 years ago the private sale market is a fraction of the size it once was.
Click to expand...
Of course it has gone in that direction due to the new services becoming available that weren't around 10 years ago. WBAC had very little competition then and also changed the way they incentivise their buyers I believe (to reduce the benefit of low-balling).
However, I believe my statement remains true. If people could genuinely reliably get the same money, they simply wouldn't be doing any private sales, because it's quicker and easier to use a car buying service unless you get lucky or happen to have an association with the buyer (friends and family etc).
If sellers were willing to accept the valuation from Cazoo et al, they wouldn't bother putting it up for private sale at all, it would be a waste of their time. This seller that Demon is referring to, if he wanted £25k for his car he would just sell it to Cazoo. The reason Private sale still exists is because it sits in middle ground between what Cazoo would buy a for and what they would sell it for / what an equivalent car would sell for at a dealer.

Demon's example just serves to illustrate my point. Car buying services will pay £24.5-£25.8k. Demon has already offered £29k. So the best offer from any car buying service is over 3 grand short of what a private sale could achieve. We know it can achieve at least that because the private buyer has stated they would pay £29k.
 
Berger said:
So we are agreed then. Zero private market. Nobodies going to advertise private sale 6k when you can sell to trade for 5828.
Click to expand...

Let me be clear. I don’t want to seem argumentative. Like I said earlier most traders make their money in volume of sales at that price point. The margins between private and trader are very slim and leave no room for a private buyer to make meaningful savings. Or at least not enough to ignore the peace of mind that some consumer protection and warranty gives them.

An easy way to look at it is, would I buy this car at this price with no basic warranty or consumer protection considering I could get both for an extra £600.
 
Last edited:
ICDP said:
Let me be clear. I don’t want to seem argumentative. Like I said earlier most traders make their money in volume of sales at that price point. The margins between private and trader are very slim and leave no room for a private buyer to make meaningful savings. Or at least not enough to ignore the peace of mind that some consumer protection and warranty gives them.

An easy way to look at it is, would I buy this car at this price with no basic warranty or consumer protection considering I could get both for an extra £600.
Click to expand...
Basic warranty has so many exclusions and get out clauses many are not worth the paper they’re written on. Or won’t cover repairs to other items damaged by the failure itself. Shock absorber damaged, no problem sir, we’ll get that replaced for you. It damaged your wheel and tyre sir? Sorry, that’s not covered, only the initial failure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom