Ready to Sell 2007.. Private sale or Trade in?
 

Hi Ive got a Black 2007 Boxster (not s). I am located in Connecticut near NY. I think i'm ready to sell and get a newer one even though this is my favorite body style ever.
Would I be better listing it for a private sale or trade in at a dealer? Anyone use cars.com? Ive had bad experiences with Porsche of Greenwich. Anyone know what I can reasonably expect to get for the car? its in pretty good shape, less than 100k. It been garaged since the beginning of covid. thanks

I guess it depends how quickly you want to sell it...

You need to factor in the market - is the car needed there?

It would not hurt to try vroom, carvana, or carmax apprise it and see what they offer. Also, do same with the local dealer.

Yes, it takes some effort.

I guess I would try to sell it myself. I did with some other cars. It takes a while, but is doable.

Agree with PLP. Take it to a few local dealers to see what they'll give you. Then look in your area to see what private sellers are listing for.

I will add that if a dealer offers you at or above the min you'd take from a private seller, I'd likely trade it in lol! I don't have the patience when selling cars to try and wait out the right buyer, but that's just me.

Bad time to be selling a vert in NE, but good time to be selling a used car. Good luck!

Don’t forget that if you trade it in, you only have to pay taxes on the diff.

Sold my Boxster in 4 hours with several buyers willing to drive 50 miles and begging for it. Simple text ad on Craigslist. Asking price.

Sold two other cars that way within a day of ad posting each.

Right car, right maintenance history, priced right. Somewhere in the middle.

I've gotten a stack of cash for my Porsche from a guy from Michigan who happened to be 50 miles away, a bank check for my wife's Acura from a lady who lived 50 miles away , a bank check for a Prius v from a guy from New Hampshire who would pass from here on his trip to the beach.

I live in a small town 50 miles south of Raleigh in NC which I figured would discourage people but it didn't. First looker bought each time..

I didn't need to sell so I figured I'd try to sell that way. Why give the dealer the profit.

Bring A Trailer ( BAT ) seems to be a website that takes ordinary cars and sell them for more than they are worth . Might be worth your time to check them out .

If you use an independent mechanic for your repairs, tell him or her that you are thinking of selling your car. He or she may know of someone looking for a car like yours. The seller may be willing to pay more because the mechanic can provide information about the car's overall condition gained from hands-on experience.

I'm a fan of Craigslist. I have sold two cars on Craigslist and bought three cars I found there. (I also walked away from quite a few, so buyer beware.)

When I sold my 94 Miata, I met the buyer at the Division of Motor Vehicles office in downtown Richmond. She peeled off $6300 in cash and then walked into the office to register the car. I kept looking around to make sure that no one saw the transaction and decided to rob me.

Depends on what you want. If you want simple, sell it to a dealer (Porsche, Carvana, Vroom, used, it doesn't matter). If you want to maximize your income, you need to sell it yourself. It's really that easy of a decision.

Selling your car to a dealer will be simple but they're NOT going to give you much for it. It will be wholesale at best. The only thing good in your favor right now is they're desperate for inventory so they'll give you a better price but still no where near what it's real value is.

Selling your car yourself will net you more money. But... it takes effort to sell a car and you must be willing to put that effort into selling it. You get out what you put into it. You'll have to put effort into where you advertise it, be ready to answer questions, be available to show it, be accommodating to pick someone up a the airport or willing to take your car somewhere for a PPI. Your car has to be clean at all times because prospective buyers swoop in suddenly from left field. And you have to weed thru all the scammers. You don't just slap a For Sale sign on a dirty car and expect people to line up to buy it. It takes work but is worth it if you want to maximize the price you get.

As someone noted earlier, you can trade your car in and save on sales tax. The dealer will still only give you a lousy price for your trade-in but you'll save some sales tax because you only pay on the difference on what you're buying. Sometimes this is the best path, but once again, inventories are very low so a dealer may not have what you want and if they do, they'll want a very pretty penny for it and not give you much for your car.

You need to advertise in as many places as you can. 1 ad is not enough. When I'm selling a car, I advertise in Craigslist, 986forum, Rennlist, Pelican, Facebook, and PCA. I sell 90% of all my cars thru CL. Note none of the places I listed are cars.com, autotrader, etc. You'll spend $5 per CL ad and $20 for a RL membership. The rest of the sites are free (assuming you're a member of PCA). No need to spend $50 for 1 ad. Maximum exposure is the key and it doesn't have to cost you a lot.

Someone mentioned BAT. Because of their success, they've gotten very picky on which cars they accept for auction. Chances are they'll turn their nose up for a base Boxster, but you never know. If they did accept it, it will be 1.5 mo before your car actually hits an auction end date. And BAT followers are VERY picky and EXPECT a hundred high quality pics of every inch of your car. They EXPECT you to immediately answer their peanut gallery questions. It's a factor of 10x more work getting a car ready for BAT vs selling it yourself. Will you hit the jackpot by selling it on BAT? For a base Boxster, maybe, but maybe not. If not, then you've lost 2 mo trying to exclusively sell it there and no where else.

That's impossible to assess with a 1 sentence desc. YOU need to tell us (and potential buyers in your ad) if it's manual or tip, what maintenance has been done, what options your car has, are the tires new, has it ever been in an accident, etc. These items greatly impact value and price. While the tip trans is a fine trans, it will negatively impact price by $3K. Needs a major maintenance? That's $3K at the dealer. No options? $1-4K less in value. Tires need replacing? $1K. Major accident damage can reduce value by 25%. If you don't tell us anything about your car, we can only assume these items are necessary and we'll reduce the price accordingly. The few items I've listed can have a major impact on value.

You need to determine what it's worth. Assess your car like you're buying it. What does it need? Then you need to decide if you want to spend a few bucks to make a few bucks. Or you have to discount it accordingly, but it's not a straight discount. For example, if you need tires but don't want to spend $1K, you'll need to discount the price by $1500 b/c the buyer will have to take time out of their schedule to get tires and their time is worth something. So that's why it's better to spend money to make money. By spending money to elimianate any issues, buyers have less to pick at when determing a sale price.

You can determine what options your car has by running the VIN thru vinanalytics.com. It will list a lot of useful info for you.

Now that you know what your car needs and what it has, look what others are selling comparable vehicles for. Use autotempest.com to search. The advanced feature lets you specify options that can pinpoint cars similar to yours. Then you search the ads and see how they compare to your car (options, cond, etc). Remember, their price is an ASKING price, not necessarily what they're actually going to get. You should expect $1-2K less than what you advertise at. And dealers will get more for their cars than a private party because they offer trade-ins and bank financing. Private parties don't so all they can compete with is price, meaning you have to lower your price to compete with a dealer. Keep that in mind when comparing prices from a dealer.

Pricing guides are not a valuable source right now. COVID pricing is much higher than the guides and they can't keep up with the current mkt. You're also wanting to sell your car at the wrong time. Convertibles are most desirable from late Feb to July. After that, your potential mkt drops substantially. Once again, to compete for a sale, you have to drop your price.

Pretty simple, huh? I do this all the time in my hobby of selling Porsches. It's a lot of work but pays off in the end. Some people don't want to put that kind of effort into selling their car. That's fine. With COVID pricing being so wild, I don't want to buy a car with the intention of reselling since I don't want to have the bubble burst while I have an expensive car waiting to sell. But I've been able to help friends sell their cars this last yr. They don't have the time or expertise and I do, so we've worked to our strengths and maximized their sale prices.