How to Properly Sell Your Car Privately
Learning how to sell a car privately quickly and easily isn’t an easy thing, but we have the tips tricks and advice you need to give you a fighting chance Selling your car privately isn’t the most straightforward of things to do and knowing how to do it isn’t something everyone knows about. There are multiple ways to go about it, but no matter what you do, you need to make sure you’re doing it correctly, legally and in the best way to maximise what you’ll get for it (and make sure it sells in the first place too). To do that, you just need to brush up on a couple of things.
How to Sell Your Car Privately
One of the best ways to get the most money that you possibly can for your car if you know what you’re doing is to sell privately. This is what millions of us do every year, and it’s a great way to get the best bang for your buck without any of the profiteering that businesses have to do. It’s not always easy to do, but it can pay off if you know what to do.
Going through the whole process step by step, you need to know how o make the most of every aspect of the sale to give you the best chance of success.
Work out the Value
Before you do anything, you need to know how much your car is actually worth. Doing that isn’t an easy thing since there’s so much that can affect the value of your car, but there are some good things to keep in mind. You should always check your vehicle against others of the same types, for things like:
- Make
- Model
- Condition
- Mileage
- Age
- Size
- Features
All of these have a dramatic impact on what your car should fetch is you sell it. Looking for others up for sale in the same kind of class as yours is the best way to see what yours could be worth, and then adjust accordingly.
Write a Description
Once you have all of the monetary side of things figured out, you also need to make sure you’re showing them off. To do that, you need to announce it. A description and images are vital to make the most of what your car has to offer the world, and with all of the other cars it there, it’s hard to show that off without listing it.
People browse a huge variety of cars with the power of the internet and convenience of dealerships too, so you need yours to show off what it does or doesn’t have and why that justifies the price you want for it.
List it on or offline
Speaking of dealerships and the internet, that leads us to our next point on learning how to sell a car privately too. That covers where you should try and get it done. The easiest and often first place people look to is adding for sale sign to the car for passers-by and other drivers but sometimes, that won’t cut it.
Other incredibly effective ways to get it done are to list it online or even in magazines and publications. Using the places that do this kind of thing for a living skyrockets the views that your vehicle will get, but it means that your competition will too. It’s wise to check out your options and see what you’re up against.
Adjust the price
After you have decided where to sell your car, or try to if you’re not being too successful, the next step is to look at your asking price. If you have hordes of people looking into it or no one at all, you can always change your asking price to make it a fairer price.
You can increase the value if it looks like your car is too low for what else is out there, or you can lower the price if you’re not getting much attention. These are sure-fire ways to get more attention to the vehicle and help you find a happy medium to get you the most cash.
Negotiate
Even once all is said and done and you’re getting the reliable and fair offers that you were hoping for, it’s usually time to look at what your negation will look like. It’s rare to have a black and white deal when it comes to private selling after all, since there’s not much business involved. It often comes down to a game of time versus money and realising what is realistic just to be able to get rid of the vehicle with not much fuss.
You need to find a price that works for the both of you, or cast the net again to see what comes around next time. Don’t be afraid to say no if you’re not getting a fair price but remember how selling a car privately has to work for everyone involved.
Change documents and claim your tax
Finally, it’s time to say your goodbyes. If you manage to do all of the above well enough, then you’ll land yourself a sale and negotiate a price to let your vehicle go on to its next owner, and leave you with what it was worth. No matter what price you take, it needs to be the right deal for you; a balance of time, money and effort all coming together to get you a good deal.
There are tonnes of ways out there to make it worth more like MOTs, services, inspections and more, but justify the price no matter what you manage to find. Finalise things with your tax cancellation and handing over the documents including signing off the cars V5c and there’s nothing left to do but say your goodbyes and spend the money on your next car. Check other options Autotrader, Check Gumtree, CarGuru, Ebay, Motors, Facebook marketplace, online buying guide.
Happy driving!
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