Negotiating Tips On How To Sell Your Own Car

Saturday, May 31, 2008

If you aren't a car salesman by vocation, the whole process of how to sell your own car can be intimidating, but if you follow a few simple guidelines, almost anyone can do it and do just fine. Selling your own car is a wise move as you can often save several thousand dollars over just trading it in instead, as most people do. But you have to be prepared to show what your vehicle is worth and know how to get the price you want. Here are some negotiating tips on how to sell your own car quickly and easily:

* Before you even put your first ad out there, get to know exactly what your current vehicle is worth. This is very important as many buyers are going to try to convince you that your car is worth less than it really is, and that's because they want the best deal possible. But if you have done your homework you will know what a fair price is and you won't have to waste time on insufficient offers. So go to kbb.com and nadaguides.com and find out what they say your car's "Market Value" is, not the trade-in vale. Market value is what you can expect to sell the car for on the open market as a straight sale. It's also a good idea to print out these pages that list the car's market value so you can show them as proof to prospective buyers. This validates your asking price.

* Another great way to build value in your vehicle is to run a Carfax report on it to show the vehicle history and offer outside proof that the odometer has not been tampered with and that it is has not been in a major wreck in the past where it was junked. It's a good idea to also have a copy of this report to provide to each person who test drives the car. This will help the buyer feel more confident in buying your car and all of this available research shows that you know your car very well.

* If someone just wants to steal your car at a value that is ridiculously low, let them walk. Tell them that you have plenty of other people coming to look at the vehicle and them ask them where they got the idea that your car was not worth what you are asking? Obviously you will have proof that your car is worth what you say it is, so it puts you in the position of authority in the situation. You don't have to lose money just because someone tells you that your car isn't worth what your research tells you it is.

* If you have kept maintenance records for the car, it's a good thing to make them available to show that you have been caring for it while you owned it. If you don't have the records themselves, go back and get the receipts from the work you have done instead. All of this shows that you have not just been ignoring the vehicle's maintenance and that can certainly build more confidence and more value in the vehicle in the minds of many buyers.

If you want to sell your own car, it's not as difficult as you may think. Especially if you have done some advance work beforehand, you can bargain from a position of strength and quickly and easily sell your car for a nice profit.

Jim Johnson writes on many consumer related topics including autos. You can find out more about how to sell my car and sell my used car by visiting our Auto Review website.