I’ve been thinking about cars a lot lately, or more accurately, how to disassociate myself from one. My fiance and I own two automobiles and exactly zero driveways. As urbanites, we play the musical car game well. We know the city’s street sweeping schedule intimately, ever mindful of the patrolling army of eager ticketers. For some, c’est la vie, but not so for this artful dodger. Today, I’ll share why I sold my car and how I went about executing the transaction.

The Plan – Why Sell Your Car?

I resolved to sell my 2013 Honda CR-V. As a daily driver, I would use M’s (my fiance’s new nickname as she didn’t care for “Ms. IS” – too terroristy, I guess) 2003 Honda Civic since she takes the train into town. Her car has about 160,000 miles on the odometer and, in typical Honda fashion, runs great! My CR-V has about 130,000 miles, also runs great, while commanding a substantially higher blue book value. I’ve enjoyed the CR-V for three years, tacking on 60,000 miles due to a decent commute and weekend adventuring.

My gut tells me it’s time to bail while there’s still some meat on the bone and with our little party next summer (wedding), additional liquidity isn’t a bad idea.

So, the working plan is to pocket the cash, run the Civic into the ground, then move on to the next vehicle maybe come spring/summer…

Who knows?! It’s a Honda, so I might be writing the update to this post a couple years from now!

The Execution – How to Sell Your Car?

“You gotta be $@%€ me!” I thought, in reponse to the well dressed, diminuitive used car sales manager’s offer.

“I’m sorry, that’s way below what I had in mind.” I shook his hand and left.

Hold up though, let’s back up before we get to that…

My first thought: benchmark.

Like any trade, two parties are involved in the transaction. Leverage this to your advantage by simply putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes.

So, I went to craiglist and searched within the Boston regional area for Honda CR-Vs with similar characteristics as if I were the buyer. Now, I’ve got a pretty good handle on what the market in my area looks like.

Next, for a little more reassurance, I went to kelley blue book. Inputting more specifications, condition of the vehicle and mileage, you’ll get a concrete range of the car’s value. Do these two sources differ substantially? Is there something about your local market that makes the two estimates diverge?

Now, you’ve got a pretty good handle on your specific car’s worth within your specific region. Knowledge is power.

Go Private Sale or Dealership?

Trick question, do both, do everything. Get quotes, talk to people, post and repost. Sit back, evaluate. (This is all assuming you don’t need, but want to sell the car)

When posting to craigslist or similar platforms, ask for too much, don’t feel bad, you’ll likely end on a different number. My number was high. I started at $13,000 with my craiglist listing.

An hour later I got an email from an interested party who felt comfortable with the price and I signed over the title…. just kidding.

Crickets… Absolutely zero response to my initial listing for a week, with the exception of a few scammers (be careful using craigslist!) that asked me to click on links or give personal information, etc.

Darn! So, what now?

Get creative.

My office happens to be located in an area surrounded by car dealerships new and used, including the one I bought the car from originally. Why not start there? I walked into the same dealership that I proudly walked out of three years ago and explained: “I bought a car from you a few years ago, I’d like to sell it back to you.”

You might get a funny look or two when they realize that you’re not looking to trade in said automobile towards a new one… but that’s fine.

Now, where were we?

“You gotta be $@%€ me!”

“I’m sorry, that’s way below what I had in mind.” I shook his hand and left, casually walking towards the door, while slightly tilting my head to hear the inevitable: “Hold on a second, sir!”

But it never came and I was back into my unsold CR-V a flash later. The dealer’s low ball offer at $5,500 wasn’t going to cut it. He’d be able to put that back out on the lot the next day with a price tag north of $10,000. I could do better, but where?

I pulled out of the lot and drove nearly a whole country mile (remember when I said I was surrounded by car dealerships?!) to CARMAX. They have an interesting business model, but that’s for a different time.

My plan was to get in and out as quickly as possible with an offer in hand. The dude said it’d take 45 minutes. It took 20.

There it was, a fresh sheet of paper with all of my specs and the figure $8,000 in big print. Wow, what a difference a mile makes?! Nice, let’s roll…

Meanwhile Back on the Internets…

A bit of snooping uncovered Carvana. If that name is unfamiliar, for this conversation all you need to know is they’ll come right to your door with a check and relieve you of your automobile. A pretty snazzy way to sell your car, but as you can imagine that level of snazziness likely comes with a significant haircut to your offer.

Well, what the heck? So, I put in my info to compare.

$7,300. Hmmnnnmmn.

Decision Time

I said I didn’t need to sell the car, so I didn’t necessarily have any time constraints… unless I wanted to impose them upon myself… which I did.

CARMAX and Carvana give you a week and change to consider their offers. I was on the clock.

M and I were scheduled for a little vacation as well. I thought it might be nice to wrap it up before our trip and come back to a new chapter, clean and dandy.

As I saw it, I could:

• Bring it back to the dealer and give a salesman a payday
• Repost ad naseaum on craigslist, dropping the price $500 at a time until I settled upon some nebulous number at some uncertain time
• Take a good, not great offer from CARMAX and figure out how to get home
• Take a less good offer from Carvana in my jammies
• Do nothing

Drum Roll Please…

I had one more trick up my sleeve… and it worked.

Reposting to Craigslist, but including the CARMAX offer and, tada!

I was inundated with legit buyers. I posted on a Friday, let ’em roll in over the weekend, ultimately finding a buyer $1,500 above the CARMAX and executing the transaction over the following two days.

Despite the assumptive title I decided to go with, I actually have no idea if this is the best way to sell your car. It’s just how I went about doing it. In this little escapade, both the buyer and seller walked away feeling like they did ok and I think that’s what most people want, not only in a car experience, but any transaction.

How and why did you sell your car?