Figuring out how to sell your car can be a really stressful experience. It’s confusing, overwhelming, and a lot of work. A few months ago, my husband and I sold my 2007 Honda CR-V. We knew going in that the dealership would offer us the lowest price. The trade-in value of a car is always lower than a private sale. But selling it to a dealership is so much easier, and who has time to sell a car anyways? So I did my research and we took it in to see what they offered.
KBB Trade-in Value — $3,500 – $4,500
Carmax Estimate– $3,000
KBB Private Sale — $5,000 – $6,500
We knew when we went to talk to the dealer that it would be the least financially beneficial offer for us, but we were willing to throw some money away to save ourselves the hassle of selling it ourselves. To our surprise, the dealer only offered us $1,500 even though it should have been worth more than that. At that point, we knew that if we were going to get the most money out of our car, we were going to have to do the legwork and sell it ourselves.
We listed it both in Facebook Marketplace and on Craigslist, but we got the most responses on Facebook. A lot of work and a couple weeks later, we sold my car for $4,000, almost triple what the dealer offered us. Of course, private sales are always more profitable than selling to a dealership, but sometimes it can be a lot more profitable. Part of this is because selling a car yourself is a hassle and a little overwhelming, and dealers know this. But it’s also the number one way to get the most amount of money out of your old car. What we found out is that it didn’t end up being nearly as scary as we expected it to be! Here are some tips for how to sell your car your yourself and get the most amount of money from it as possible.
Clean it really well
This step is really important. No one will want to buy your car if there’s fast food leftovers in the back seat. Gross. Take everything out of your car. You want people to be able to imagine the car as their own, so take out anything hanging from the rear-view mirror or other details you’ve used to personalize it. If you have parking passes or a toll road sticker, take those out now too if you can. You don’t want to forget to take them out before you sell the car, and you want your car to look as clean as possible while showing it.
After you’ve gotten everything out of it, vacuum the inside and give it a good wipe down. Make sure you wash the outside too, of course. If you can’t do this in your own front yard, the next cheapest option is to take it to a car wash where you do the work yourself. If you have more money than time, take it to somewhere where they’ll clean it all for you. And make it smell pretty too! Febreze works wonders to get funky smells out, but it doesn’t hurt to have a car freshener too.
Take nice pictures
Taking good pictures of your car right after you cleaned it (but after the exterior is dry) can make a huge difference in getting people interested. It’s better if you take pictures somewhere other than a parking lot or your driveway. If you can find a pretty, green field to take pictures in, do that! A nice background can do wonders to make your car stand out from all the rest. Also try to take them when there’s good lighting, like shortly before sunset or on a cloudy day. You don’t have to have a fancy camera. Your phone should do just fine. Just make sure that the pics aren’t blurry.
I’ve found that the more pictures you have, the better. Take pictures from every angle, both inside and outside. It seems counter-intuitive, but also take any pictures of any dents or scratches you have. It makes you seem like a more trustworthy person to someone who is potentially going to pay thousands of dollars to you. Take pictures of the steering wheel and the backseat and anything else you can think of. When you post them, make sure to post the prettiest ones first. If you’re not sure what angles you should shoot from, look up what the car dealerships are doing and copy that.
Here are a few of the pictures I posted online to sell my car. We actually used a lot more than this! As you can see, we didn’t take it to a nice location for pictures either. It did the trick though. I had a lot of people send me messages about it!
Research your specific state’s policies before you start advertising
This is really important. Different states and countries have different laws and regulations. Make sure you get some good information on how to make a private sale from a reputable source before you start meeting with people. I can’t tell you how stressful it is if you don’t know these details. Some states require the license plate to go with the car but some states require that each new owner get a new license plate. Doing your research ahead of time ensures that you’ll know exactly what to do and won’t have to rely on or trust the buyer to tell you. This article isn’t state-specific, but it’ll help get you started.
After you’ve done your research, get all your paperwork in order. If you have copies of the service history- you’re a rockstar! Put it in a folder with your title so that when you’re going to go show it to somebody, everything is together.
Know the price of your car
This is really important so that people don’t take advantage of you. You want it to be a fair price for both yourself and the buyer. A good place to start when doing your research is Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds. Make sure you pay attention to the difference in pricing between selling it to a dealer and making a private sale. Chances are, depending on the age and condition of your car, you might have to go a little bit below what these sites list, but they’re a great starting point.
Post it online with as many details as possible
People are going to ask the most random questions. The more you put in the post, the less time you’ll waste-both yours and any potential buyer’s. Include things like whether it’s a 6 CD changer, what type of seats it has, whether it’s 4 cylinder or v6, etc. If you’re unsure of these, find your VIN number and look it up online. Usually you can find the VIN number on the driver’s side of your car, looking at the dashboard from outside. You can also usually find it on your insurance card or car registration.
It’s also important to tell people why you want to sell your car. As a buyer, I always want to know why someone is selling something. Is it because it’s broken or because they love it so much they’re updating to a newer model? When I posted my car, I told people that it had a lot of highway miles because of mine and my husband’s long distance relationship (true!), that I had just graduated college and started working full time (also true!) and that we decided to upgrade (all true!). It gives people a better idea of who I am and how I treated the car while I owned it.
Put in your posting that you’re selling it as-is
I had a friend who was sued once because he said in a Craigslist listing that the car was in perfect working condition and then something broke down on the car a month after it was privately purchased. Even though he fixed it for the person himself, they had a copy of the original listing and so sued him for false advertising. You want to be careful to be really honest about the condition of the car. Don’t oversell it and don’t promise something that just isn’t true.
Be truthful. If it’s broken, don’t tell people it’s running smoothly. You don’t necessarily have to put every little concern with the car in the post, but when you meet with people, be sure to tell them of any troubles you might have with your car. For instance, my mechanic told me that I might need my transmission fluid changed soon, so I told people that when they came to look. Not only does this make you seem more trustworthy to the buyer, but it also shows that you pay attention to the needs of your car and get regular maintenance.
Be friendly + respond right away
This is important because it shows people that you’re capable of being professional and pleasant to work with. There are plenty of used cars on the market. If you’re rude or take hours to respond to every message, those potential buyers will certainly find another car to buy. You want this to be as pleasant and hassle-free a process as possible, for both of you.
Be available to meet
I think this is the hardest part about selling your car yourself. Sometimes you’ll have to meet with quite a few people before you can successfully sell it. We My husband showed it to at least 4 different people when we sold my car. It was in January and really, really cold outside too. But just remember, even if you have to meet with 10 different people for an hour, the difference in the money you’ll get from selling it yourself versus selling it to a dealer is in the thousands. That’s definitely an hourly rate worth working for! For us personally, we spend about 4 hours meeting with people, which equaled about $625/hour.
Meet in a bank parking lot
We also found it helpful to have a set place where we meet people. This takes a lot of the decision making out of the process, which can be exhausting. We met people after school hours in a school parking lot near our house. In hindsight, we wish we had met people at our bank parking lot instead. The reason for this is twofold.
- You never know when someone is actually serious about buying. If they are, you probably need to get your title notarized. Most local banks have this service for their members.
- You can get all that cash deposited immediately into your bank account. I’m sure it’s unlikely, but you don’t want to get paid with forged bills. The bank certainly checks for those while depositing your cash. Even if the money is real, the last thing you want to be doing is driving around with thousands of dollars in your purse for a couple days until you can make it to the bank. Doing the transaction at the bank makes the process so much easier.
Call your bank ahead of time to make sure that they have a notary public and can do this service for you.
Be friendly!
When you’re showing your car to people, don’t act entitled or like you’re doing someone a favor. ‘The customer is always right’ applies to scenarios like this too. That doesn’t mean you have to let them walk all over you, but the friendlier you are, the more willing a person will be to offer you a fair price.
Stand your ground
Chances are, people who know a lot about cars are going to point out all the different things that “need fixed” and then lowball you. When this happens, politely say that you’ve done your research, and that this particular make and model in this particular condition is worth this much.
One gentleman told me that my car needed new shocks and a bunch of other very minor things, and then offered me $3,000 for the car. I asked him how much those things would cost him to fix (around $500) and offered to lower my asking price by that amount. He stuck with his $3,000, which was about 40% off my asking price. When I informed him that I’d be willing to go down some on price, but that the car was worth around $5,000 on Kelley Blue Book, he told me that “no one uses that website and its prices are inflated.” However, a lot of people use that website, and I had researched other websites as well. If you’ve checked the price on several websites, you won’t be as easily taken advantage of.
Be willing to go down in price
While I’m glad I held my ground in the above scenario, it can be good to budge a little. I could have probably waited, showed the car to more people, and eventually sold it for $4,500, but I was consistently getting offers for $4,000 or less. On top of that, trying to sell your car is a stressful, time-consuming experience that both my husband and I wanted to be done with. I decided that the extra $500 wasn’t worth the stress and hassle of keeping it on the market for another few weeks. $4,000 might have been slightly less than it was worth, but it was still A LOT more than the $1,500 the dealer offered. Being willing to go down in price reduced mine and my husband’s stress and sped up the process significantly. In fact, we sold it less than a week after my initial listing.
Have them sign a paper saying they’re buying the car as is
This is advice I found in this article. Have them sign a document saying that they’re buying the car as-is. We didn’t do anything fancy. My husband just printed out a form that said how much the sale was for, what the mileage was, and that the purchase was as-is. I made two copies, and both the buyer and myself signed both copies. The buyer took one home and I kept one for myself. I couldn’t tell you whether this would actually protect either one of us in court or not, but it sure made me feel a lot better.
Double check that you didn’t leave anything in the car
The last thing you want to do is have to try and schedule a meet-up after you sold your car. Look around to make sure you got everything out. Here are a few places you may want to check:
- seat-back pockets,
- sunglasses holder
- glove box
- your CD changer
- the trunk
- the center console
- underneath the seats
- in the crack of doom between the driver seat and the console
- your windshield–for parking passes, etc.
I found an extra pair of sunglasses in my car just before the new owners drove it away.
Watch in bittersweet nostalgia as someone drives your baby away
I felt surprisingly emotional about saying goodbye to my car, even though I was more than ready to get rid of it. I had spent a lot of time in it and it was the first car I picked out and bought completely on my own, so saying goodbye felt like the end of an era. But also, congratulations! You did it! And now you probably have a lot more cash in your checking account. Give yourself a pat on the back and then go transfer it into a savings account.
I hope this advice was helpful to you. Leave a comment and let me know if there is any good advice I missed, and be sure to share this article with anyone you know who’s going to be selling their car soon.
Note: I am not a lawyer or qualified person to give legal advice on how to sell your car. Make sure to read up on your individual state or country’s laws and regulations on how to sell your car.
