When buying a new vehicle, chances are that you’ll want to sell your old car and use the money to cover a part of the cost. In other words, the model that you will be able to afford may depend on the price that you get for the old vehicle. Now, some people have a natural gift of a salesman but natural charisma and bartering ability aren’t all that it takes to sell a car. There are more than a few technical issues that you could improve in order to get the best possible price. Here are methods to help you get there.
Appearance sells
Only a seasoned gearhead is able to see the potential of a vehicle. The majority of people get completely sidetracked by the car’s visuals, age and mileage. Needless to say, only one of these three things can you have an influence on. With a couple of maintenance tips and tricks, you can easily knock a couple of years off your car. This way, you’ll already place it in a tad higher pay range.
Put more effort into maintenance
Ideally, you would maintain your vehicle for the entire duration of your ownership, not just before selling it. Still, this is where you might need to shift your mindset a bit. First of all, it’s never too late to start looking after your car. Keep in mind that the vehicle may still be in your possession for months before you finally get to sell it at a decent price. During these months, you could further debase its value by neglecting it. You really shouldn’t allow this to happen.
Find the right platform to sell it on
The next crucial issue that you should focus on is finding the right platform to sell your car on. Here, you can add photographs of your car, write a great description and enter all the necessary data. This way, your potential buyers will be able to find it by its model, make, date and price range. In other words, these platforms improve the visibility of your vehicle and ensure that every single visitor to the page is a qualified lead.
Learn a thing or two about car photography
People online don’t come to see in person every car they like. Instead, they rely on the description and, above all, the photos of the car that you’ve uploaded online. Sure, they know that the photos are a bit edited and that you’ve specifically washed the car just before the photo session. Still, learning a thing or two about car photography or, better yet, hiring a professional to take a couple of photos may be a worthwhile investment. The interest that you manage to generate this way will be worth the photographer’s fee.
Set a realistic price and prepare for bartering
Finally, you need to learn two things. The first one is that no matter how awesome your car may appear, there’s a certain “realistic” price range that you can sell it for. Start by doing some research on vehicles that are of similar age, make and mileage as your own and see where this price range is. The trick to getting the right price lies in setting the price a bit higher than you really intend to sell your car for. Why? Well, because this will give you some bartering range. You will feel free to lower the price a bit in order to appear extra accommodating and the buyer will definitely be pleased with a discount.
Conclusion
The very last thing you need to keep in mind is the importance of setting realistic expectations. Regardless of how hard you try, there’s only so much that you can get for the car in question. Also, how quickly you can sell the vehicle may be just as important as those several extra bucks that you’re trying to add to the price. With all of these things taken into consideration, working on the above-listed five areas seems paramount.