Im preparing to list my car for sale (owned outright) in the next couple weeks. It’s been a bit since I last sold one. What are the best places for listing a car for sale online these days?
I was planning to list with:
Any others I should consider? I don’t mind paying a modest listing fee ($5-$10), but I’d like to avoid major charges.
Facebook Marketplace has overtaken Craigslist at the place to sell anything here in NorCal.
Depends a bit on whether you’re selling (as I did) your mother in law’s Toyota Avalon with 175K miles or a 2 year old Porsche 911 which may get more serious views at an aficionado site.
Can’t hurt to start with FB (free) and CL ($5) and if it doesn’t sell, expand to the others. Of the big sites my own opinion is that cars.com gets the most traffic and autotrader is good for the higher end mainly.
CarGurus tends to attract serious buyers, and the pricing analysis tool can help with setting a competitive price. It may be worth a look if visibility is a priority.
Unfortunately, it looks like CarGurus no longer lets you list for private sale on their site, according to their FAQs:
Can I sell my car privately on CarGurus?
CarGurus does not provide the option to list or sell your car privately on the site. However, we offer a convenient alternative to help you sell your car: Enter your car’s details to get multiple instant offers. Choose between selling 100% online with home pick-up, or selling to a trusted local dealership.
I recently started a private party sale thread here. @community_moderators could we move this over there? This is a worthy addition.
Most recent sale (last Friday) I ultimately sold my car to the one and only person, out of state buyer, who inquired from cars dot com.
Next best offer was a dealer who contacted me from out of state in response to my FBM ad. I met with their appraiser and showed the car via FaceTime.
I heard from both of these serious, potential buyers within two hours of posting the respective ads.
I spent ~$30 boosting my FBM ad over two weekends before the buyer was able to come from out of state to complete the sale. Approx stats:
Last time we put an ad in Autotrader (last summer), 100% of the inquiries were absurd lowball offers without seeing the car, or obvious scams. And iirc it was more the latter. Didn’t bother this time.
Setting the price takes more time than anything. We don’t want to have a car on the market for several weeks and do 15 test drives to find a buyer, so we attempt to set the initial price where there’s only modest resistance and aim to only have to do one price cut in order to find a buyer.
This is great feedback; thanks. You reminded me of the hassle of dealing with spam through Autotrader. Maybe I will skip that one this time around, too.