Selling my car a good option to "start over"?
I owe 24K on my 2007 Nissan Sentra Spec-V. Kelley Blue Book says I can prob sell it to a private party for about 16K-17K. If I pay it down to about that, and sell it for that. I could essentially wash my hands of it, only thing is, I'd have no car, correct? I want to start over, and get something within my means, and never be upside down again.
The problem I found, with nearly 20 years as a curbstone car dealer is....YOU JUST CANT SELL EXPENSIVE CARS on your own.
Sounds crazy I know.
But its the truth.
Think about it. Anyone looking for a $16000 car can go to a couple mega dealers and drive 10 cars they like. Its HARD to find that person to buy your car at private party value.
Now, stuff under $3000, that's what sells to private parties.
I friend of mines wife sold her car to carmax a few years ago.
He called me and offered it to me at the SAME PRICE they offered. Which was somewhere in the $20k range.
I thought about it for a day and decided against it.
I could get full coverage insurance for a couple hundred a month, and maybe find a different dealer to pay $200 over.
Just wasn't worth it. Even though Car max was selling the same cars for $24k.
I wish I had better news or a solution for you.
I just know that I bet it would be difficult to sell $15k cars on craigslist for true wholesale within a few weeks.
That is, a car might bring $14,800 at dealer auction and you might not get any lookers at $15,500.
The bad economy just amplifies the problem with getting out of expensive cars anywhere above wholesale.
And wholesale is what car max or another dealer who knows you aren't buying anything offers you.
Those websites don't write checks.
