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Need to buy a car soon (a used one) and one of the tips I've found online is to know what the car I'm interested in buying has sold for in my area. However, when I go on Nada, Edmunds, KBB or any of the other sites, it has listings for cars that are currently for sale, but (and maybe I'm missing something) they don't seem to show the listing page (which would include the selling price) for cars that have sold. If you don't find this information on those sites, where exactly can it be found?
Although there could be shill input to artificially raise the price.
What I would do is email a few car dealers tell the EXACT want/desire of what you want in a car and what model then tell them you want to get a FINAL OUT THE DOOR PRICE.
Then once you get that email the other car dealers and tel them this is the lowest price you got. Ask them to beat it.
Do this until they start dropping off. Then once you get the lowest price tell them to have the car ready walk in with your OWN financing write the check and walk out. Any bs changes or double talk walk out. Just get up and walk out.
Thanks for your help. Couple things. First is that I don't know what a good price is, so I really need to find the sold prices to get a good gauge on current market value for the car I want to buy. But even on Truecar.com, I don't see an option for sold vehicles. What am I missing?
Second, how do I get my own financing? Where do I go? A bank? And wherever I do go, is it always better than going through the car dealership? Lower interest rates or is there some other reason that it's better to get my own financing?
I'm not aware of any site that tracks sold prices. Truecar used to give you an idea but they sold out to the dealers long ago.
Yes go to a credit union(or just the website) and get approved for a loan before you shop. Then when it comes time to deal with the dealer finance guy you have an offer you can have him try to beat rather than go in blind.
Go to autotrader or cargurus or cars.com to get an idea of what the model's asking prices are. Finding what someone else paid on a used car, good luck with that. Truecar and guru give some somewhat useful info, but a dealer will never give info on sale price to the public.
Also find out what blu ebook trade is in on the used model and realize almost no one will get close to that when trading in. You can use that as a floor. Realize the dealers will try and make you feel like your crazy with a offer several thousand under their asking price. However that's part of the strategy to wear you down. Stay firm and walk and they will eventually chase you back. Used cars are a goldmine for dealers profitability.
The Edmunds model specific forums will have people that post exactly what they paid for new vehicles.
It you are buying used you need a friend with access to dealer auction sold prices to set your floor.
I can get that info, but only helps if it sold at an auction, and within last 2 months or so without actually emailing manheim for a specific vehicle. This info helped me greatly in my last two transactions.
Maybe I'm just reading outdated information, but so many places said the same thing. Would've been really helpful knowing how much these cars sold for, but I guess I'm kind of up the creek on this one. I'm thankful for the financing tip and for the heads up on the Edmunds forums, so I guess I'll just run with that for now. Appreciate the help, guys. Thank you.
Oh c'mon.
Used, right?
Go to your local craigslist. Private Owner ONLY. Search for your car of choice. Average price will give you your particular market price for the car. ASKING price, btw. So it is expected to be $500 to $1000 less purchase. ESP on OBO cars.
Yes, ooohhh, it's private party, I am buying from dealer though.
Right. That's exactly why you need to know local market. I witnessed clever shoppers going to dealer (2-3 000 more than craiglsist) and saying - are you willing to match private party price? And show them a car on craigslist. They go stubborn, you walk away. That's it.
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