make offer, no lowballing

I hate guys that say "I know what this is worth, on barret jackson," or "I have a buddy that knows these trucks, so I know what its worth,"
If you know what its worth, then you know what its worth. If you have to consult a buddy or barrett jackson, you don't know what its worth.

Beyond that, you still don't know what your heap of E36 M3 is worth.

Most of the time these phrases are contained in ads for cars that are being listed for easily double or triple market value. In particular, one truck around here was a somewhat odd model, a super camper special. odd because they had a wheelbase longer than the standard bed. not super rare, but more unusual than the regular long bed. the guy listed it for something like $6000 even though it was rusted and needed lots of work. Then $5000. then $4500. then $3000. before the ad went down forever it was listed at $1500. The paragraph about how rare it was and how his buddy knew how much they went for and they go on ebay for $7-8,000 in worse shape than his was never removed, even at $1500 after 6 months on craigslist.

that ad contained other weird phrases that annoy me, like "its a kansas truck so no rust." I see this E36 M3 all the time. "its an idaho truck and its well known they don't salt out west, so no rust." Only my grandma is from idaho. And they salt in the winter. "its a florida car, so no rust." My other grandma lived near fort lauderdale. anything within 5 miles of the beach was a rusted out E36 M3bucket within ten years.

Also, and probably the worst of all, and we have all seen this phrase, "RUNS GOOD, JUST NEEDS _____" typically "carb rebuilt," which means it doens't run good the way it is, which means it doesn't run good at all. it means it might run good if you performed a total diagnostic and tune up on it.

The festiva I bought that ran good but needed a carb rebuilt apparently turned out to have a 93 block with an 88 head, head studs not torque down, the timing installed 180 degrees off, and the ignition coil unhooked. I bet it would have ran great if only I'd rebuilt that carb.

I get it. A "FIRM" price scares people away. A lot if people want to bargain, which is why the vast majority of dealers price their E36 M3 through the roof.

Now if I list a car for $2,750 OBO, it's pretty easy to read between the berkeleying lines and figure out I need $2,500 for the car, yet, inevitably, some E36 M3head will want to meet up, kick tires, ask a billion berkeleying questions, then offer $500.

"Price is negotiable, but don't waste my time with lowball offers" makes it crystal berkeleying clear IMO.

It's a stupid berkeleying game, but we've gotta play it.

no, the best ones are "runs great. car won't start needs towed"

poopshovel wrote: "Price is negotiable, but don't waste my time with lowball offers" makes it crystal berkeleying clear IMO.

If it seems to work for you (no stupid questions and you get a good price for your stuff) then its fine if you want to say that in an ad, but unless it was the only place to find what I was looking for at the price I wanted I would just not waste any of the sellers time at all and buy whatever it is from someone else lol.

I say make an offer just to get some interest and get people talking. Has worked in the past, especially with japanese cars that everyone wants.

If you want to sell a car, you need this guy to answer your add.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMCFRElyaCc

I never understood the "or best offer" thing.. it's not like most people keep a running tally of offers with contact info and then let the guy that made the "best offer" buy it..

Ranger50 wrote: ... How about just a title that says, "Ford", "Mustang", "Chevy", "Mazda", etc...?

Nah, you don't even need that much detail in the title, or apparently even the body of the ad:

"Great car"

Jeff

novaderrik wrote: I never understood the "or best offer" thing.. it's not like most people keep a running tally of offers with contact info and then let the guy that made the "best offer" buy it..

ok, maybe not exactly like that, but how many times have you made an offer that wasn't accepted, didn't dicker, and said "call me when you're ready to take my price" and the phone rings 2 weeks later with the seller saying "ok it's yours at that price"? i've bought a few that way over the years.

AngryCorvair wrote:

novaderrik wrote: I never understood the "or best offer" thing.. it's not like most people keep a running tally of offers with contact info and then let the guy that made the "best offer" buy it..

ok, maybe not exactly like that, but how many times have you made an offer that wasn't accepted, didn't dicker, and said "call me when you're ready to take my price" and the phone rings 2 weeks later with the seller saying "ok it's yours at that price"? i've bought a few that way over the years.

+1. Including our first Challenge CRX, for $380. The guy had a bunch of "I can get you $1,000 next week" numbtards. We were the dudes with the cash who showed up.

DrBoost wrote: What I hate more is the "best offer". There was a guy selling a diesel ram and the price was listed as "best offer", not $X,XXX OR best offer. So I offered him $5. He got all bent out of shape but I explained to him that he's had the truck listed for months, has bumped it 6 times and had no other offers. Mine was clearly the best offer, and he is obligated to take it. He said no. I guess he didn't really mean "best offer" then huh?

Oh how cute!!!! Seriously though, would you really waste your time and the seller's time with such stupidity? I had a similar idiot call me once who also wanted to play silly word play games and I thought wow, someone really needs a hobby. This guy was dumber then a box of rocks and was outraged that I was not accepting his offer. He was positively shocked when I instead told him to go F*** himself a few times over. Here is the reason people put "no lowballing" in their ads, its a waste of time and energy to pick up the phone and exchange any type of communication with someone, especially one who asks without even looking at the car, "would you take X for it?", you know the person isn't a serious buyer and is just trying to get their rocks off or is in fact watching too many "American Picker" style T.V. shows...Its almost as bad as when you're selling a $500 car and someone calls up and asks, "Hey, what color is it?" I mean who cares, its a $500 car!

About tree fiddy.

AngryCorvair wrote: ok, maybe not exactly like that, but how many times have you made an offer that wasn't accepted, didn't dicker, and said "call me when you're ready to take my price" and the phone rings 2 weeks later with the seller saying "ok it's yours at that price"? i've bought a few that way over the years.

This is my favorite method!

"testing waters" always get me, either it's for sale or it isn't, I find this usually means "I want way more money that this is worth and if your stupid enough to pay it I will sell it"

Ian F wrote: I got a few low-ball offers for my Cummins, but it wasn't too bad. But it was a running Cummins 5 spd 4x4 with a $3500 asking price... Mostly it was trade offers... tons of them. A surprising number of lifted Jeeps. And I was still getting them after I edited the ad to say, "no trades!"

The first time I sold a car on craigslist, I put the year, make, model, and color in the subject header, and repeated it in the ad body along with other salient points like valid emissions, 2-door, automatic, etc.

My first step in dealing with the responders was immediately deleting all of the ones where they asked what color, is it a 5-speed, what year is it, and so forth. This cut the responses down from absurdly high to under 14. (It was the only car on CL posted for under $500 at the time)

poopshovel wrote: +1. Including our first Challenge CRX, for $380. The guy had a bunch of "I can get you $1,000 next week" numbtards. We were the dudes with the cash who showed up.

I had another car that I was trying to get rid of because I needed the space, not the money.

First week: $350.

Second week: $400.

Third week: $450.

I finally got a response - "Hey dumbass you're supposed to make the price lower not higher."

I responded - "I want the car gone NOW so if you want it buy it now before the price goes up again!"

I sold it the next day.

evildky wrote: "testing waters" always get me, either it's for sale or it isn't, I find this usually means "I want way more money that this is worth and if your stupid enough to pay it I will sell it"

Or the wife/GF is sick of looking at it and finally said sell it. But being the pigheaded man, you only place up a feeler ad to avoid really getting rid of said vehicle. "Honey, I put it up on CL. I don't understand why it hasn't sold yet..."

If you use Craigslist to buy or sell items and go in with the expectation that you won't have to talk to a few idiots and scammers, you're going to have a bad time.

I had something posted up for free and somebody asked if I would deliver it.

evildky wrote: "testing waters" always get me, either it's for sale or it isn't, I find this usually means "I want way more money that this is worth and if your stupid enough to pay it I will sell it"

I think the unholy trinity then would be "testing waters, make an offer, no lowballing."

I don't like seeing that either...I don't want to go into buying a car with someone who is wishy-washy about selling unless they can get twice its value.

You have to ask way too much for a vehicle you're selling. If you're asking a fair price, people still think they should be able to talk you down 25%. I really love the guys that are like, "You've had this car for sale for x number of weeks; does my $2000 and wad of pocket lint seem appealing now?" I'd get emails like that about my Z06 months after it had already sold for what I wanted.

I understand the frustration with that sort of ad, but I can also sympathize with the guy that probably suffered through a dozen wankers that wasted his time before he put it in with that language.

I had a car for sale once that I wasn't in any hurry to sell, but wouldn't have minded moving on to a new interested owner. I advertised it as $X.00 firm. I got one guy that came over, ran the car down by criticizing the car every way he could think of and then offered me half my asking price.

I asked him why he was wasting my time when I had said that it was a firm price and told him I wasn't interested. He went through his harangue again and tried a slightly higher offer which I rejected, and then he offered me full asking price. I told him it wasn't for sale to him at any price and to haul his disagreeable ass out of there - he'd just pissed me off enough with his antics that I couldn't be bothered dealing with him any further.

That was the only time I thought about adding something along the lines of 'No wankers' to one of my ads.

if youre annoyed by people emailing you after the car sells, guess what, YOURE THE CRAIGSLIST WANKER! Delete your friggin ad already... geez.