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Here’s Why Car Prices are About to Plummet in America | Episode 11
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Today Ray and Zach discuss the current state of the used car market. If you’re thinking about buying or selling your used car, you’ll definitely want to watch this first. New data from Black Book and Manheim provide insights into the current and future state of the used car market.
Black Book report: https://www.blackbook.com/covid-19-market-insights-8-19-20/
Manheim report: https://publish.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle-value-index.html
3 Ways to Sell Your Car For the Most Money
You want to sell your car, but you’re not going to let go of it easily. It’s always worth the effort to sell your car for the most money possible. Once you’ve made the decision to sell, another question comes to mind: “where should I sell my car to get the most money?”
If your goal is to get the most money when selling your car, then be prepared to do a bit of work. If you’re more interested in convenience, then have no fear, there are plenty of people out there who want to make it easy to buy your car from you.
Get the most when you sell your car.
Compare and choose multiple offers in minutes:
Let’s run through the three different categories of car buyers, get into the specifics of what work you will need to do to sell your car to each of them, and cover the pros and cons of your varied options. Let’s dive in!
The Middle Ground: Sell to a Car Dealership
There is nothing wrong with selling your car to a local dealership. Will you get the most money possible? No. Will you have the most convenient experience possible? probably not. Will you get the worst possible price for your car? Definitely not. Will it be the least convenient experience for you? Most likely not.
Selling your car to a local dealership is the ultimate middle ground of car sales. It’s an option, it’ll always be there, and it isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either.
Thinking of buying a used car? You might enjoy this guide: Buying a Car on Craigslist? Here Are 4 Things You Need to Do First.
What work is involved in selling your car to a local dealership? Not much. Don’t spend hundreds of dollars getting the vehicle cleaned, detailed, or looking “showroom ready.” The used car manager that appraises your vehicle won’t be swayed by how good the car looks, and they’ll still be thinking about the reconditioning work they’ll need to do to make the vehicle “merchandisable” (sales ready).
Selling to your local car dealer is convenient in this sense. Simply call them, make an appointment to get your vehicle appraised, and have the necessary documentation with you to complete the transaction (more on that below).
Understand that the offer you get from your local dealer will most likely not be top dollar for your car. Quite frankly, it could be the lowest offer you get. Local dealerships typically never offer what the national used car dealers do (more on them next), and although there is less work involved, offers from local dealers are typically much less than what you would get if you sold your vehicle to a private party (stay tuned).
If you’re still asking yourself, “Should I sell my car to a local dealer?” I’d caution that you shouldn’t. I think you’ll find one of the other two options more attractive for obvious reasons.
The Easy Option: Sell to Carvana, Vroom, or CarMax
National used car dealers have invested millions of dollars to create “seamless” and “technology-driven” ways to buy your car. CarMax pioneered the marketing of “we’d like to buy your car, please sell it to us” many years ago, and since then, upstart companies like Carvana and Vroom have doubled-down on purchasing used cars directly from consumers.
What work is involved in selling your car to one of these national retailers? Not much. Similarly to when you sell your car to a local dealership, you shouldn’t invest time or money in cleaning up your vehicle. Carvana, CarMax, and Vroom are all prepared to recondition your vehicle, and a detail will not change the appraisal value.
What are the pros and cons of selling to a Carvana, CarMax, or Vroom? There are plenty. To start with, the best “pro” on the list is the offer price. Carvana and Vroom are notorious for offering very competitive prices to buy used vehicles. We recently sat down with Nicholas Hinrichsen, the former Senior Director of Sell to Carvana, on the Auto Insider podcast. It was fascinating to learn how Carvana determines pricing for their used car purchases.
Carvana and Vroom will also both come to you to purchase your car. Instead of driving to your local dealership, or to a physical CarMax storefront, Carvana and Vroom will send a flatbed truck to you and take delivery of your vehicle right there.
And finally, on the list of “pros” is the fact that all three major players offer seamless, simple, and intuitive online platforms you can use to sell your car directly to them.
What are the cons you may be asking? There aren’t many. The only downside to selling your car to Carvana, CarMax, or Vroom is that there is a chance you may not get top dollar for your vehicle as compared to selling it to a private party. That being said, the amount of time saved by selling to one of these big three national brands can more than make up for the price difference.
The Most Money: Sell to a Private Party
If you’re truly invested in getting the highest offer on your vehicle, then you should strongly consider selling your car to a private party. Selling your car to another individual generally requires a lot more work than any of the other options we’ve already discussed.
When selling to a local car dealer or a national used car brand, you don’t need to worry about cleaning up or detailing your vehicle. That couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to selling your car to another individual. You want your car to be looking immaculate!
If you’re thinking about buying or selling your car, you might enjoy this article if you haven’t read it already: The Car Buyer’s Glossary of Terms, Lingo, and Jargon
If you can get your car looking great, take professional photos, and get it listed on many different websites, odds are you’ll get top dollar for your vehicle. The cons however consist of investing your time into preparing the vehicle, coordinating appointments with strangers, and letting someone you don’t know test drive your car.
If you can look past these cons, then selling your car to a private party may make sense for you.
What you need with you to sell your car
No matter who you sell your car to, there are a few items you’ll want to have handy to facilitate the transaction:
- Some sort of photo ID, usually a driver’s license
- The vehicle title, proving vehicle ownership
- Vehicle registration, showing vehicle ownership
- 10 day loan payoff, which is the amount you still owe on the car (if you have a loan)
- Both sets of keys
- Any service and maintenance records
As a final note, remember to take your belongings out of the vehicle before you sell it. There’s nothing worse than seeing your EZ-Pass get billed six months after you sold your car.
Should You Sell Your Car to Carvana, Automotive Refinance, and More, With Nicholas Hinrichsen | Episode 10
Negotiating tips, money-saving tricks, and car buying advice from CarEdge team of experts: https://caredge.com/guides/
Learn more about CarEdge here: http://caredge.kinsta.cloud/
Today Ray and Zach welcome Nicholas Hinrichsen, who got his MBA at Stanford, started an online car retailer Carlypso and sold it to Carvana in 2017. At Carvana, Nicholas built and ran the Sell To Carvana business, and considering Zach is currently in the process of selling his Volvo S90 to Carvana, we thought what better time than now to have Nicholas on the show.
After three years with Carvana, Nicholas left to start WithClutch.com, a digital platform to refinance auto loans. 20 million car owners can save thousands of dollars in minutes and usually don’t know refinancing a car loan is even an option!
No-Haggle Pricing: What You Need to Know (CarMax, Carvana, Vroom, Etc.) Former Dealer Explains! | Episode 9
Negotiating tips, money-saving tricks, and car buying advice from CarEdge team of experts: https://caredge.com/guides/
Learn more about CarEdge here: http://caredge.kinsta.cloud/
Today Ray and Zach discuss negotiation free dealerships (also known as one-price dealerships). Ray explains how they work and also what impact they have on the automotive industry at large. If you’re thinking of buying a car from Carvana, CarMax, or another one price dealership, you’ll be sure to want to listen to this podcast episode first.
Top 5 Best Car Research Websites
Google search “car research websites” and you’ll be greeted with about a half dozen advertisements and nearly 1 trillion search results. If you thought it would be easy to find a website to help you research your next ride, you’re in store for some analysis paralysis!
Today our team at CarEdge decided to list out our top five car research websites that we recommend. Please keep in mind that none of these websites sponsor us or have paid us for placement on this list. Each of the websites listed below has a specific niche that they cater to, and we think it’s worth highlighting them here.
Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
CarEdge – Best car research website for getting a fair deal
If there is one question we get asked most frequently at CarEdge, it’s some variant of “Well, how much should I offer for this vehicle?” Answering that question is now much easier with the CarEdge Fair Price. Your Fair Price is calculated with local market data and price trends taken into consideration.
Many car shoppers out there are getting lured into dealership showrooms with unattainably low advertised prices. What did we do about that? We built CarEdge Car Search, a car search engine that shows you the Out-the-Door Price, not just the advertised price!
By simply taking into account your tax rate and the typical fees in your area, CarEdge gives you a clear view into how much it will really cost to purchase a vehicle.
Having the confidence to offer a fair value for a vehicle is not easy, and as we all know, if we lowball the salesperson, there’s a good chance we won’t hear back from them anytime soon.
That’s why we like that CarEdge added market insights to their vehicle results. You can see how many days a car has been on the dealer’s lot, what the local supply of that vehicle is, and how many similar cars have sold in the past 45 days.
Plus, there are no ads or lead generation form for dealers. Instead, CarEdge has a 4 step buying guide that you can download (which includes handy email templates) to contact the dealer and get a fair price. Even better, CarEdge offers the option of working with a Car Coach who will help you negotiate your deal from start to finish.
Pro
- Advanced market data is free
- No advertisements or sponsored listings
- The CarEdge Fair Price estimates a negotiable offer
- You have the option to schedule a Consult or work with a Car Coach any time for help with your deal
Cons
- Premium features are not free
- Supercars are not included
Check out the unique market insights included with CarEdge Car Search.
AutoTempest – Best for researching hard to find used vehicles
Finding the right vehicle can be tough. If you’re buying new it can be a bit easier (you can always customer order one directly from the factory), but when you try and find the exact right used car, it can take days, weeks, and sometimes even months, before you’re able to stumble across the car, truck, or SUV you’ve been searching for.
AutoTempest is one of the most helpful and useful car research websites available, especially if you’re looking for a hard to find used car. Their search functionality aggregates used car listings from across a variety of sources, and their standardization of data allows you to filter search results for highly specific criteria, such as fuel type, drive type, and more.
Rather than spend an hour on eBay, an hour on Craigslist, and an hour on Cars.com, one search on AutoTempest will pull in results from all of those websites (and more) at once. Save time, reduce the number of browser tabs you have open at once, and rejoice when you find your new to you used car quicker than before!
Pro
- Save a ton of time
- Filters work well considering all the different types of data
- You don’t have to create an account to get started
Cons
- Data is not always accurate
- No way to “save” vehicles for later
- No “good deal” or “bad deal” indicator
CapitalOne Auto Navigator – Best for bundling finance and research
If you’re trying to stay organized, having all of your information in one place can be very helpful. Rather than trying to remember a bunch of logins and passwords, using one tool can help you keep things organized. CapitalOne’s Auto Navigator is attempting to provide you with exactly that experience.
After ending their mortgage business, Capital One has invested heavily into being a dominant auto lender. To that end, they built a very robust online car research website that anyone (not just Capital One clients) can use.
Auto Navigator offers the same type of search functionality as other traditional car research websites, but what makes them special is that they offer a simple and seamless pre-qualification to their process. If you go ahead and pre-qualify on their website you’ll be able to see potential offers for monthly payments on the vehicle listings. This can be helpful to reference during the vehicle research process.
Pro
- The best online experience to get pre-qualified for a loan
- Robust filter and search capabilities
Cons
- Rates are not guaranteed, you still have to qualify for financing at the dealership
- You are limited to searching dealers that are in Capital One’s network
CarsDirect – Best for searching by monthly payment
Although it isn’t our recommendation to negotiate your car deal based off of the monthly payment, it is entirely advisable to research which vehicles may meet your monthly payment goal. CarsDirect offers one of the best user experiences for doing this.
We hope to see it improve in the future, but for now, your best bet is to “shop by payment” on the CarsDirect “find deals by payment” page.
CarDirect lists out dozens of options at a variety of price points, and even has a separate page for lease deals by payment as well. Unfortunately this is only for new cars, trucks, and SUVs, and not used, but maybe someday in the not too distant future we’ll have a similar breakdown for used vehicles. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a car research website that helps you identify options within your monthly payment goal, this is your best bet.
Pro
- Quickly get a sense for which vehicles may meet your payment goal
Cons
- No search by payment option for used cars
- A lot of prompts to “create an account” and share your contact information
CarGurus – Best market trends
Bear with me for a moment here, but CarGurus is like the Zillow of the automotive industry. They seemingly have ALL the data. And with all the data, they have an opportunity to create a lot of really interesting and compelling insights.
CarGurus has a simple and intuitive search engine, but candidly it feels exactly the same as all the other “brand name” car research websites out there. Where CarGurus stands out, is with its lesser known Price Trends feature.
The Price Trends feature allows you to view price trends over a set period of time for any particular make, model, and year of vehicle. You can also view trends based on body style. This is super helpful during the research process, as you may be able to identify a specific vehicle, or type of vehicle that has decreased in price in the past few weeks and is now in your budget. Identifying trends across a vehicle, or vehicle type, can be incredibly helpful at the beginning of the car research process.
For example, you can see that minivan prices have been increasing at a much slower rate than convertible prices.
With this information you may be more interested in researching minivans instead of convertibles — yes, I am aware this is a poor comparison, who cross shops a Honda Odyssey with a Mazda Miata — but the thought is still true! In terms of research, CarGurus has you covered in ways that other websites don’t.
Pro
- Very robust Price Trends tool
- Free to use, no account required
- Intuitive search functionality
Cons
- Too many sponsored listings
- Occasional inaccurate filtering of data
So there you have it, those are the top five car research websites we recommend. If you’d prefer to search through the 1 trillion search results to find a different website, more power to you. Our recommendation is that you focus on one of these five websites, and you’ll have a better car buying experience.
