About a month ago, I sold my 2001 Civic Coupe on Craigslist.  Reason being…. Can’t have two kids with a two door car!  I’m actually emotionally attached to that car because it was my first car that I bought with my own money.  The car needs a little bit of work just like any other ten year old car.  But other than that, it’s actually still in a good condition.  Had I not have another kid, I’d probably keep it and get it fixed.  Throughout this whole buying and selling process, I learned a few things:

1.  Never trade your car in with a dealer
You should always try to sell your car to a private party first before deciding to trade it in with a dealer.   I always buy my car new because I’m a Honda person, and the price doesn’t depreciate a lot.  It was very tempting to just get rid of my old car and be done with it.   Had I follow that path, I ended up selling my car to a dealer 1/3 of what it’s actually worth.  According to Kelley Blue Book, my car was worth $4500.00 and the dealer offered $1300.00.  What a rip off!!  My husband ended up selling it just a few hundreds dollars below the asking price.

2. Buy a Reliable Car
Reliable car means easy to sell car! Honda and Toyota have a pretty high demand because they are very reliable and don’t cost an arm and leg to maintain it.  Within minutes of posting it in Craigslist, my husband got so many calls from prospect buyers.

3. Go with a salesman you can trust
Stay away from pushy salesman or someone who tries to intimidate you.  I feel like these days, most dealerships try to gain trust from buyers.  Thus they don’t play that much of trick cards anymore, or at least the ones I went to.  In our case, the salesman we talked to actually revealed how much the dealer actually makes from the price he gave us.   We walked away with a brand new car feeling confident that the price was actually as low as it can get.

4.  Act like the car is not exactly what you want
Play a little buyer trick by not overly excited about getting a new car.  In my case, I wasn’t actually playing a trick as I didn’t get the color I wanted.  I wanted it in grey but they didn’t have it in stock.  When you act like “you don’t have to get the car today”, the dealer is more incline in reducing the price.

I wasn’t planning on buying a car that day, but I walked away with a brand new Honda Fit in white.  I was extremely happy as that exactly the kind of car I had dreamed of.  I’m not a car person.  I just wanted a small four door car that’s extremely reliable.  And I got exactly what I wanted!

Good bye car!