# Site for private sales. Craigslist?



## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

All the sites are 98.99pct dealer sales. Where are ppl selling their cars these days?


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## Invisible (Jun 15, 2018)

Carvana; I used to pickup the workers there and drop them off at the place they were picking up a car from.


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## 125928 (Oct 5, 2017)

try Facebook Marketplace. Autotrader


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## Wolfgang Faust (Aug 2, 2018)

OldBay said:


> All the sites are 98.99pct dealer sales. Where are ppl selling their cars these days?


Craigslist


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## lyft_rat (Jul 1, 2019)

Craigslist.


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## OrlUberOffDriver (Oct 27, 2014)

The old fashion way....roadside with a huge “For Sale” sign. It has worked well for me. Sold 2 vehicles this way within 2 days.


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## UbaBrah (Oct 25, 2019)

People have moved away from Craigslist because they started charging to list your car for sale. FB marketplace seems to be overtaking it.


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## mbd (Aug 27, 2018)

OldBay said:


> All the sites are 98.99pct dealer sales. Where are ppl selling their cars these days?


Make sure those are not auctioned cars. Those dealers will post under owner.
If the vehicles owner lives in a house and it is a 1 owner vehicle, then vehicle was probably taken care off.
If you decide to buy it, spend extra 100$ and do a full diagnostics which includes compression testing. Look for vehicles owned by Asian females, highest earners and slowest drivers and they usually service vehicles at dealerships &#128513;most likely it will be a Toyota or a Honda.
Try to stay away from multiple owner vehicles.( more than 2)
Look for Zipcode household income avg, and try to concentrate on high income avg &#128513;
Sometimes you will have soccer moms getting rid of their vehicles.


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## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

mbd said:


> Make sure those are not auctioned cars. Those dealers will post under owner.
> If the vehicles owner lives in a house and it is a 1 owner vehicle, then vehicle was probably taken care off.
> If you decide to buy it, spend extra 100$ and do a full diagnostics which includes compression testing. Look for vehicles owned by Asian females, highest earners and slowest drivers and they usually service vehicles at dealerships &#128513;most likely it will be a Toyota or a Honda.
> Try to stay away from multiple owner vehicles.( more than 2)
> ...


Thats great information, but it seems that 99.9% of cars are being sold by dealers these days. Very few private listings.


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## Invisible (Jun 15, 2018)

Invisible said:


> Carvana; I used to pickup the workers there and drop them off at the place they were picking up a car from.


Sorry I didn't realize at first you wanted private sales, when I responded.

Try word of mouth. Tell everyone you know you're looking for a car and/or selling a car. Maybe they know someone whose looking to buy/sell.


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## Nats121 (Jul 19, 2017)

UbaBrah said:


> People have moved away from Craigslist because they started charging to list your car for sale.


When did Craiglist start charging for car ads? How much do they charge?

It's long overdue for Craigslist to charge all car sellers. Free advertising for private party ads was like putting a welcome mat out for curbstoners and other scammers, and clowns with rediculously overpriced junkers.

Also, the fact that dealers had to pay for their ads while private sellers didn't resulted in an epidemic of dealers falsely listing their cars in the private owners section.

Scammers don't like wasting money any more than the rest of us, and now that they'll have to pay for their ads there will be fewer scammers on Craigslist.


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## UbaBrah (Oct 25, 2019)

Nats121 said:


> When did Craiglist start charging for car ads? How much do they charge?
> 
> It's long overdue for Craigslist to charge all car sellers. Free advertising for private party ads was like putting a welcome mat out for scammers, and clowns with rediculously overpriced junkers.
> 
> ...


I think they started at some point in 2019. They charged me a $5 flat fee. I regretted it though, because I got nothing but tire kickers and scam artists.

At least with buying, it's pretty quick and easy to figure out if someone is legit and what the deal is with the car. As a seller though, holy shit. I wound up having these lengthy exchanges with people who went out of their way to try and scam me, whereby they tailor it to your area to make it sound legit. And it can really take a while before you figure out what they're up to if they're good at it.

In the end I ran my car through the KBB website to double check its value, only to be bombarded by car dealerships making it sound as though I should be grateful that they're willing to take the car off my hands for one third of its value. What a shitshow.


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## Nats121 (Jul 19, 2017)

UbaBrah said:


> I think they started at some point in 2019. They charged me a $5 flat fee. I regretted it though, because I got nothing but tire kickers and scam artists.
> 
> At least with buying, it's pretty quick and easy to figure out if someone is legit and what the deal is with the car. As a seller though, holy shit. I wound up having these lengthy exchanges with people who went out of their way to try and scam me, whereby they tailor it to your area to make it sound legit. And it can really take a while before you figure out what they're up to if they're good at it.
> 
> In the end I ran my car through the KBB website to double check its value, only to be bombarded by car dealerships making it sound as though I should be grateful that they're willing to take the car off my hands for one third of its value. What a shitshow.


Curbstoners/flippers are probably the single biggest menace on Craigslist.

I remember I called an honest seller who told me her minivan needed a rear main seal due to an oil leak.

Some asswipe curbstoner bought her van and listed it two hours later. He actually reused her photo for his ad.

Just for kicks I called the shithead and virtually everything he said was a lie. I asked him if the van had any leaks and he said no. I asked him if it EVER had any leaks and he said no. He gave me some bullshit story about buying the van from his uncle.

He eventually got nervous about all the questions and hung up. If course his phone number was one of those disposable Google numbers.

Most callers who make ridiculous lowball offers are curbstoners/flippers.

Trying to buy a car off Craigslist was not a pleasant experience to say the least.


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## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

Nats121 said:


> Curbstoners/flippers are probably the single biggest menace on Craigslist.
> 
> I remember I called an honest seller who told me her minivan needed a rear main seal due to an oil leak.
> 
> ...


Ugh.

Its been a long while since I've been in the market to buy a car. I didn't realize online listing had gotten so toxic. This is probably why 99.9% of people are using dealers.

I suspect the dealers may also contribute to the madness, by calling sellers and telling them their car was worth 1/3rd market value.


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## TomTheAnt (Jan 1, 2019)

Nats121 said:


> Curbstoners/flippers are probably the single biggest menace on Craigslist.


This. Times eleventybillion.

Been around the block a time or two and can smell a curbstoner from a mile away. Plenty of red flags in the ads for me to just skip them. And it's just not flippers who flood the place now that private sellers have cut back due to the fee, it's the damn actual dealers still posting there. Guess $5/ad is still cheaper than paying to post in the dealer section.

What comes to selling and being drawn into long convos with them just to find out somebody is a scammer, those can be smelled from far away. I just got a new car for my daughter since she is in medical school five hours away, so I'm not always there to fix if/when something goes wrong in her 05 MB. Posted the MB for sale and in minutes got a text from somebody supposedly interested. The next test was that he said he needed to send me a verification code so he would know I'm trustworthy. Replied him that if you are interested, here's a place I can show you the car, just tell me when you want to see it. Never heard back.

Kind of sucks that lots of private sellers have moved away from CL to FB as I'm not on FB and will not join, but oh well. I can still find stuff on CL.


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## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

https://www.autolist.com/guides/curbstoning


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## B - uberlyftdriver (Jun 6, 2017)

CL is like here

good stuff between the chatter


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## TomTheAnt (Jan 1, 2019)

B - uberlyftdriver said:


> CL is like here
> 
> good stuff between the chatter


Absolutely! :thumbup:


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## MasterAbsher (Oct 16, 2019)

I've sold many times via Autotrader


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## Illini (Mar 14, 2019)

I've listed many times through CL, Autotrader, and Cars.com.
By far, I've been most successful with CL.


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## Dilf411 (Jan 27, 2020)

Facebook Marketplace but beware of the backyard dealers that are selling five and six cars at one time. Avoid them if you can. I think Craigslist is still good just make sure you select private sale when searching. Craigslist now charges $5 to place a car for sale ad. The app BRZO for iOS is great for searching for a specific car in multiple markets. The app is pricey though.


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## Dekero (Sep 24, 2019)

Facebook marketplace is where I have found a few cars for my kids ...


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

I've seen a lot of inexpensive cars on Offerup.

I've also sold a bunch of stuff on Offerup.


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