Finding a buyer for your vehicle

Introduction

All good things must come to an end.

If you own a vehicle in the United States, at some point you may want to sell it - in order to do that, of course, you need to find a buyer for your vehicle.

If you've already found a buyer for your vehicle, check out our Selling your vehicle resource.

This is an article about selling a vehicle in the US, written for travelers, tourists, travelers, foreigners - anyone who doesn't live in the US, but wants to find a buyer for a vehicle that they own in the United States.

Table of Contents

The types of vehicle buyers
The types of vehicle values
Price guides
A strategy for selling your vehicle

In general, you will be able to access two types of buyers:

• Dealerships
• Individuals

These days, "Dealerships" include physical auto dealers as well as the large and growing number of online vehicle buying services.

And individuals are buyers that you might find on Facebook or Craigslist.

Auctions are a third type of buyer that we won’t cover in detail here.  The largest auto auctions, like Manheim and Adesa, only auction vehicles listed by licensed auto dealers.  Niche auction sites like Bring A Trailer and Cars and Bids are available to private sellers, but sellers typically store their vehicles on their own until a buyer wins the auction - if you’re in a hurry to get home, this option may not work well for you.

The prices offered by dealers and individuals will differ slightly, let's discuss that next.

Dealerships and individual buyers have different wants and needs - dealers buy vehicles to sell for a profit, and individuals buy vehicles for personal use.

As a result, a dealership and an individual will value the same vehicle differently.

There are two types of vehicle values:

• Wholesale - This is the estimated value at which a vehicle can be sold to a dealer or a wholesaler. This value is typically lower than the private party value and retail value, as it accounts for the dealer's need to recondition, market, and make a profit on the vehicle.  While the wholesale value is typically the lowest value, it is the value that can be achieved most quickly, as you don’t have to wait for the right buyer to come along.
• Private Party - The price at which a vehicle can be sold directly between individuals, without involving a dealership, is called its private party value.  Because the buyer doesn’t need to make a profit, a vehicle’s private party value is typically higher than its wholesale value.  But because private parties typically can’t offer financing, warrantees, and other value-added services that dealers can, the private party value is typically lower than the retail value.  While the private party value is typically higher than the wholesale value, it can take weeks or months for the right buyer to come along.

In general, the wholesale value is lower than the private party value - again, a wholesale buyer is a business that needs to make a profit.

But the tradeoff is speed and convenience.‍

It may take a month or more for an individual to show up who is willing to pay private party value for your vehicle. In the meantime, you'll have to show your vehicle to multiple potential buyers.

Selling your vehicle to a wholesale buyer, such as a dealership or an online vehicle buying service, can take as little as an hour.

Depending on how you value your time, accepting a lower wholesale price may be a better deal for you overall.

There is a third type of vehicle value - retail - but it typically isn’t available to private sellers.  The retail value of a vehicle is the price at which it can be sold to a consumer by a dealer. This value is typically the highest of all the vehicle's values because it includes the dealer's added costs for reconditioning, marketing, and providing services such as financing and warranties. The retail value reflects the amount a buyer is expected to pay when purchasing the vehicle from a dealership.

So how do you learn how much your vehicle might be worth to a wholesale or individual buyer?

This is where price guides come into play.

The most widely used price guide in the United States is Kelley Blue Book.

Simply enter your vehicle's VIN, mileage, and sale location, and Kelley Blue Book will return a range of values for your vehicle.

Kelly Blue Book provides private party valuations as well as wholesale valuations (which they call Trade-In value).

Other popular price guides include Blackbook and National Auto Dealer's Association (NADA).

Try not to get stuck on one price or another. Instead, remember that your vehicle has a range of values, and sometimes, getting the highest possible price isn't worth the time or effort.

When selling a vehicle, your job is to generate multiple options for yourself and to choose the option that works best for you.

Below is a strategy for quickly generating options for yourself.

First, plug your vehicle's VIN into Kelley Blue Book to find estimates for your vehicle's private party and wholesale values.

Write these estimates down.‍

Next, plug your vehicle's VIN into online vehicle buying services, including:

Write these offers down.

The offers are usually valid for a fixed number of days and/or miles, but you can always generate offers again later.‍

Post pictures and a description of your vehicle on Facebook, Craigslist, and AutoTrader with a price near its KBB Private Party value.

Sit back and wait for offers.

If your vehicle hasn't gotten interest within a few days or a week, you might consider dropping the price.‍

If you follow the strategy laid out above, you'll have multiple offers for your vehicle. Choose the offer that works best for you.