Buying / selling on condition

[bigandclever]

Hello All,

I can't work out a decent way to ask this, so I'll just come out with it... when looking to buy, how important is the cosmetic condition to you? Or alternatively, when looking to sell, at what point do you say 'right, it's going on the market in that condition and at that price'?

At some point in the next 6 months I will be looking to sell my Griff. Assuming that mechanically everything is OK (recent engine work, sensible upgrades, fresh MOT & service & inspection, no rust and so on), would you buy a less than pristine but appropriately priced model, or would you pay stronger money for a 'perfect' example?

Obviously in an ideal world we want mint; but mine is not It's not a skip, but we're talking:
wooden dash with a couple of cracks;
stone chips on nose;
some 'spidering' of the paint in various places around the car;
bd neighbour cats have been on the roof and scuffed it royally.

So I could easily see a 4 figure bill there (respray, refurbed roof, new dash), to put everything to tip-top condition. But is there any point, if I price appropriately?

I know the buyer's answer is "you do all the work and I'll buy it for a rock bottom price" but I'm not a charity

[yellowgriff]

You sound like me.. every time you but a car its a collectors item, When you go to sell it its not the right model... Work out what the market value is with every thing done.Then work out what you would have to spend to get it to that standard then discount that buy another grand or so & that what your cars worth roughly.
What im saying is if the cars worth 15000 but yours needs 3000 spent on it price your car about 11500 with work still needed doing, because if you do the work will it still make top dollar.
On the buyer side, if mint its worth 15000, why buy one that needs doing at 12000 and have all the trouble of getting it done and taking all the risks, they might as well buy one all done & can start playing straight away.
dont take my prices as ive just made them up out of thin air,, Good luck when selling car,,

[MPoxon]

I would personally leave it as it is and still try and sell for a good price. The items you have described sound very minor and only cosmetic.

I recently bought a Griff and the one I purchased had many stone chips on the nose and a few other cosmetic niggles but I still paid top price for it as it ticked all of the other more imporatant boxes for me ie had a huge file of receipts, FSH, perfect chassis and good mechanicals, right colour, PAS, Serp engine & T5 box etc.

At the end of the day as long as the chassis and mechanicals are in good order these are far more important than a few chips or a frayed roof. These can be fixed for not a massive amount of money at a later date.

I think any buyer who has done thier research will realise this.

It did make me chuckle about your roof as mine is exactly the same - the local cats always seem to be sat on my roof and it is deteriating rapidly. I must invest in a leven roof cover!

[Murph7355]

yellowgriff said:

...
What im saying is if the cars worth 15000 but yours needs 3000 spent on it price your car about 11500 with work still needed doing, because if you do the work will it still make top dollar.
On the buyer side, if mint its worth 15000, why buy one that needs doing at 12000 and have all the trouble of getting it done and taking all the risks, they might as well buy one all done & can start playing straight away....

Your logic's fine in many respects, but the numbers are off IMO.

Effectively your numbers are noting the buyer saves 500 quid but has to have the work done themselves. ie the risk is all theirs for the pricely benefit of 500 pounds. What if other stuff is found? What if the quotes are wrong? Who quotes? No thanks.

A couple of other less empirical things - (a) if the seller hasn't bothered keeping on top of the cosmetics, there may be a risk that other items have been skimped and (b) as we've seen on another thread, people simply won't come to see a poorly presented car (and if it's so cheap to lure them in, you're bound to get haggled even more on the grounds of "what else is up").

Am not saying any of these apply in this case, but it will be what goes through a buyer's head.

Personally, I'd fix it up and then price it accordingly but not stupidly.

Alternatively...a guy on here is looking for a car that needs work. Not sure how much work he's looking to do, and this to me suggests he's looking for a bargain. But if you want to sell without doing the work, maybe you could strike a deal there?

[yellowgriff]

Murph7355 said:

yellowgriff said:

...
What im saying is if the cars worth 15000 but yours needs 3000 spent on it price your car about 11500 with work still needed doing, because if you do the work will it still make top dollar.
On the buyer side, if mint its worth 15000, why buy one that needs doing at 12000 and have all the trouble of getting it done and taking all the risks, they might as well buy one all done & can start playing straight away....

Your logic's fine in many respects, but the numbers are off IMO.

Effectively your numbers are noting the buyer saves 500 quid but has to have the work done themselves. ie the risk is all theirs for the pricely benefit of 500 pounds. What if other stuff is found? What if the quotes are wrong? Who quotes? No thanks.

A couple of other less empirical things - (a) if the seller hasn't bothered keeping on top of the cosmetics, there may be a risk that other items have been skimped and (b) as we've seen on another thread, people simply won't come to see a poorly presented car (and if it's so cheap to lure them in, you're bound to get haggled even more on the grounds of "what else is up").

Am not saying any of these apply in this case, but it will be what goes through a buyer's head.

Personally, I'd fix it up and then price it accordingly but not stupidly.

Alternatively...a guy on here is looking for a car that needs work. Not sure how much work he's looking to do, and this to me suggests he's looking for a bargain. But if you want to sell without doing the work, maybe you could strike a deal there?

as i said ive picked figure out off the air,, you have to give the buyer some incentive to buy a car that need work doing to it,, i said £500 for a figure to entice a buyer,
You pointed out that there might be more wrong with it,, If some one is going to buy a fifteen year old car with out a inspection by some one proficient they deserve to have their pant down...

[Murph7355]

yellowgriff said:

as i said ive picked figure out off the air,, you have to give the buyer some incentive to buy a car that need work doing to it,, i said £500 for a figure to entice a buyer,
You pointed out that there might be more wrong with it,, If some one is going to buy a fifteen year old car with out a inspection by some one proficient they deserve to have their pant down...

Fair dos.

Even with an inspection though I'd still want a lot more than that off for the hassle of sorting it out and the risk associated with it. After all, if it were easy to do with no risk, why wouldn't the buyer simply sort it out and cut out the need for debate...?

Check out the comments made on Matt's thread

[steve-V8s]

When I went looking for a Griff. I wanted a car exactly like the one you describe. I didn’t want a shed and didn’t want something pristine. Just wanted something that was reasonably sound and not too tatty. Problem was that all the cars I looked at that were sold as needing some cosmetic work also had rusty wishbones / electrical problems / oil leaks / rotten carpets / etc. As said the problem seemed to be that if sorting out the odd niggles had been missed so had the last two oil changes and a slap of waxoil on the chassis. Without exception all of the “needs attention” cars I looked at had rusty front wishbones and chassis rails, some to the extent that I declined to drive them.

If you car is genuinely sound but a little tatty then I would think it would sell, it would certainly have interested me a few years ago when I was looking for exactly that. You can understand however why people are reluctant to look after seeing a few “ needs attention” examples

[JR]

Murph7355 said:

A couple of other less empirical things - (a) if the seller hasn't bothered keeping on top of the cosmetics, there may be a risk that other items have been skimped and (b) as we've seen on another thread, people simply won't come to see a poorly presented car (and if it's so cheap to lure them in, you're bound to get haggled even more on the grounds of "what else is up").

Logically this is rubbish. From if you have £500 you'll spend it on tyres rather than a touch up of the paint on the front through to a few grand would be more fun spent on a supercharger than a complete re-spray. The market situation is not like that however and as Murph mentioned the market will value a mechanically perfect stone chipped car lower than a superficially perfect mechanical dog.

[bigandclever]

All very good points from both sides, so you can see my quandry

[Guillotine]

Polish is cheap, and a no stone chips means no miles...seizing up or rusting away.

A beautiful example may well be equally well looked after under the hood.

============

A stone chipped "used" car demonstrates a confident owner of a well prep'ed car that'll go anywhere

A "tatty" car may well be taty underneath and under the shell.

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look at each and make your own mind up. Cosmetic stuff can be cheaper than expensive rebuilds/chassis work. By from a private customer who's history you can check with a dealer specialist.

Andy