Selling
Selling a car: how to set the price without guessing
6 min read
Priced too high, the car sits for weeks and gets cheaper while it does. Priced too low it is gone in two days — and you left money on the table. Both are avoidable if you know what to compare against.
Compare offers, not estimates
The most useful reference is cars currently for sale that are as close to yours as possible: same model, same engine, similar year, similar mileage. Not the average of all offers but the five closest.
An online calculator gives you a number, but it knows neither the condition of your car nor demand in your area. It works as a sanity check, not as a basis.
What actually moves the price
Not all differences count the same. These five have the biggest effect:
- A complete service history — often the single biggest factor on an older car.
- A fresh roadworthiness test. It removes a risk for the buyer, and that is worth something to them.
- Automatic gearbox, tow bar and all-wheel drive — depending on region and model, several hundred to over a thousand.
- Two sets of tyres with enough tread. The buyer knows what a set costs.
- The number of previous owners. It cannot be changed, but it explains why two otherwise identical cars are valued differently.
Room to negotiate
Set the price just above what you want to achieve — but only just. A five per cent margin gives you room without your listing dropping out of buyers' filtered results. Add twenty per cent and most people never see it at all, because the car sits above the price ceiling they set.
Watch the round thresholds. A car at 10,200 does not appear when someone filters for 'up to 10,000' — and many do. Two hundred less can mean more enquiries than two hundred more is worth.
Photos matter too
A listing with twenty decent photos gets more enquiries than one with four. Shoot under overcast skies or in shade rather than bright sun, and show the places where there is something to see — a visible scratch in a photo costs less trust than one the buyer finds at the viewing.