Selling my car, part II

(Continued from yesterday.)

I had a couple of options. I could sell it to a dealer. I took it out there and he looked at me down his nose and had a mechanic look at it and offered me almost nothing for it. I said thank you very much don't call me I'll call you.

I talked to a friend who said I should sell it on Craig's list and that he would do it for me for no charge. I said fine and waited for him to do something.

Meanwhile a friend called and said she was looking to buy a car. I told her I was trying to sell mine but she said she wanted a new car.

Two weeks or so later she called and asked if mine was still for sale and how much I wanted for it. She offered me less but enough and I said I would sell it to her but didn't she want to test drive it. (I had told her I'd just had it inspected, which I had) She said no problem she'd be in with the check.

I probably could have got more on Craig's list but I wanted to get rid of it right away. I took the money and put it in the bank. Turns out it helped me get clear of my debt left over from RE.

Converting an under-used asset helped me immensely in getting financially stable.

Selling my car

A few years ago I shrunk my real estate practice. Rather than run all over the city I focused on my market area where I was likely to get sales worth the effort. One day a warning light on the dashboard of my Corolla came on.

I took my car to my regular garage. They were good honest guys and always had worked hard for me and never charged me much much. They worked on the light and it went off.

A few days later the light came on again. I took it back in and they worked on the light again and it went off again.

A few weeks later the light came on a third time again and the car started to not start on hot days. Once it happened when I was supposed to transport a client to a closing. Not my shining moment as a realtor.

Finally it started and after the closing I took it back to my favorite garage. They said it was some kind of environmental sensor and they had run out of tricks so I had better take it to the dealer who had equipment to deal with it. My guys meant they didn't want to do any more work for me for free with no result. So I took it across town to the dealer who fixed it and charged me $327. I had never spent anything on repair and wondered if this was the tip of the iceberg going forward. I had no more trouble with it but I began to wonder if I really needed the car at all.

So I went home and figured how much the car was costing me to run. The answer was $300 per month for parking and insuring not counting repair, upkeep, gas and oil, parking tickets, and yearly inspection. And because I really wasn't driving it much this $300 per month was mostly wasted.

I decided I didn't need it any longer and decided to put it on the market. (To be continued)