We Sold the Car

(by Pat)

We sold the car tonight. I wasn't even sure we'd have anyone to look at it until dinnertime. I'd responded to a bunch of e-mails earlier today (all from Craigslist--cars.com was a bust), which was good, then one of the potential buyers called while we were eating dinner and said they'd be over around 7. He said if they were interested, he'd close the deal in cash tonight.

A little after seven, a married couple and their 11-year-old son showed up to take a look at the car. Turns out they have three boys, all hockey players, and their old minivan has died, so they need a replacement. The husband took our car for a short test drive, and then the wife took her turn (she was shy about it, even though she's the one who will be driving it). My son bounced out of the house and quickly made friends with the visiting son, and they rode together in the back seat, as we tooled around the neighborhood.

Apparently it passed the test, and they offered $3,200, citing tires that need replacing soon (valid point) and the original battery that might need replacing in the near future. We weren't in this purely to maximize our return, so we didn't plan to bargain too hard. Plus, now that we'd made the mental commitment to going without a car, the vehicle seemed like a heavy weight holding us back from taking the step. So we took the offer and finalized the deal. (Signed the title, bill of sale, scraped off parking stickers, took out toll transponder, removed license plates.)

And that was it. They drove off into the drizzle, and suddenly we no longer owned a car. It felt pretty weird, a little bit of nervous butterflies. At a recent screening of the movie "Fresh", the director remarked that a Pakistani friend of hers said, "Americans are wonderful, so brave. The only thing they fear is inconvenience." Well, I guess we're facing inconvenience right in the face, and we'll see how it works out. Up until now, the whole car-free idea has been pretty theoretical. If you have it, you can say that you're not going to use it, but you always know it's there (and you end up using it). That's no longer an option anymore.

We celebrated with ice cream. Of course, we couldn't pop in the car to get it, so I had to ride my bike. Which was great.

Oh, and we also celebrated by going online and purchasing bicycling rain gear. The rest of the money we need to save for now (if the car fails the emissions test when they register it, they can return the car. Though that's unlikely, since it was just in the shop. But still...) but we've got a long list of transportation stuff we want (bike repair classes).

Tomorrow is a new day. And one without a car.

Trying to Sell the Car: Round 2

(by Pat)

Well, last week saw a couple showings of the car, but no takers. We decided to try listing the car on www.cars.com, which cost $15 for a two-week ad. We put the ad up on Sunday, but so far not even a nibble.

Our Craigslist ad expired on Monday, so I reposted it tonight, though it's not showing up yet in the main search.

I'm seeing prices all over the place, but for the mileage on our car, it still seems like we're in a pretty good range, and we're still a couple hundred dollars below Blue Book value. Hm. On Cars.com, we're at least $2,000 below what the dealers are asking for a 2003 Dodge Caravan.

I hope we'll see some more potential buyers this week (and that the rain will stop). I had to take my daughter and bunch of her friends to a soccer tournament on Saturday, so I need to get back in there and clean it out again so that it still sparkles.

No luck yet (and a scam?)

(by Pat)

Showed the car to another prospect today--a brother and sister (immigrants again--interesting class and frugality issues showing up in the for sale by owner used car scenario). He said his brother-in-law is a mechanic and they may come back. No one has been ready to go for a spin yet. Three maybes so far, but I don't have a sense whether they'll actually come back or not. I'll follow up tomorrow. I had one appointment cancel today, but he said he'd get back to me this weekend.

Got one response today that I suspect is a scam. He only left a phone number, and when I called, he said he lived in New York. But he was very interested in buying a van, right away. He wanted me to resend the link with a photo. Then he called me back and said he'd be interested in driving up to buy the car, but only if I could sell it for $3,000. I told him that I had enough interest in the car already that I didn't need to drop the price yet. And I hated to see him drive 5 hours to get here and then not like the car. (I'd also read some strong warnings on Craigslist to beware of out-of-state buyers trying to run a scam, so my radar was on alert.)

He called me back a little later, and said he really wanted a van right away, and could pay $3,200. I said no again, but that I'd call him back if I couldn't sell it. But it just doesn't feel right. I think we're going to make a little house rule that we're only going to sell to local buyers (now that we've reread the scam warnings on Craigslist). It's odd to have someone be in such a rush--the other prospective buyers are definitely taking their time. And weird to have someone want to buy a car without even having seen it in person or having driven it, and when there are other similar cars listed on Craigslist much closer to NYC than Boston. Odd.

a few nibbles, hoping for bites

(by Pat)

We've had five people from Craigslist ask to see the car so far, which feels good, since it was only posted on Monday. Two people stopped by on Tuesday, and I'm hoping for two more today.

The first guy came with his wife and small daughter, looking to move into a larger car for their growing family. They were Hispanic immigrants--she didn't speak much English, but he was fluent and we hit it off pretty well. He seemed to like the car, but she was disappointed it doesn't have electric windows. (It's a pretty basic car, but I figure that's just less stuff to break.) They didn't have time to take it for a drive, but said they might come back for another look. We'll see.

The second guy was a mechanic, I'm guessing he was from India, and brought along his aged father. He looked it over and didn't turn his nose up at the car, which is a good sign. Turns out he's looking for a car for his wife, so he said he'd have to come back with her, maybe on Friday.

My experience selling other things on Craigslist is that half the time people never show up, so I was glad these folks actually came to look at the car. I'm curious to see how many viewings it'll take. Ten?

So far, we've only listed it on Craigslist, but we might try cars.com pretty soon, as well as other sites. It's been a busy week around here with other life stuff, so this has been about all the traffic I can handle at the moment.

At the moment, the idea of having this extra cash from the sale of car gives us a perpetual list of stuff we plan to do with the money--buy a new light for my bike, sign up for a bike repair class, frame a picture, go out for pizza, etc. We have a growing list that would require us to sell several cars, but it's fun to think about anyway.

We're still using the car a little bit, while it's here, but are trying to do a lot more by bike and T (though there's a soccer tournament this weekend, where I'm supposed to bring five players, and it might not be so bad if the car isn't sold quite yet...)

Starting to feel real

(by Pat)

Washed the car today, and Tracy listed it for sale on Craig's List tonight. Which made it start to feel a little real--this might actually happen.

Within two hours, we had our first response by someone who might come by tomorrow. This makes it seem a lot more real and makes me feel a lot more nervous.

We're so conditioned to feeling the importance of owning a car. Learning to drive is an American rite of passage, as is buying that first car. I've owned cars for the past 21 years. Buying and owning a car makes me feel like a grown up. Which, now that I think about it, sort of pisses me off, because I don't want my adult identity defined by something that someone wants me to buy.

I'm curious to see how this goes tomorrow.

Almost Ready to sell the minivan

(by Pat)

I spent a couple hours hours emptying the car of all the crap that had accumulated and cleaning every possible inch. It's amazing how much junk falls in a minivan courtesy of two kids (food and pencils, mostly). Sometimes I wonder if empty water bottles actually have the ability to breed in minivan captivity. And blue marker really does come out of the backs of the driver seats (yay). I'm a bit puzzled as to why car washes are not open at 8pm on Sunday nights, but I assume it's some odd Boston Blue Law, dating back to the Pilgrims (they were very strict about drinking, public lewdness, and the washing of cars).

According to the Kelly Blue Book online, we could expect to get as much as $3,985 for our car. It's a 2003 Dodge Caravan with 75,000 miles. Runs pretty good, but has a dent in the back from some idiot who didn't realize he didn't know how to parallel park. It's a sturdy, reliable car. Since we're ready to move ahead and sell this thing, I think we'll probably try to sell it for $3,400- $3,500, which seems to make it competitive with other cars for sale.

It's been 10 years since I last sold a car, so I'm curious to see how things have changed. I figure we'll list it on Craigslist and see what happens, and maybe try a couple other web sites, if necessary.

Now that I've got it all cleaned, I don't really want to let any children back inside. Tracy says we should just basically act like it's already been sold and start living our lives as if we don't have the car. Which makes a certain amount of sense (especially since we had another little car binge day today, with a visit to the garden and 3 grocery stores and Target (we stocked up on kitty litter for a while--very hard to get home on a bicycle)).

I'm a little nervous about all of this. In a way, it feels almost like moving. Once this happens, we'll have a different sense of geography for a while, just like when you move to a new house--our patterns of movement around the Boston area will definitely change.

The day is getting closer (we think)--June 14

(by Pat)

Right now, our tentative date for actually starting to try to sell the car is June 14. On June 13th, Kira has her last travel soccer game, which also means it'll be the last travel soccer game that I'm coaching. Travel soccer has been the biggest reason we've needed to keep the car, because of two practices every week and a game every Saturday (and lots of gear to haul back and forth). But next year, Kira will be in high school and I won't be coaching, so that excuse will be gone.

So, on June 14th, we'll clean up the minivan and try to figure out how best to sell it.