Source: https://cashmoneylife.com/sell-your-car-privately-or-trade-in/
Selling a vehicle directly or privately to a buyer would definitely help you get higher return on your investment, but it will demand much more time, efforts and hassle if you choose the trade in option. The returns may be much higher but the process to get this surplus amount demands all of efforts. Starting from marketing, you will have post poster or list your car on various websites, magazines or newspapers to meet the prospective buyers. Sometimes, you will even have to field calls, emails to find the buyer. This all not only requires efforts but will also require time and money. Once, you have interested people, you will have to negotiate price, find their authenticity and handle paperwork to confirm the deal.
All this process will eventually take up to weeks and months, the average time for this process is 8 to 12 weeks. And if your car has few damages or unusual or unique features or paint or a manual transmission, this period will drag on longer.
People usually believe that, trade in is the option when the people don’t have time or means to sell their car on their own. However, this isn’t the case, if you look it only through from the profit perspective you will find trade in option better even though selling on your own will give higher returns. But how? With time every model’s value depreciate specially when it is a used car. Not only this, but if we apply the time value of money concept here, the price will be almost equivalent in both cases. Then, the money we will have to invest in marketing and its maintenance will compensate the value.
Next highlighted benefit of having your car sold through a trade in option will save up a lot of money on your next car purchase and visible reduction in sales tax when you trade in your old car. There are multiple online platforms for this purpose making things even easier as you can get best prices in car trade in deals and much more discount options.
The best part of using trade in that you won’t have to get worried about anything at all. You only have to search about the dealer and get the deal finalized with him. Rest all the work regarding selling, paper work and what not will be handled by him. Later, there will also be an opportunity for you to buy the car from the same dealer. This helps in great price reduction, trust, less hustle and new car in exchange of old car at much reasonable price with trade in.
However, if you do not want to get new car or have a buyer insight then you may go for the private selling option. Everything has its drawbacks therefore, you must look in detail before choosing any one option according to your requirements as one option can’t be the best for every person.