A sale has been made and now it’s time to share the results. A few weeks back, shortly after having posted about our recent efforts to help Almost Home Foundation, I was contacted by Sheila, who is a strong supporter of the Almost Home organization. Sheila shared a situation in which her son and daughter-in-law, Dan and Jess, were relocating overseas within the near future, and needed to sell their cars ASAP.

Having seen this type of situation play out at the big-box dealer more times than I could count, I was more than happy to see if I could help this young couple avoid the loss of value that would have taken place if they sold their vehicles for far less than the fair market value just to move them quickly. After learning more about the details of the situation, I was excited to meet with Dan, Jess, and Sheila to discuss options and come to an agreement on how best to work with them to create a much better outcome.

With uncertainties surrounding their upcoming departure dates, a flurry of last-minute errands, and trying to come up with options in the case they were not allowed to bring their cats with them to their new home in Morocco, the couple was beyond stressed. I knew that I could at least guide them to a number of options they may not yet have considered.

Dan and Jess had already posted their cars on Facebook Marketplace; however, they did not have time to show the car to potential buyers, and they were not at all interested in meeting up with strangers or conducting large cash transactions. They had not yet found time to take either car to CarMax for an appraisal, but time was tight and adding yet another errand to their already-long “to-do” lists seemed unmanageable for them. Someone had made an offer on one of the cars that the couple were prepared to take the next day, so I offered to take it to CarMax on their behalf (where, interestingly, CarMax made the exact same offer).

After our initial meeting and sharing how I could help, Dan and Jess were able to carve out the time to take the other car, a 2008 Hyundai Tucson (which had been passed down to them by Sheila a few years prior), to CarMax for an appraisal and inspection. When they told me that CarMax had offered them $2500, I was moderately impressed; based on my research at KBB.com, I had anticipated they’d be offered closer to $1500. I explained that because of this generous offer, the spread (or “profit”) that I would likely be able to get for them would not be as generous as the $2700 that we had attained on the sale of Mike’s Accord weeks earlier.

Since Sheila would remain in the area when Dan and Jess departed, she became my primary point of contact as we navigated all of the steps involved in making this sale, while striving to get them more than the $2500 CarMax had offered. I also explained to all involved that in order to accept this first offer, Dan and Jess would either need to be able to potentially return to CarMax in the next 7 days (while their offer was still valid) or get some special forms during their visit so that Sheila could return to CarMax to finalize the sale after their scheduled departure if necessary. They obtained the paperwork, and although it took some time before I picked the car up from Sheila to begin prepping it for sale, I used the pictures from their initial Marketplace ad to create my own and waited for some interest.

A few days after Dan and Jess left the country, Sheila requested that we relocate the Tucson from her driveway to mine for detailing and storage. Although I usually prefer not to hold people’s vehicles on my property, in this instance, I was excited to take advantage of an added perk: although I haven’t gotten to take a 10-mile bike ride in years, I decided to bike the Great Western Trail (which conveniently runs between both my house and Sheila’s) to pick up the Tucson and drive it back home with me.

As soon as I returned home, I began prepping the car so that I could update the pictures in the ad that I’d placed online a few days earlier. After hand-washing it, I brought out the buffer to remove the surface scratches from the finish. The interior was a little more of a challenge, as there were a few stains and spills that needed quite a bit of more effort to mitigate. When all was said and done, I’m fairly certain these efforts saved at least a couple of hundred dollars that would have been spent on a “professional” detail service, something in which Sheila was seriously considering investing after we looked over what we were dealing with when I picked up the Tucson. (I encouraged her to allow me to spend a few hours and see if we could make it worth showing, and I can comfortably say we did!)

Much like when we worked to get Mike’s car in front of the right people, I worked to get a variety of shots of the Tucson to allow potential buyers the opportunity to see the vehicle from different angles. And once again, as soon as the ad was updated, the scammers came out of the woodwork in no time. The one thing that was different this time, though, was how many more “low-ballers,” who put out some pretty insulting offers in the first day or two, came forward. After that, it fell silent and I began to worry that we had overpriced it at $3950. This was concerning, because it was already below the average of $2000 above the CarMax offer we had just received. It was also part of the reason I suggested that Sheila allow me to clean it up to preserve some more of their “profit margin.”

After a number of days, we had our first showing: mother and her son, who was heading off to college. But before buying, they wanted to have it inspected at a shop. I am a proponent of having a used car inspected before buying, but this was the first time a potential buyer was actually requesting it. Since this is part of my full service offer to facilitate a sale, this meant I would be required to spend an hour or two at a shop near their home in Naperville.

Fortunately, as a result of changes to their college plans, I found out a couple of days later that he was no longer in the market. Unfortunately, this put us back to square one.

A few days later, we had another showing, but the response was tepid at best. This transaction was proving more prolonged that any before at this price point. The car had even just had $1100 dollars worth of brake and emission work done and had just passed the required test as a result. It drove well and had plenty of power as a result of the V6 engine. My wife and kids were interested in it as a means to tow an RV in the not too distant future.

But as more days passed, we had some interest from a family that came out from Addison of all places. They even laughed as I presented the invoice for the work we had just had done because the auto shop we’d used is the same place they use for their Outback (which is now approaching 200,000 miles)! They came during the weekend and let me know that the earliest they could return was Monday when the banks opened. This was encouraging as they had not attempted to negotiate the price and hopefully we would get our full asking price shortly.

After the initial test drive, I noticed a nail in one of the front tires and immediately knew we had a potential problem. Fortunately, the tire was holding air, so I called Sheila immediately to discuss options. Sheila and I had already discussed the tires, as they were in pretty rough condition. Sheila said that we could take the Tucson to a local Discount Tire location to have the punctured tire repaired at no cost, as they had been purchased at a Discount Tire, but I pointed out that it may not make much sense to take the time and effort to repair a tire that was clearly in need of replacement. I suggested that we consider shaving $100 off of our asking price, not only as a gesture of good faith, but to see how sticky our price really was. I also explained that we should definitely disclose it as a front tire blowing out can be catastrophic especially at speed and she immediately agreed.

We agreed to reduce our asking price to $3850 and I called my buyer. She was surprised to learn about the nail, because it had been barely more than an hour since they had just viewed it. I let her know the price concession that Sheila had authorized and she said she would talk to her husband. She told me that he noticed the tires were needing replacement soon, but that she definitely still wanted this car. So now we just had to wait one more day to hopefully close this deal.

The next afternoon, I received a text from a buyer offering $3700, based on a couple of valid concerns. At this point, I was preparing to reach out to the flow of people that had started asking about it out of nowhere. I had let them know that if they wanted to see it, I could let them know after giving my current buyer a chance to bring funds within 24 hours. I had been instructed not to accept any offer under $3800, and I was not certain that Sheila was ready to negotiate further quite yet. I called her and we decided to hold firm at $3800 as our lowest acceptable offer.

The potential buyer agreed, and we made plans to meet after dinner that night. The buyers were on time, which is always appreciated. We took one more test drive to be sure there weren’t any other concerns, and I started paperwork upon returning. My wife took the buyer’s driver’s license and created a very professional-looking bill of sale (yet again). While waiting for my wife to finish preparing the paperwork, I chatted with the buyers and enjoyed the beautiful late summer evening. Soon after, the Tucson was off on its way into the sunset. It was another flow-finding moment in this project for me and I was excited to be able to call Sheila and share the good news. We excitedly reached out to Almost Home to find a time we could meet up and present our second, albeit smaller donation since realizing our new reality.

Not long after getting off the phone with Sheila, I received a text message from our buyer asking if we had ever seen the brake light and battery light flashing concurrently. Well, this was an unfortunate first… Genuinely concerned, I let her the buyer know that we had not experienced any flashing lights while the vehicle had been in our possession. Sheila also confirmed that this was not something that she had experienced. The buyers said they would take it to the same shop we had laughed about earlier, and I requested they please let me know what they learn.