How To Make Selling Your Car Easier In 2024

When it comes to selling your car, you want to know the top tips that will help get it sold quickly. Selling a car can be easy enough but it’s good to know how to sell it in a way that’s not going to be a bother or a hassle to do.

In order to sell your car successfully, you should follow these tips so that you can give away your car for the best price possible. 

1. Get your car valued

The first and most obvious step to selling your car is to have it valued. This is going to make life a lot easier for you when it comes to finding the buyer and agreeing on a price.

Valuing your car nowadays is fairly easy and there are multiple ways to do it. The most obvious one is to go online and go through a professional and legitimate company. Companies like Auto Trader, for example, would be a great place to get an accurate value for your car’s make and model.

How can I determine the value of the car? how much does it cost to ship a car? An online calculator is available that not only helps determine your car's value but also estimates shipping costs. This comprehensive tool provides an accurate valuation based on your car's make, model, and condition. Additionally, it offers resources to calculate car shipping expenses, which is invaluable if you're considering transporting your vehicle across state lines or across the country. Utilizing such tools ensures you make informed decisions about selling or shipping your car, maximizing both profit and convenience.

Once you have a price for your car, you should consider the lowest you’d accept and alternatively, the higher price points for those occasions where you have multiple interested buyers or will be willing to outbid one another for the car.

This might not always be something that happens but for rarer, more sought-after vehicles, you may find that some buyers are willing to head into a bidding war in order to get the car.

2. Know when the best time to sell is

Understanding the car market is like getting to grips with any other investment market out there. There are going to be certain points within the year that are better times to sell a car than others.

For example, you might find that the start of a new tax year - in April - is the best time for those who are looking to buy a car for business purposes. Financially testing times like Christmas can be a hard time to sell a car, as is January when everyone is waiting to get their first paycheck after the festive cheers.

When it comes to selling your car, be aware of the market, especially if there are some sites or selling points whereby they are selling your car in multiple colors or specs, for example. You’ll likely find the best time to sell with time but it’s good to be mindful of what works and what doesn’t in terms of the time of year to make a sale.

3. Look at how you’ll sell the car

When it comes to making the car selling journey easier, you should consider how you’ll sell the car. Whether that’s online or offline, it’s good to have your vehicle listed across multiple platforms, especially if it’s a sought-after car or one that’s very rare within the car world itself.

If you’re selling your car online, then you should be wary of how many sites are legitimate and those that aren’t reputable for selling cars in general.

Some sites you’ll have heard of and others that you haven’t. Just because you haven’t heard of them before, doesn’t mean they’re not authentic. It might just be that you have to tread a little more carefully.

It’s also worth knowing what sites will look to sell more when you have personalized touches to your car. For example, if you bought a plate from a number plates for sale site, then you might get a lot more for the car as a result.

4. Collect all of the paperwork

The paperwork is a key factor in selling your car quickly. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a buyer and then struggling to find all of the paperwork that’s relative to your car.

As a rule, any buyer is likely to ask to see the paperwork to ensure what you’ve said about the car, is legitimate.

If you’re missing any paperwork, now is the right time to retrieve it. This is going to be the best way of speeding up the sale of your car without frantically needing to collect it all before the buyer comes by.

5. Get the car serviced and fix any damages prior

The car should be fixed and serviced before selling. No buyer will want to buy a car that is falling apart or hasn’t been checked over by an engineer before selling.

Take your car to an engineer to get serviced so that it gets the all-clear. If there’s anything that needs fixing, then it’s worth fixing it before you sell it. Even if it’s a small fix, it’s worth doing so that the buyer has peace of mind that the car they’re buying is right for them and their needs.

When it comes to fixing any damage prior, you should mention this to any potential buyers, just so that they’re aware of what damage has occurred. This will all be on the paperwork you provide them so that there’s clarity in every aspect.

6. Create a sellable listing

To ensure a fast sale, you want to create the right listing for your vehicle. Creating a sellable listing is essential. That means using the right type of words to ensure it appears on the search engine of the site you’ve put it on. The listing needs to sound attractive and appealing to the people interested in your car, especially if you’re up against multiple listings with the same car.

Make sure the photos you use are high-quality too and you can never have too many photos. Consider taking photos of every single angle and feature that you can spot on the car. That includes any imperfections.

7. Meet potential buyers in a public place

To help ensure safety when selling your car, you’ll want to meet potential buyers in a public place. Ideally, this should be far away from your home because unfortunately, you never really know who is out there.

Meeting potential buyers should be done in a public space but ideally also with another person that you trust to be with you. That can be handy in case you are a little be apprehensive about meeting strangers off the internet or those that may have answered an ad that you put in a local newspaper or car magazine for example.

8. Avoid the scammers

There are a lot of scammers out there, so when selling your car online, you should proceed with the utmost caution. There will certainly be people out there who are looking to make some money out of the vulnerable.

You should be aware of those online who make offers that sound too good to be true and end up not being the offer that you wanted in reality. There are plenty of time wasters out there, so be aware of them.

9. Be prepared to negotiate 

Negotiations are something to be prepared to do when it comes to selling your car. While it can often be a case that some buyers are willing to pay the price it’s on for, you might get some that aren’t willing to pay full price and you might need to provide some wiggle room in the price charged.

With that in mind, improve your negotiation skills for the better. 

10. Get payment in a secure way

Finally, be sure to get payment in a secure way, rather than trying to rush the process and accepting money through slightly more suspicious ways. Consider what is the best payment method available and use this to ensure a safe and secure transfer of money.

These tips will help when it comes to selling your own car in 2024 and making it easier.