The Best Way to Sell a Car in Los Angeles

The process of selling a car can be very challenging, especially for new car owners. Regardless of how long you have used your vehicle or how many cars you’ve sold in the past, selling a car in Los Angeles and getting a reasonable price calls for some level of finesse in handling car buyers.

There are probably thousands of potential car buyers, both online and offline, who can just as quickly take the car off your hands. However, working with professional car buying services may be your best approach to getting a good deal. Here are some useful guidelines to help you sell your car in Los Angeles.

Selling Your Car Privately

When selling your car privately in Los Angeles, there is a high chance that you might not get the best offer. However, if you have chosen this approach as your best option, here are some of the steps and precautions you should take.

Craft A Convincing Ad for Your Car

You’ll need to start the process by crafting an appealing ad that can convince potential car buyers. Check the spelling of each word in your ad to ensure everything is correctly spelled out before posting it anywhere. For example, nobody will be interested in negotiating any offers with you if you don’t seem to understand the difference between “breaks” and “brakes.”

Mention and outline all the desirable attributes of your car in detail, including any recent major services or repairs, such as changing the tires. Also, ensure the year, make, engine size, and transmission type of your car are all described clearly ad accurately in your advert.

Even if the mileage is very high, don’t forget to include it in your ad. And remember to keep simple and precise. In other words, you should focus on coming up with an appealing ad, not something that turns off potential car buyers or hints of desperation.

Important Craigslist Car Selling Tips

While Craigslist is an excellent platform for posting car ads, it’s not really ideal because some of the people you may end up reaching out to could be scammers. You might end up receiving emails from bots asking whether your car is still available. This is a trick meant to capture your email address and start spamming you with irrelevant promotional material. Instead, consider including your phone number in the description section of your ad, then request your prospects to include their phone numbers in their emails so that you can call them back.

Although this approach may alienate some potential buyers, it’s an effective strategy for avoiding funny irrelevant from people who are simply asking you dumb questions. Ultimately, you’ll find that the kind of prospects you’ll be talking to are serious buyers only. In addition, your service provider can give you a code that you can use to block your number so that people don’t keep harassing you once you finish the process of selling your car privately.

Although selling your car privately by using this strategy may seem like a faster approach, it comes with numerous drawbacks. For instance, some people may call you during work hours or at night just to enquire about the car. This is often the behavior of ill-intended internet users on popular online marketplaces such as Craigslist.

Or, you can also enable emailing and include your phone number in your car advert. While this is the fastest way of finding a car buyer, you’ll receive calls and emails from jokers who’ll try to snowball you or claim to try and educate you about cars or their reasonable prices.

Use High-Quality Car Pictures

Make sure you use high-quality car pictures in your listings. With only two shots, you can take brilliant photographs that adequately describe your car. For example, you can take a picture of the right front corner by holding your camera or smartphone camera at the belt level to display the car’s passenger and front side from the back. Once you’ve done that, take another snap from the left rear corner.

Since most car shoppers want to know the wear and tear condition of a car before they start negotiating the price, you should consider including a picture that clearly displays the driver’s seat, dashboard, bumpers, tires, and other critical areas to give an impression of the state of the vehicle. To ensure your potential buyers don’t assume that you’re a deceptive seller, consider including any interior or body damages of your car in the pictures as well.

Avoid Citing Your Address in The Post

Including your residential address in your Craigslist post may turn out to be risky; in case something goes wrong immediately after sealing the deal, you potentially risk reproach. Of course, if the buyer, later on, feels shortchanged and knows your address, he or she can quickly trace you to your own home. Therefore, you should consider carrying out the transaction from the safety of a public place and don’t disclose your address to strangers.

Get Paid Safely

Payment methods such as cashier’s check are very risky because they can be stopped before you’ve even cashed the money. Ask the car buyer to withdraw the cash in a bank and give it to you in the presence of a teller or a witness. Furthermore, you should avoid meeting with the buyer alone, since the outcome of the transaction may be unpredictable, and it could all be a scam.

DMV and Smog Back Fees

When selling your car privately in California, you’ll be required to include your smog certificate with the title without causing any hindrances to the buyer. Meaning, any existing parking tickets or registrations must either be completely disclosed to the buyer or cleared. When selling to a dealer, however, you may not necessarily need to fulfill such requirements.

The Test Drive

Before you allow a stranger to test drive your car, make sure you qualify him or her. Verify that the buyer will be ready to buy the car if he/she confirms that the vehicle drives as expected. For example, if the buyer tells you that he needs to sell a particular property with a “For Sale” sign and then come back to seal the deal, don’t allow that individual to test drive your car. Plus, for insurance and legal reasons, it may be necessary to accompany your buyer during the test drive and perhaps have them sign a disclaimer for any liabilities during the drive.

Setting Appointments

Once you have responded to emails, texts, or contacted potential buyers over the phone, it’s time to set appointments to meet these buyers. Ensure everything is ready and settled, including having the title before you set any appointments. You simply need to sign the title and hand it to the buyer to strike a clean deal.

Selling to A Dealer

Another option for selling your used car is through a dealer. Although selling your vehicle to a dealer is much safer and quicker than selling it privately, some unethical dealers may low ball you. Dealers are often surrounded by other dealers who are interested in making some quick profit from your car.

A registered dealer will handle the car selling process much faster than you’ll do when selling through online marketplaces such as Craigslist or giant social media network, Facebook. However, if you want to get the best offer for your used vehicle, contacting a professional car buying services may be your best option.

A certified dealer with years of experience in the industry will also help you avoid the online scammers who are focused on swindling naive car sellers. Therefore, if you want to avoid these fraudsters when marketing your car online or offline, make the process easier and faster by considering a registered dealer. Most dealers will also give you cash or bank transfer option once the deal finalizes.

Furthermore, selling your car privately is a time-consuming process; it can take months to find any takers. Car dealers and professional car buyers have contacts and a solid network of potential car buyers who are already willing and able to buy.

In addition, some potential buyers will keep asking you several questions and end up skipping your offer without giving you any credible reasons. In other words, they’ll back out at any point, which means you’ll waste a lot of your valuable time.

Selling to a Professional Car Buying Service

The best and simplest way to sell your vehicle without encountering any hiccups is through a professional car buying service provider. At TCB The Car Buyer, you’ll find a safe and proven car buying service. In fact, the company’s proven track record is an assurance that you’ll get competitive offers for your car.

While the process of selling your car privately may seem attractive, working with a professional car buying service is much better because you avoid scammers, time-wasters, and selfish dealers. You basically sell your car for cash in no time. Additionally, such professional car buyers offer amazing Vehicle Trade-in processes. The process of selling your vehicle at TCB works as follows:

  • You can contact the company by calling them on (310) 692-8080 or quickly submit your car’s details through their online vehicle buying form
  • The company will contact you and give you a quote
  • If you accept the quote, you’ll instantly be allowed to book the appraisal of your car
  • The appraisal process of your vehicle at 4609 W Century Blvd Suite 200, Inglewood, CA 90304 will only take a few minutes
  • The company’s car industry experts will then finalize the sale by completing the DMV paperwork on your behalf
  • You’ll be paid instantly
  • If you live in LA, you can choose to use an Uber service to get home
  • In case, you opt for a trade-in, TCB’s auto brokers will guide in the process of finding the perfect vehicle per your request

What Do You Require to Sell Your Car?

Regardless of your location, there are certain items that you’ll need before you begin the process of selling your used vehicle. And, if you need to make inquiries, you can contact the car-buying experts at TCB for assistance. Some of the items you’ll need include:

  • Car Title: Any information such as lease buy out, payoff paperwork or car title should be ready
  • Features & Options: Ensure the repair records and registrations are in order
  • Valid ID: Ensure your Government-issued ID and Driver’s License are valid
  • Keys: car remotes, keys, and manuals must also be ready

TCB has over 40 years of experience in buying used cars in Los Angeles and its environs. Furthermore, the company gives you a free cash quote for your vehicle instantly. Some of the popular car brands that you can sell through the professional car buyer include Mercedes Benz, Genesis, Tesla, Aston Martin, Infiniti, Lincoln, Chrysler, Subaru, Jaguar, Nissan, Hyundai among others.

Since a credible, professional car buying services such as TCB The Car Buyer offers great quotes for a wide range of cars, you should contact them to ask whether their experts can buy your type of car in LA. In Southern California, including Los Angeles County, selling your car to The Car Buyer is an incredibly simple and quick process. Professional car buying services are very efficient when dealing with both sellers and buyers of used cars.

When considering prospective car buyers, you should always keep your guard up. Although a popular online marketplace such as Craigslist is a great place to find potential car buyers, you should be extremely careful to avoid scammers or fraudsters. One of the fastest ways to identify and avoid scams when selling your car online is to prevent potential buyers who tend to suggest too good to be genuine offers.

Instead, you should consider dealing with certified professional car buying services such as TCB The Car Buyer, which is an established company that has been in business since 1980. There are many professional car buying services out there, but TCB can actually beat most of their offers, quite literally giving the competitors a run for their money.