I sold my car on craigslist. I’ve used craigslist before, but never to buy a big ticket item, and I’ve never sold a big ticket item until now… it was very interesting.
I posted the ad on a Sunday (not just any Sunday, but Super Bowl Sunday) and within an hour I had 7 people email me, 3 of whom decided to email me twice. I began to think that maybe we should have had a higher price, but no matter, the deed was done.
Here’s a few excepts from some of the great responses I got:
Do you still have car available i am really interested please let me no thanks
You can sand namber because i wants see you car thanks you
Crv if do I got money
hey i like to buy u car please call me for apoitment
Hi” U still have d cr v?
OK, so guy #1 (as in, the first person to respond via email) gets the call, and he says he can come out that night to check out the car. His email said he lived in Pewaukee, but somehow when I called him he was no where near Pewaukee and said it would take an hour to come over. He called me an hour later lost in Pewaukee, which was no good because the car was in Delafield. Anyway, he made it, we took the car for a drive, and he offered me less money than I asked for. Not great. We talked for a bit, and he really wanted it, but didn’t have enough cash, but said he could get it by the next day… I told him to return in 24 hours with the cash for the asking price, and I’d sell it to him.
The next day guy #1 calls and says he can’t get the rest of the money, and offers me less. I tell him I’ll have the second guy (guy #2) looking at it that night (who has already said he’d pay the asking price if the car ran good) and oh yeah, emails from ten other people interested, and if none of them panned out, I’d call him back… On to guy #2.
I set things up with guy #2 to come over around 6:30, and before it’s even 5:00 he calls and says he can’t make it. So yeah, back to guy #1 who explains now that he isn’t going to buy the car, but his friend (guy #3) wants to. Yeah, it’s still only been about 26 hours since I listed the car, if you’re keeping track.
So 6:30 rolls around and I get a call from guy #1 saying he and guy #3 are running late. No worries… They eventually arrive, and we look things over, and we do the paperwork, and there’s some money involved, and it’s done. My 1999 Honda CR-V is no longer my 1999 Honda CR-V. It’s weird, mainly because (if you know me) I’ve been saying I would never replace it. Well, I replaced it, but that’s a story for another time.
tl;dr: I sold my car on craigslist!