Selling Attitude

Grum.Man said:
No way in heck I’m paying $8,500.00 for a TBO prop strike engine! Better come with a few yellow tags for that much!
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i agree, but thats where the market is right now. i have been looking for a 360 core for my next project and its crazy what they are going for.
 
unsafervguy said:
i agree, but thats where the market is right now. i have been looking for a 360 core for my next project and its crazy what they are going for.
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I’ll hang my headset up before I pay that. I enjoy flying but there comes a point where it’s not worth it.
 
Yeah, and people said they would stop flying and GA would be dead is AVGAS went over $2 per gallon.
 
I sold a plane two weeks ago, took three days. If it’s not selling its overpriced. I had five offers in two days, third day was a cash offer sight unseen for 5k below asking and I jumped on that rather then waste time doing multiple prebuys and dealing with someone’s bank.
 
alaskan9974 said:
I sold a plane two weeks ago, took three days. If it’s not selling its overpriced. I had five offers in two days, third day was a cash offer sight unseen for 5k below asking and I jumped on that rather then waste time doing multiple prebuys and dealing with someone’s bank.
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I think it depends on the price range, I doubt a $3,500,000 plane sells as quickly as a $35,000 one.
 
I think Will Kumley's response covers a large part of the issue.

Owners of GA aircraft tend to be older, often retired, and with a lot of time on their hands. To add, their bills are small, so they are in no hurry to sell.

Don't need the money, a lot of time available, plus the general tendency of these folks to be a little out-of-touch with reality leads to all kinds of shenanigans when trying to conduct any kinds of business.
Will Kumley said:
An hour away from our house: A TriPacer owner that owned the plane for roughly 30 years did a full interview of my wife and I before he showed us the plane. Drove us to the plane from his house, wouldn't uncover it completely for us to look it over but we could see tears and other damage to the fabric, it was full of junk as he had been using it for storage, and he wasn't willing to let me start the engine. Offered to let us rent a CD with "everything you need to know about TriPacers" for $50 so I could look it over before we came back for a test flight but wanted $100 per hour to let me go up with him in the plane.

A 6-hour drive away: A Zenith 601 owner that knew we were driving in to look at his plane was slightly better in the interview department but still asked a lot of questions to see if we were worthy of purchasing his plane. Said I could pull panels to look things over but wasn't willing to let me open the cowl and look at the Jabiru engine in the plane. He at least tried to start the plane so we could taxi it around as it was out of its conditional inspection but the engine wouldn't start- likely a battery issue but he admitted that the engine struggled to start sometimes even with a brand new battery. Also told me of other engine woes. Wanted me to drive up on a regular basis to help him complete the conditional inspection before I purchased the plane, which I was partly okay with as it would allow me to see the condition of the plane but in the end it seemed to me like he was looking for someone to do the gruntwork of getting into uncomfortable places of the plane to complete the inspection. His attitude about opening the cowl and unwillingness to admit that required components were not installed concerned me enough that I walked away from that plane.
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Small modification to N747JB statement:

"3 things affect sales. Price, condition and exposure. Competitive price, good condition with great pictures and listed on Barnstormers, TAP and Contoller. If it’s not getting calls, it’s probably priced too high.
Same is true for almost all things for sale, cars, houses, tractors, boats, equipment."

actually --

4 things affect sales. Price, condition, exposure, and TIME. Competitive price, good condition with great exposure set the price at a given point in time. But, price for the same aircraft will change with time.
Same is true for almost all things for sale, cars, houses, tractors, boats, equipment.

TIME is a significant factor in sale price. The same Cessna 172 selling in year 2019 for a price of $50,000 in excellent condition, and with great exposure, is now selling for $122,000. The only thing that changed is time.
 
I have been a cash buyer on all my offers but people don't seem to care. Then again I would never make an offer on something I hadn't at least secured funding for or verified I could. When a well priced plane shows up it still sells rather quickly. I still see some sell that I question the value but some of that could be people like me that have been waiting for the market to come back to them and jump at the first thing that comes remotely close to expectation. I have heard several people say they bought planes sight unseen which blows my mind. The resolution of most pictures isn't high enough to show small things that could become major issues. Smoking rivets, small cracks, fabric coming loose or dope finishes that have spider webbed. 90% of the planes I've looked at over the last 4 years have poor logs or obvious annuals that were done on paper only.
 
Grum.Man said:
I have been a cash buyer on all my offers but people don't seem to care. Then again I would never make an offer on something I hadn't at least secured funding for or verified I could. When a well priced plane shows up it still sells rather quickly. I still see some sell that I question the value but some of that could be people like me that have been waiting for the market to come back to them and jump at the first thing that comes remotely close to expectation. I have heard several people say they bought planes sight unseen which blows my mind. The resolution of most pictures isn't high enough to show small things that could become major issues. Smoking rivets, small cracks, fabric coming loose or dope finishes that have spider webbed. 90% of the planes I've looked at over the last 4 years have poor logs or obvious annuals that were done on paper only.
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I'm a cash buyer too, and I've had relatively good luck buying cheaper end, cosmetically unsightly or high run engine samples within a make/model fleet. My inflection/recipe/cope/placebo/whatever has been an eye towards a history of high recency of use in the past 24 month. That's been my formula at least, to each their own.

I've never paid someone to perform a pre-buy on my behalf, but I have reviewed logs, verified plates where I could (airframe and engine, found one with a different engine installed one time!) and looked and/or flown the airplane once before money is exchanged. I have sold all of them at a small loss (less than one annual's + 13th month maintenance's worth, on average) compared to my purchase price, and I've never upgraded engines, cosmetics or avionics on any of them. Which is to say I merely expended the utility value and sole owner access premium for the time I owned them, which was a more than adequate trade to me for the sake of high sale liquidity, which I also value in my life with more important things to think about. All of the big money expended has always been toward on going airworthiness and generalized maintenance. Good enough for me and mine, not going to win awards at OSH (don't care for the underlying premise in the first place), not going to get a positive $ ROI (my toys are not an investment to me).

There's a lot of junk out there. I don't mind junk, as long as people are willing to play ball price wise. It's the recalcitrance of trying to trade junk for a premium that makes this cottage industry into an insufferable experience I rather do without an airplane, than deal with with any regularity.
 
fasteddie said:
I think Will Kumley's response covers a large part of the issue.

Owners of GA aircraft tend to be older, often retired, and with a lot of time on their hands. To add, their bills are small, so they are in no hurry to sell.

Don't need the money, a lot of time available, plus the general tendency of these folks to be a little out-of-touch with reality leads to all kinds of shenanigans when trying to conduct any kinds of business.
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We did ultimately find an airplane to purchase. A 1963 Piper Colt with a low time engine. The owner was selling it to make room for a different airplane in the hangar. We also drove 6 hours to look at the Colt, but he had it ready for us to look at. Logbooks and all other paperwork ready for us to review. Even had gas in the plane and we took it on a test flight which went well enough we shook hands on the deal and money was transferred a few days later after a pre purchase inspection was completed.
 
I think alot of planes are on the market just to see if they can get top dollar. I looked at an overpriced mid 70s Bonanza a few months back and came away thinking the seller had no interest in actually selling.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
I think it depends on the price range, I doubt a $3,500,000 plane sells as quickly as a $35,000 one.
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A good priced one does. We bought a caravan last month and they go quick at the right price.

I sold my plane for 90k. Was appraised at 110 and I didn’t want to deal with banks, multiple prebuys etc. It’s just not worth the time it takes IMO.
 
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