Short term car ownership

rockits

rockits

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Another thought and consideration is make sure you buy a car/spec/colour that the biggest chunk of the market likes & wants. Not necessarily what you like or want. You may need to make some concessions but it is worth it to achieve to overall goal.

Finding distressed sales is a good option & be prepared to put in silly offers and not be nice & walk away if not. Your not there to find a friend or be nice just to get the car you want at the price you want. Might take a bit more time & resource but it is worth walking away if you can't buy it at the price you want to pay. There will always be others & it will always be a buyers market due to more cars out there than we need.
 
iainw

iainw

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Rwc13 said:
I think you have more chance of doing this if you can buy one of the private sale cars that pops up every now and again at an undervalue - there was a GS recently that was at least £5k undervalued. Of course then you either take a chance on issues arising or need an inspection to give you comfort it's not a pup.


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That's true. Certain cars bought privately from people who want to sell fast and price keenly. The buyer won't lose much on that one.
 
iainw

iainw

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rossyl said:
Agreed.

I said in the first post that this somewhat went against being an "enthusiast" so I didn't expect everyone on here to agree. It hasn't been my method of ownership to date. That said calling it the riskiest thing on the planet is a tad over the top!

Also, there's an assumption that it would be newer cars. Given my example was a Gransport, I'm not sure where that came from. Newer cars are a huge gamble.

Private is probably where the bargains are, but it's probably also the greater risk.
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Agree- a gransport at the bottom of the depreciation curve you won't lose too much money on- but I still think buying and selling privately plus cost of ownership you will lose something and you may have money tied up in it for a while if it doesn't sell.
 
spkennyuk

spkennyuk

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Even with a Gransport. Short term ownership when you buy from a dealer and then either trade in or sell privately your going to loose around 2 to 3k even allowing for a 2k rise in value over a 12 month period.

The only way i can see you breaking even with a 3200 /4200 /GS is to buy private during the winter months when sales are slow and a good deal can be had and then selling private in the summer months.

Something like a 4200 or GS spyder would potentially give you the best option to buy in the winter and sell during the spring / summer months and return a profit assuming that nothing breaks in your ownership.

The only other way is when one of the true bargains come up like the 22k Gransport with full service history that was on autotrader a few months ago. But those kind of deals are few and far between.
 
conaero

conaero

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Just buy it!

Once the GranSport gets under your skin you'll end up keeping it longer and make a few quid if you only add a max of 10k mikes on top.
 
rossyl

rossyl

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Sometimes dealer sales and private sales are actually only a few £k apart. Makes buying with a warranty easier, but obviously selling without one tougher.

Good advice on buying a car that is not in Marmite colour or option choices. That's what I've always done. Part of the value, in my book, is size of the market looking to buy. The market is already pretty small, buying a pink car with a blue interior is only going to make the market even smaller!
 
safrane

safrane

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If you are not hoping to 'make' money and just have as close to cost free motoring it may be possible.

However although your example has increased in value slightly, from my experience its rise only covers the maintenance cost the more I enjoy it the harder it is to keep ahead of the wave which kind of defeats the reason for having it in the first place.
 
philw696

philw696

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The car I should have kept in hindsight was the Ferrari 456 ran it for 12 months spent nothing on it selling it to a Dealer needing it's annual service.
Did some Great events in it with Silverstone the highlight.
My first Ferrari costing me nothing.
Now 50K upwards.
 
iainw

iainw

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I have had about 10 MMS / Texts since that was posted checking I was ok from friends and family.
Nice to see they have confidence in my driving
 
ChrisQP09

ChrisQP09

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Wack61 said:
You're in a difficult place for a private sale, most cars 10k up are bought on finance , something you can't offer plus a dealer is potentially liable if it goes bang even though many think they're not.

I think your short term ownership could be considerably more expensive than you think, a car bought from a dealer would have to be at least 20% under in a private sale for me to be interested , especially a supercar
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Depends, my GT S was a cash sale 25k+. If the model is sought after chances are someone will buy, either with cash or finance of some sort.
 
Corranga

Corranga

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I think the main issue (that hasn't already been covered) is that you'd have to buy very wisely - finding a car that is cheap in the first place but that doesn't need work doing is a hard thing. Sellers who want a quick sale usually don't go servicing the car before hand for example.
The next problem in buying wisely is that the cars that will allow this are few and far between. Sure, a GS might work (if you can sell it quickly) but then, since you are doing it short term, you are also doing it regularly - say, 3 times in 2 years.
In this case, more gambles = more likely to loose.

Safer bet would be to find a car with a relatively static value, the Elise / Exige /Caterham are like this, or one which has bottomed out possibly a Granturismo, or one that is likely to raise - cheapest available Ferrari / Aston ?
 
rivarama

rivarama

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Speaking from experience, I only kept my GT for 8months as I decided to buy a F430 after trying a friend of mine's. The car had been serviced 3months prior to me buying it, and still had 6k miles / 12months to go till the next one, the car was pristine. I sold it for £5.5k less than I bought it for and it took me 8weeks...
 
rossyl

rossyl

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Interesting

Did you buy from or sell to trade?
Also, what month did you buy in and then sell in.
 
Ewan

Ewan

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£700 depreciation a month on a relatively expensive car is not bad at all. My business partner has a theoretical loss of £10k on his new Disco that is only three months old (he paid £64k new and was offered £54k in part ex by the same dealer yesterday).

Looking at the paper work with my recently purchased GT-S, the previous owner bought it from a dealer 2 years ago. I have now bought it privately from him. In that time he drove 4k miles and, in depreciation only, lost about £20k.
 
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