HOW TO WORK OUT A CAR’S VALUE WHEN BUYING OR SELLING


A car purchase can prove to be an extremely emotional event for a lot of people. So it should be dealt with utmost care and proper homework is expected from both the buyer and the seller. Both parties should equally contribute to make the purchase a success and in a legit way too. If a seller cheats his buyer then he/she loses the trust of the client and that is never advisable. Similarly, the buyer is always advised to go prepared and well informed before finalising the deal, because once the deal is closed there is no turning back.

For buyers what is of most importance is assessing the value of the car and according ascertaining the resale price of the car. Only after that can he/she make a lucrative deal. Now there a number of ways to assess the resale value of cars and in fact there are a lot of contributing factors to it too.

But getting the perfect guidance to assess the resale value of your car is not so easy. There are a number of online tools to help you take the right decision about it. In fact all of those aim at allowing car transactions at just the correct price so that everyone wins.

They give you a list of factors that contribute for the valuation of a used car :

  • The price of the car when it was newly bought or it was a second hand car at the time of buying.
  • Age of the car and number of previous owners.
  • The usage, kilometer the car has run and also the mileage of the car.
  • The condition of the car which should include the whole of the exteriors and interiors.
  • It depends on the regions and place of purchases. Some cars are preferred in some states/ cities and thus promise better resale. Also a car registered in one state or city gets comparatively lesser price if sold in a different state or city.
  • It also depends on the season. Convertibles sell better in the summer months while 4x4s sell in winter.
  • Manufacturer, i.e. the brand name which attracts the buyers, wins their trust and also decide the depreciation rates of the cars. Cars manufactured by companies like Maruti, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota offer better resale values in India since these are mass favoured cars. And in general Japanese cars get better resale than the European, American and Asian cars in India.
  • Segment is an important deciding factor too. The depreciation is much higher in the higher segments. A premium luxury sedan depreciates much faster than an economy hatchback. Thus Honda, Subaru, Hyundaiand Toyota top the list for retaining higher resale values more than the luxury car brands like Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Mercedes, and Audi.
  • The urgency factor of seller and buyer. The rule is simple, more you are desperate to close the deal, more do you lose money. So the tip is to keep calm and not let the seller know about your urgency so much so that they start taking advantage of it. The seller on the other hand will want to exploit this particular aspect of the buyer.