There are many options now to sell a vehicle through: privately, to a dealer, through a consignment dealer or through and auction house. Where you choose to sell your vehicle depends on a few factors, such as, what kind of vehicle is it, what it the situation and what is the time frame.
If you are someone who has time and like to take a more hands-on approach, selling it yourself might be the way to go. If you have something more high-end, prefer a little more privacy or prefer to have someone else handle the process to or through a dealership or auction house might be the best choice.
Private Seller options
There are a number of options to choose from as far as listing your vehicle online to sell privately/yourself. People are much more comfortable purchasing a vehicles this way now. You might still put a for sale sign on the window of the car, park it out where people can see it (preferably not at your home for safety) or write the information on the window with car writing markers.
However, you are going to reach the broadest audience by listing the vehicle through a listing service. There is good old Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace that are standard go-tos. You might know of other free or cheap listing sites you’d like to try (Nextdoor, or Classic Cars.com). There may be a simple $5 listing fee and you might have to continue to monitor the listing, but with great photos, solid description and a go-get’em attitude, you can find success without incurring a lot of expenses. You can go at your own pace, respond or meet as you choose.
There are other listing sites such as Bring a Trailer, Cars’NBids, and Auto Hunter that for a fee will take on more of the listing and marketing, even do a live auction set up to sell the vehicle for a fee and/or percentage of the sale. These sites help with photos, descriptions, etc. . They also offer a sort of protected way of conversing with potential buyers though “comments” on the listing. This can either be exciting or exhausting, depending on who you are!
Dealer or Consignment Dealer
If you are someone who really doesn’t have time or energy to deal with the sales process, you might seek out a dealer to buy your car out right or a consignment dealer to take the vehicle and handle it for you.
Most dealers, but some more than others, will consider the outright purchase of a vehicle. You may be able to reach out to Carmax or Carvana, or even KBB (can find a dealer for you) to give a bid to purchase your vehicle, and if successful, they will cut you a check. Of course, you can always consider trading in on a new vehicle.
A Consignment dealer may offer a type of contract or agreement. They will want the title on hand and ready to go, so if they are able to sell the vehicle successfully within that time-frame, it will be ready to go. Depending on what your are asking for the vehicle and how good they are, it could go smoothly and quickly, or you could end up with your vehicle back at the of the time frame. Fees and commissions vary.
Auction House
An auction house is a great option when you have a specialty or high-end vehicle and/or a time frame. These companies are knowledgeable with large outreach and built in customer base of more sophisticated buyers. They can provide privacy and a set time-frame for sale and receiving proceeds from the sale.
If you have a more high-value European vehicle, etc. you might consider Broad Arrow, Gooding and Company or RM Sothebys. If you have a collector car or modern car you might consider GAA or Mecum or World Wide. There are many auction houses, some that offer reserve placement.
Of course, I’m biased, but I believe Barrett-Jackson is the best car/collector car auction around. It is a no reserve auction, which means the vehicle will sell, and it will sell to the highest bidder. It also means there will be the most registered verified bidders there (and online/phone) bidding – 2-3 times more than other auctions- because they know the vehicles are really for sale.
There is no cost to the application process at Barrett-Jackson, it does not obligate you to bring the vehicle, however it does take a few minutes to organize the information. They will make sure the vehicle can legally be sold, that everyone is on the same page as far as value and expectation and then work to place it appropriately in the sale confirm the placement with you. If you confirm, there are two fees: Lot fee ranging from $500-$1500 depending on the vehicle’s value/day and approximate time of the sale and then Barrett-Jackson receives 8% of the sale price.
Barrett-Jackson offers hope for gain and works hard to achieve that. If that fits what you are looking for, and factor in transportation and travel costs, then they might be your best bet!
Photo from Monday at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2024