I am in the process of moving from the suburbs to Chicago proper come July. I have a paid-off 2020 Honda Civic Si with 60K miles. I won’t be able to bring the car with me to the city and it’s unnecessary to do so. I paid for one year of insurance that will go through January 2027. I am able to leave it at my parent’s house, but I’m wondering if I should just sell it and put the money in my HYSA.
I have no debt and 20K in savings.
Moving to Chicago. Keep 2020 Civic Si at parent’s house or sell it?
byu/Hoyt_Corkins inpersonalfinance
Posted by Hoyt_Corkins
7 Comments
no brainer sell it. get a refund for remaining insurance
If you are sure it’s a permanent move I’d sell the car.
I would park it (at parents’ house). You will need a car now and then, and it would save you having to rent one.
Also, if you sell it, you will just spend the money. Then at some point, you will need a car permanently, and you will have to go into debt to get one. It’s better to have the paid off car.
Call your insurance company, and see if you can switch to a plan for a parked car, or at least drop down to the bare minimum number of miles.
Just sell it. The used car market is getting back to normal so it will only lose value every time a new model year comes out
So I went through this exact same thing back 20 years ago. Moved to an apartment in the loop. Had an RX-8. Decided to park the Mazda at a friend’s place in Iowa rather than pay hundreds of dollars for parking. In the end this arrangement lasted two months. Despite the promise, Chicago is an American city and you really need a car to get around most places.
Keep the car at your parents place for a while until you decide whether you can live without it. I couldn’t.
I grew up in New York City and had an older VW Beetle
Since I was living in Manhattan I didn’t need it and it was also inconvenient.
I left it at my parents’ house because my father used it as a second car – my parents lived in a residential area of Brooklyn. It didn’t cost much to insure – didn’t cost me anything as my parents paid for whatever the insurance was.
The benefit for me was that if I needed the car to get away on the weekend my father would drop it off for me. My parents would typically just spend the day in Manhattan take the subway back home so it was win win for the whole family
If this is all inapplicable to you ignore but for my family it was great and then I had the car when I moved to Los Angeles a few years later. My father had to deal with only one car for a while.
I think the decision depends on how long you plan to live in the city. If it’s a temporary move (1-3 years), I wouldn’t sell. If it’s indefinite, then yeah, invest the money from the sale. If you keep it, see if your insurance company offers storage insurance. It’s much cheaper.