I received a great job offer up in NYC which I have said yes to. I bought an Accord new last year not expecting to have to sell it. (does anyone?) I’ve done some research and it seems like owning a car in NYC would be incredibly expensive and a huge hassle, to say the least. I move in a couple weeks. I just got off the phone with my loan company and they said to get the title to me it’d take 6-8 weeks, so a private party sale is all but impossible unless I fly back down here just to sell the car.
Loan balance: $28000 @ 4%
KBB private party value: $29000-31000
Carvana offer: $28500
Purchase price: $34000
Is there any “out” I have here to make a better situation out of this? As it stands it seems like just taking the Carvana offer is the best option, even though I end up taking a bath on it.
Taking the L and selling a new car I bought a year ago, no time to sell to private party – what to do?
byu/chalk_tuah inpersonalfinance
Posted by chalk_tuah
35 Comments
Do you have any family members you can trust to let the car sit with them while the title arrives? Then sell it post-move?
Congrats on the job.
Just take the Carvana and get out clean. Not worth the hassle.
Just sell it to Carvana. It’s not worth the hassle for an extra $500-1500. You’d eat that up in travel expenses back and forth.
At least you’re coming out slightly ahead. Take that as a win and enjoy your new job.
Driveway.com is another option … load the details in carvana’s site, driveway’s site, there are a few others , and take whichever one offers the most. Hassle free.
Take the Carvana offer and think of it as you leased the car for a year at $460/month. Good luck with the job and NYC.
Might as well get a quote from Carmax too.
Either them or Carvana is going to be the easiest, no hassle option.
The KBB private party number is an estimate at best, you may not actually get it. Carvana’s a guaranteed $28,500. You’ll be done with the car and will walk away with $500, and you won’t have to deal with the scammers, tire kickers and lowballers you’d deal with private party.
I would just take the Carvana deal and be done with it.
Enjoy not having to have a car, at least for the near future!
You can also get an instant quote from carmax. If you put the car details into Edmund’s, dealers can contact you with offers for the car as well. Your carvana offer is usually good for 7 days. I’d try those options above and see who can give you the best price and then just be done with it. Even if carvana is the worst offer you still have $500 over what is due on the loan so it’s not that bad
Only other option is contact a couple dealers in your area stating the Carvana offer and if they can beat it. That would be the only thing.
Try them all first. Carvana, Carmax and Carguru. When I sold my last SUV I got the best deal with Cargurus.
Did you try CarMax as well? I just sold my car there and they offered me more than carvana or the offers that came from KBB. Also a reminder that just because KBB lists that as the private party value doesn’t mean you will get that. You still have to find a trustworthy buyer. It isn’t likely to be worth your time and effort. The good news is that based on the carvana offer you aren’t under water on it.
A 16% hit after a year of ownership is not bad. Carvana offer is easy and wipes out the loan. Sell to carvana
I have found it pretty difficult to sell private party for a car that is higher value like this. You deal with a ton of scams (“I can’t come see it but I’ll pay cashier check”). And a ton of people that can’t afford it or can’t qualift for a loan. Just do carvana
Get an offer from Carmax as well. They beat carvana sometimes
Having a car in ny is expensive but it’s kind of really nice too in a lot of ways. Moving furniture, getting to places faster, being able to leave the city are all really nice things. If you’re not on manhattan it probably isn’t a terrible thing to have it.
Sell it to Carvana. You do have the option to give the car to your lender as a voluntary repossession, but that will harm your credit almost as much as an involuntary repossession, so your best bet is to just sell it to Carvana or CarMax.
Also, $6K in depreciation over a year isn’t so bad. Go look in the Volvo EX90 sub. Those cars are so bad, people are taking $20K+ (25%+) losses just to get rid of them. And other EVs are also depreciating much faster. You’re talking about 17% (ish) here, so it could be worse.
I lived in NYC for 10 years, and for 5 of those years I had a car. I always parked on-street and never paid for parking. NYC always had street-sweeping rules in effect on certain days.
In Brooklyn, parking restrictions were one day a week so you had to move it just a couple of times. In Manhattan, the side of the street alternated for sweeping daily, so I was moving my car every day.
Moving the car was a hassle but I was good at keeping track; never got a ticket and never got towed.
So having a car in NYC was not that expensive, certainly not incredibly expensive. If you get tickets and towed, or have accidents, yeah, it’s going to cost you.
For me it was nice to have the car to drive up to Orange County, Westchester County, Albany, New Jersey along the shore, or go out to Pennsylvania, or Vermont to ski. I had friends and family scattered around I wanted to visit.
If you’re willing to live out in Brooklyn or Queens, there’s free on-street parking that isn’t bad, and you’ll save on rent in those places, compared to Manhattan, and probably have a bigger, quieter apartment besides.
Half the time I didn’t have a car, and I managed to live life just fine without it, so it’s fine either way.
Also you could keep the car for as long as it takes to get your title, and then sell the car in New York. People buy cars here, too. They don’t only steal them. /s
Carvana is offering you more than the loan balance, so you’re not really ‘taking a bath.’ You had use of the car for a year and paid $5.5K for that. Probably not the option you would have taken had you been able to predict the future, but not horrible.
A sunk cost and you don’t have obligations going forward. I’d take that and have the clean slate.
Just take the Carvana man, its the out youre looking for. What else could you need to know?
What’s wrong with having a car in NYC? Rent a place out in Queens or Brooklyn that has its own parking spot. It does rain and snow there… and not everywhere you want to go is easily accessible via bus or train.
As a person who has sold a vehicle private sale, I’d say not having to deal with: the hundreds of messages from people who are “interested” but don’t actually have money, people showing up late or completely ghosting you, questionable driving records, insurance concerns, letting them take it for a test drive, etc. is well worth the $500-2500 loss you’re taking with Carvana over private sale. This is even more exacerbated by your timeline, where you would likely need to fly back and stay for a few days to find a real serious buyer.
I’ve sold 4 vehicles. 1 was private sale on Craigslist/FB marketplace and was an absolute hassle. I will probably never do that again. The other 3 I sold to friends/coworkers and gave them a good discount for saving me time and hassle.
Did you try Honda? You can play hardball knowing you have a solid offer already from Carvana. I got about 1850 more for my mazda 3 at the dealership than Carmax offered.
are you actually living in the island of Manhattan? if not, then you can just look into keeping the car. especially if you live in Queen, Brooklyn, Jersey City, there are non-apartment complex rentals that would have street parking or even driveway parking for around $150/mo. just try to first understand your day-to-day lifestyle before selling the car.
source: I rent 2 multi-fam houses in JC.
Check CarMax and Auto Lenders too. I got 1300 more out of Auto Lenders.
Every time that I have dealt with selling a car to a private party there have been problems. Sell the car to a company and be done with it.
You will be way ahead when you don’t have to deal with some idiot that doesn’t change title or gets mad that the spare tire did not have enough air in it so they want their money back.
Where in NYC are you moving to?
Honestly since it’s new take it to some actual dealerships. I have done that with a few cars and got a better offer because they can CPO it and get more for it.
So, you would waste like $500 to fly back and try to sell a car for an extra $1000, when you could just do Carvana or Carmax, pocket like $500 and walk away, zero issues?
Look into shownethevin.com. they guarantee beating carmax offers. I did this a couple times and it’s been easy and they write you a check.
Living in Brooklyn my whole life i very much enjoy the freedom of having a car when i need it. Road trips with the wife and dog upstate and elsewhere. Ski trips. Even food shopping, going to dinner, day to day activities and commuting. Parking can be an issue at times (im a homeowner and have a driveway and recognize this isnt the norm) but its a blessing to have it.
Carvana is a great offer, not a ‘bath.’
Also, if you need the title you can usually order a replacement through the DMV. Idk where you live but in NYS you can order a replacement title easily and fairly quickly online.
Used to work in the business (not sales, but sales-adjacent). Two other places I’d call on beyond Carvana:
1. Carmax, if there’s one near you.
2. Call the Honda dealer you bought from if they’re local, ask for the used car manager.
You’re now insulated from a lowballer while still getting your fast sale—dealerships take in trades with payoffs all the time, and your deal is little different.
Do you have any very trustworthy family? When I was in the military I was getting deployed and wanted to sell my car. I had a “general” power of attorney drawn up which I later found was incredibly dumb. If my brother was a bad guy he could have done a lot. But anyway, you can draw up a power of attorney with a narrow scope of selling your car for you to maximize your potential return. But you REALLY need to trust that person.
Barring that, I sold a car to carvana. Super easy. Some dealerships around me have begun matching carvana quotes.
I look at this as a time value of money discussion…
Selling a car private party takes quite a bit of time, hassle and risk. In your case, what is the benefit of all of that time, hassle and risk? Possibly $1,500 but more likely close to $500.
If it was me, I would just sell it to Carvana and go enjoy my new job in my new city and never look back.
Have you shopped around at dealerships? A lot of Honda dealers are low on inventory and might give you quite a competitive rate