If you're looking for how to sell your car on Craigslist, you need to prepare all paperwork, price your car, get your car ready, create an appealing advertisement and finalize the deal.
⚠️ If It's Broken, Don't Fix It - Get Paid Cash for Your Vehicle ⚠️
Craigslist is a massive platform that was launched in 1995 in San Francisco. By 2017, this website received about 50 billion page views with more than 200 million postings every month.
By just looking at the facts about craigslist, no one should think twice about should I sell my car on Craigslist or not.
However, it's not simple as just saying, “I want to sell my car on Craigslist.” You must follow many cars selling tips to prevent getting into scams, especially if you are an inexperienced car seller or this is your first time selling a car on Craigslist.
This article serves as a complete guide for beginners to learn “how can I sell my car on Craigslist.”
Quick Reference
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Selling a car on Craigslist paperwork
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Set a competitive price
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Get your vehicle ready for a quick sale
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Post a car for sale on Craigslist Sell Car by Owner
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How to Write a Craigslist ad? Examples of good and bad listings
Selling a car on Craigslist paperwork
The first step in selling your car on Craigslist is to know what I need to sell my car on Craigslist? What is the different paperwork associated with Craigslist that I have to familiarize myself with?
People work for selling a car can be a hassle, especially for inexperienced buyers and sellers. Since Craigslist does not get involved in the paperwork part of the car selling process, you need to familiarize yourself with a couple of documentations including:
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Your vehicle's title
Craigslist car title status is a major component when it comes to selling the car on Craigslist.
You never want to delete a deal just because you don't have your title ready.
To post your car on Craigslist and sell it successfully, your title must be cleared. “Cleared” indicates that you don't have any liens or money you owe to a lender.
Unfortunately, if you also money on this vehicle, you cannot legally sell your car to a new owner.
If for any reason you lost your vehicle's title, you can always obtain a title replacement from your local DMV office by showing some paperwork to prove ownership along with paying a small fee.
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Craigslist car bill of sale
Craigslist does not have a designated Craigslist car bill of sale. And the bill of sale is not necessarily required in the car selling process. This document is very important to protect you if something happens in the future, especially if you're meeting the buyer once in life.
Think about the bill of sale as an example of warranty documentation.
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State requirements
It's also very important to check your local DMV website for any specific requirements by your states.
For example, some states might require a smog test that was completed no longer than 90 days ago.
Other states might have different specifications and to prevent getting involved in any legal complications, look at the DMV website and see what you have to prepare as part of your car selling paperwork
Set a competitive price
The next step in selling your car on Craigslist is to set a competitive price.
For someone looking for “How to sell a broken car on craigslist?” The listed price will be different than someone looking for “how to sell a used car on Craigslist?”
A good start for you is to go through Kelley Blue Book instant cash offer where you can get a rough estimate about the minimum and maximum values your vehicle can make.
You can also use Cash Cars Buyer's online instant cash offer to get an idea about how much to expect for your car.
By having a number in the back of your head, you can find a sweet spot between the minimum and maximum values to encourage people by your vehicle.
If you would like to sell your car on Craigslist fast, you might need to drop the price and provide some discount to encourage people to reach out to you and buy your car faster.
Get your vehicle ready for a quick sale
Your vehicle's first impression is a crucial component for encouraging buyers to buy your vehicle.
Therefore, spend some time and effort taking care of small stuff and minor damages in your car to indicate that you've been taking good care of your car.
For example, it might be worth giving your car a quick wax to provide it with sunshine, indicating that you've been taking care of what's under the hood.
Also, try to implement any professional services that cost between $50 and $300. You don't want to go beyond this range. Otherwise, it might not be worth it.
I would be to take your vehicle to a professional mechanic who can advise you about what can be done and what should be done before selling your car On Craigslist or any other platform.
If you have any mechanical skills, you can attempt to repair minor damages yourself. This way, you save on labor costs and only pay for whatever the tools will cost you.
Post a car for sale on Craigslist Sell Car by Owner
Once your vehicle is ready, it's time now to learn, “how can I post a car on Craigslist?”
Hosting a car for sale on Craigslist should not be rocket science. Craigslist car listing Is very simple, and the process is very straightforward:
- The first step is to click on “my account” if you already have one. If you don't have an account, you can create a username and a password. To create an account on Craigslist, you must connect it to a real email where they send you a verification email to click on it and finalize the account setup process.
- Once you are on your account, the next step is to create a posting. To do so, you need to click on “creates a posting.”
- Since you are selling a car, you need to select the category of “For Sale by owner.”
- Within that category, you need to select “cars and trucks -by owner.”
- Since April 15th, 2019, Craigslist started charging $5 per used car ad. Thus, be prepared for that.
- Once you are in the ad creation process, the process would be very straightforward, and all that it takes 2 is to fill in basic field information highlighted in green. Once you fill in this information, click on “continue.”
- Add high-quality image tier listing because people tend to watch and look for images more than reading huge text bodies. Once you're done uploading the images, click on “done with images.”
- That's it! It's not the time to review your posting and provide any payment information. Then, click “publish.”
How to Write a Craigslist ad: Examples of good and bad listings?
Your Craigslist listing is your only way to provide all the information you need about your vehicle. With this listing, customers might reach out to you or walk away.
Thus, you need to provide the best car listing possible that leads to a guaranteed sale. To do so, you can follow the following steps:
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Provide all necessary details while being brief
When you create a listing, you want to make sure that you have all the information covered because, in the end, if you were not upfront with the buyer, he will come and see your vehicle. Thus, you're just wasting your time in his time.
While you need to provide as much information as possible, you need to also be brief because people tend to look at images more than reading huge text pieces.
Therefore, if you think an image can cover a whole paragraph, leave the details to some images instead.
If you are still struggling with how dry the best practices had come in, you can start with Craigslist car ad templates. There are plenty out there!
Let's look at some of the examples of good verses that car listing:
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An example of a good car listing
Agreed car ad listing should contain a lot of photos and be very descriptive and honest.
For example: “1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4×4, 130k miles, well maintained!”
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An example of a bad car listing
On the other hand, an example of that car listing for the same vehicle might say: “Jeep Grand Cherokee – $3000 – looking for trading.”
Here, the seller did not provide any information about what type of trading he's looking for. He didn't include any information regarding their vehicle mileage and did not indicate whether this vehicle was maintained.
Keep in mind that these issues are only in the title, and the ad did not include anything in the body of the listing and no images.
How to sell my car on Craigslist? FAQs
In this section, we'll cover some of the FAQs regarding “how to sell my car on Craigslist.”
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How to post a car on craigslist for free?
Many people reach out to us wondering, “How much does it cost to sell a car on craigslist?” Unfortunately, creating a Car listing on Craigslist is not free as of April 2019. Craigslist started charging $5 for a used car ad.
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How long to sell a car on craigslist?
When it comes to “how fast can I sell my car on Craigslist?” The process can differ significantly depending on your vehicle's type, condition, and you're asked the price.
You can't sell your car as fast as a couple of days. However, you can also get stuck for a couple of months if you don't have someone interested in buying her your car or have a very high price.
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How to sell a car in one day?
The fastest way to sell a car privately Might not be through Craigslist because Craigslist takes a relatively longer time than any other car selling method.
If you would like to get rid of your car fast, we advise you to get in touch with Cash Cars Buyer who are willing to move your car within one to three days and even the same day if you are interested.
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What are the common selling of my car on craigslist scams?
There are lots of scams, especially when selling cars on Craigslist. For example, if you've noticed that someone is listing a heart for a very low price that is significantly below the average used car value, this is a red flag and indicates scams.
If you found a listing without a phone number associated with it or if the associated location was overseas, you might not need to proceed with this seller, and You'd better walk away.
How to sell my car on Craigslist? The bottom line
Craigslist is a great platform for someone interested in finding a private buyer willing to pay the top dollars.
Once you know the process, you can do it every time. All it takes is to prepare all necessary paperwork, get your vehicle ready, create an impressive listing, ask for a competitive price, and finalize the deal.
However, if you're looking for how to sell my car fast for cash, we invite you to get in touch with Cash Cars Buyer.
We provide one of the fastest, safest, and easiest car selling methods.
We can even help you when you're searching for how to sell a car in one day. Our company is a 24-hour car removal service that works evenings, weekends, even same day.
To get more details about our process, give our team a call at 866-924-4608 or visit our home page and click on the free instant online offer. Our process is explained in detail in this link.