Selling Your Used Car In Singapore: 5 Insider's Perspectives

“9 out of 10 calls will most likely be from a dealer. So at the end of the day, after holding the car, after advertising for two months, three months, four months, you may end up selling it to a dealer anyway, because you cannot tahan anymore, and you have got to pay advertisement fees and all that,” revealed Steven.

But that is three months later. “So the price is different again. So why not day 1 just sell it to a dealer and don’t bother with selling direct?” asked Steven.

Another issue to consider is that when you sell it yourself, you have to deal with all the calls and entertain all the viewings.

“You have to deal with all the bargaining, low ballers, all this sort of things. You have to accept it. Test drives, etc. It’s a lot of inconvenience.”

A used car dealer might not mind dealing with these, because first, it's their job to deal with buyers of all sorts; and second, because they budgetted for these inconveniences in the first place.

Said Steven "If your car is worth 30k, you go to 20 dealers, they'll offer you different different pricing. But they should all be hovering around the 30k range. Some may offer 31 or 32, maybe because they have a ready buyer, so when they take over the car at 32, they can get rid of the car in no time, in a week or two and make some profit.”

“Some may offer you 28k because they have no demand. They have to factor in all the holding costs, repair costs, whatever, advertisement costs. When they do that they have to offer lower, so that by the time they sell, they can make some profit."

“Say you found a ready buyer. Now another problem comes. Even if that person agrees to buy that car at your price, it’s a direct buyer not a dealer, so depending on what car and price, he may need a loan.”

“If he can secure a loan then fine it will go through. But if the person cannot secure a loan for whatever reason, then the deal has to fall through. Then you’ve wasted all your time entertaining everything,” said Steven.

“Even dealers will face this problem. Sometimes the buyer comes in and they look at the car, and at the end of the day they cannot go through with the deal, because they have a bad debt or whatever; nothing you can do.”

“But at least they are dealers, it is part and parcel of their jobs. You’re not a dealer. Why should you go through all this hassle? I mean right now at this moment it’s not a risk yet. It’s a hassle. You entertain so many people, finally you get a buyer, but then the buyer cannot secure a loan.”

After surmounting all the problems above, there’s also one last hurdle to cross when it comes to selling a car direct.

“Now comes the risk. As a direct buyer and seller, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. So now how? Even if I buy in hard cash, especially if I buy in hard cash, am I supposed to give you the cash first and then you transfer the name to me, or are you supposed to transfer the name to me first, and then I give you the cash?”

“So it’s “Wah, I pay you, then you don’t transfer how, wah jialat." Or “I transfer already, you don’t pay me how, jialat.” How to come to a compromise? There’s always this issue here, of the trust. So how can we do this?” asked Steven.

“When you deal with a dealer, no such thing. Because it’s a registered company, if the fellow doesn’t pay you or the cheque bounces there’s still an avenue to sue.”

If you have outstanding finance on your car, things can get even more complicated.

“Because of that there will be a remark in LTA’s records; if you don’t full-settle it, the bank won’t release the remark, and LTA will not allow the transfer.”

“So let’s say there’s outstanding finance on your car. You want to sell to me, you must go and full-settle first. If you don’t go and full-settle, LTA will not allow the transfer. And so we happily talk talk talk, but then when we go LTA, cannot transfer.”

“So you must go and full-settle first. But what if you need my cash so that you can full-settle? And, why should I hand over my cash when you haven’t transferred the car to me yet? So there’s this risk.”

If, in spite of these 5 points, you still might want to sell your cars directly, instead of to a dealer, Steven has some last words for you. And it is his turn to ask a couple of questions.

“For that few thousand dollars difference between an offer from a dealer and what you can get selling it to a direct buyer, is it worth the hassle and the risk? Even used car dealers have gotten conned before.”

“Why don’t you spend your time trying to make more money from your profession, rather than trying to make more money from your car?”

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