Last month, a buddy of mine, Steve, asked me if I wanted to go to a seized car police auction with him on Saturday. I said sure and off we went. He had his laptop with him which wasn’t unusual. In fact, seeing him without it would be unusual.
We get to the yard where the auction is being held and it’s a couple of hours before the auction. This is the inspection time when you have a chance to check out all the cars.
The cars all look like they’ve been sitting in the yard for months. From a distance, they all look thrashed, but when you get up close, you can tell if the paint is just dirty or if it re
ally is thrashed.
We start looking closely at every car and the first thing I notice is that Steve uses the wireless modem on his laptop to get internet access so he can run the VIN and make sure the car’s title is clean. You’d be surprised to know that the police don’t have to make sure the title of a car is clear before they sell it. YOU, however, should always check the title before you buy any car. The cost of a title search is nothing compared to the money you can lose on a bad deal.
Once he knew the title was clear, we started carefully going over the car to check for condition issues. The condition of a car can affect its value by thousands of dollars, so it’s important to collect as much information about condition as you possibly can.
Steve had a copy of the Kelly Blue Book so next we checked the “trade-in” price for the make, model, year, and condition of the cars we looked at. This became Steve’s “limit” price. I mean what’s the point of going to an auction and ending up paying full retail price? I’ve seen it happen and the only explanation is that the bidders didn’t actually know the true value of the car.
That’s what separates the professionals from the weekenders. The pros actually know what the trade-in value is for every car they see. And the professionals have the experience to stop bidding once their limit has been surpassed. Let the weekenders pay full price. The smart operators know there are always more fish in the sea and so they simply wait for the right deal come along.
Steve ended up paying low trade-in value on an older Mercedes that had a few condition issues but he was able to make the necessary repairs for a couple of hundred dollars and he ended up selling the car on eBay for a two thousand dollar profit!
So the key to getting a great deal at a seized car police auction, is to go prepared to do your research and be ready to deal with a few condition issues.
In other words, be smart and be realistic and you’ll do fine.
