Yep good advice, I sold a car on gumtree and got a lot of those texts. I called back each one and most were pretty dodgy, one didn't even know which car he had asked about. Got one text that was basically "interested in buying the car, whats ya best price?" Called them back and he was a good bloke, came over for a test drive and bought it on the spot. Do not organise a meeting without calling them up, you can tell within the first 30sec if they are dodgy. And as Scotland said advertise for a few hundred more than you want as you will never sell it for the advertised price.
Good luck!
Yeah, I got a couple of 'I'll offer you $x cash for car tomorrow' texts as well with 'x' being a fair bit under market value. If I wanted to sell a car to someone to then onsell and make a profit I'd just go to a dealer...
Also, some people are just unreasonable when it comes to (buying
and selling) second hand cars. I once advertised a car for $14k and ended up selling it for $12k. Similar models were selling anywhere around $13-15k with some listed higher but mine had slightly higher than average km so it was about fair. First or second person to look at the car within a day of it being listed came and had a look, drove the car then said (was a recent African migrant - from Guinea IIRC) 'I really like the car, I'll give you $8000'. Errr, no thanks chief. $500 off straight up, sure. $1000? Yeah maybe. 43% discount? Yeah, nah.
I sold another car for $4k. Was a common model and comparable cars (same year, km etc.) were selling for around $6-7k and upwards. Mine had been very well looked after and was in amazing condition for its age, however the gearbox had developed a drone (still drove fine) and would need to be reco'd within 6-12 months. I put this on the ad in clear English and still had people come and look at it and go 'gearbox is bit noisy' and expect that I would basically give the car away for nothing. I'd already priced up fixing it completely with a mechanic and it would've been $1500. If I spent $1500 I would have had a car I could sell for $6-7k easily. By my reckoning that puts the value of the car at $6-7k less the cost of the repair less a discount for the inconvenience of having to do the repair - basically someone could spend $4-5k now then spend $1500 in a few months or just spend $6-7k+ now on a different car. Had contact from quite a few people who thought they would get it for nothing, do the repairs then come out thousands ahead - yeah, nah.
Looked at a second hand car for someone in a dealership in October 2012. Was listed at $13k and I said we might be interested and we should talk price. He said it was a cheap price (it wasn't) and would not budge a dollar. We walked out and they bought a near identical car for $10k a week later. In January 2014 the same car is still for sale on the same lot, $4k cheaper. Great work by that guy, really using his capital and yard space well.