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Selling your Porsche 911 part one

Buyers’ guide features have been staples of car magazines such as Total 911 for as long as automotive publications have existed. However, for every person buying a Porsche 911, there needs to be someone willing to part with their pride and joy.

When it comes to selling your 911, privately listing on the classifieds is often the go-to option. While unable to command the prices listed by recognised specialists and the Porsche’s approved used scheme, private sales ensure that you receive 100 per cent of the agreed sale price, with no third parties involved. It’s just you and the buyer.

At face value, it can seem like a simple and hassle-free way of offloading your used 911 to the next enthusiastic owner. However, with no outside assistance, you are responsible for preparing the car for sale, taking photos, advertising the car, dealing with phone and email enquiries, facilitating viewings and overseeing the eventual sale of the car.

While the process can feel extremely rewarding (especially once the car is sold), for anyone who has experienced the dreaded ‘tyre kicker’, it can become a frustrating and time-consuming procedure.

While a private sale can provide you with an increased return over a quick sale to a trader, getting hold of that money can sometimes prove difficult too. The internet is full of horror stories about people not getting paid the agreed amount and, while common sense can often prevent the majority of problems, selling privately brings with it its own unique set of risks.

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Trading in at a main dealer or specialist is many people’s next choice if a private sale is becoming protracted (or if the money is needed in a hurry). Choosing this path will almost guarantee that your 911 is sold quickly, with the whole process taking less than a couple of hours.

You simply turn up at your local dealer or specialist, they will quote you a price and, once the paperwork is signed, the money is transferred into your account immediately.

It can be an inviting prospect. However, while the majority of traders will be happy to take your 911 off of your hands, this ease of sale will come at a severely discounted rate compared to the price you could achieve by selling privately.

Those in the trade have various overhead costs that need to be factored in, meaning that the price you are offered is often quite a way below what your old car is actually worth.

Choosing to part-exchange your car at a dealer or specialist may see you achieve a slightly better deal than a straight trade-in, as will choosing a specialist over a main dealer franchise but, ultimately, both will be about maximising the respective company’s profit when it comes to reselling the car.

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If, at this point, you are thinking, ‘What other options do I have?’ then our third possibility might just be the sale process for you. Sale or return combines many of the attributes of both private sale and trading in, and is a service offered by specialists such as Hertfordshire-based RPM Technik.

In short, your 911 is sold via a recognised specialist, but at a price agreed between you and the trader. As the car remains in your ownership until the ultimate sale, you are able to pull the car from sale if you wish, or if the sale is taking too long.

“The main benefit of sale or return compared to selling privately is that we’re a dedicated specialist with all the facilities and all the assurances in place,” explains RPM Technik salesman Greig Daily. “We have the technical know-how, the advertising, the footfall through our website and showroom, allowing us to get a good market price for it [your car].”

Financially, sale or return doesn’t hit your wallet quite so hard as trading in at a dealer either. “We don’t have quite the same overheads as a main dealer does,” Daily says “and because we’re not having to financially stock the car with our own funds, there is another cost taken out of the sale of the car.”

This isn’t to say that sale return is a free service. RPM charge a commission fee based on the agreed value of your car, although it still leaves you better off than a straight sell to an OPC, for example.

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Sale or return also provides an ease of sale that can’t be found when selling privately. “You’re not going to have to take time off work to see someone who potentially lets you down and doesn’t show up,” explains Daily.

While it may appear that sale or return is the saviour for all 911 owners wishing to sell their current car, there is one significant hurdle that your car needs to overcome before a specialist such as RPM Technik takes your case onboard: the pre-purchase inspection.

When buying a luxury or sports car (the 911 probably falls into both camps) Daily explains that, “with something like a Gen2 997 GT3, you can bet that they [the buyer] is going to want it inspected. So if it’s in with us, that’s already been done, speeding up the sale.”

It also ensures that the cars RPM take onboard under the sale or return scheme are of the highest quality, maintaining their reputation as purveyors of some of the finest 911s in the country, as well as facilitating the unseen sale of cars to oversees customers.

You can read part two of our ‘Selling your 911’ feature here.

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