How to Buy and Sell Used Cars for Fun and Profit

Have all you papers ready: registration, title, warranties, repair receipts, and owner’s manual. Put them in one of those big brown envelopes and put it in a safe place.

The best way to advertise your car is to use whichever newspaper in your area has the largest classified section. Classified ads continue to get more expensive.

You will not want to get too wordy. Use some abbreviations but not too many. It can make the ad hard to understand.

I have a method of free advertising, that works very well. This works especially well on a nice clear warm day. Pick a nice busy parking lot. I like a Home Depot on a Saturday morning.

You want a lot of foot traffic. Then go early and park you car with a for sale sign in it. Don’t park too far out because you might get a ticket in some cities. And don’t park too close or people won't get a good look at your car. Just pretend your car is a new corvette and you don’t want a scratch on it and park where there are not a lot of cars. And leave it.

Now go home and wait for the phone to ring.

What I really like about this method compared to classifieds is you have more control of when people will call. If you run an ad in the paper for a couple weeks you will have somebody call you at 6am and wake you up for sure. Or just when you sit down for dinner.

I got this idea from my friend Perry. He sold a Ford Taurus station wagon in a couple of hours.