I was very interested in a beautiful T207A, learned a lot about C207s here on this and other boards (thanks again) as well as hundreds if not thousands of pages of info I gathered. Also spoke to owners and pilots of the type in EU and US.
While it is a unique/exotic type, that would also (have been) be part of the USP for using the plane.
I investigate when I buy a washing machine, so I do even more of it when a 250k Euro asset is concerned.
And so it started:
The broker seemed like he didn’t care at all.
Weeks/Months without answers. Incorrect information. Brisk one sentence emails etc.. „server error“, „come view anytime it is 100% perfect“ and the more than a month without reply concerning dates etc..
By other channels I got through to a very friendly employee of the owner (who’s job is not related to the for sale plane) and he helped as good as he could.
I was already organizing a prebuy (several thousand Euro with travel expenses etc..) but the maintenance organization told me that without pre-viewing all the paperwork they would waste a lot of time on location.
In the end, anything that starts with wasting money which could easily be avoided (by scanning the logs and pdf-ing them to me) will never be a proper business case.
And I had people with money that were interested in the project, but I didn’t want to risk anything when a purchase process starts in such unprofessional conduct.
Brisk one sentence emails etc.. „server error“, „come view anytime it is 100% perfect“ and the more than a month without reply concerning dates etc..
Yet another illiterate person.
In the old days, the wide boys did their dealing face to face. Now they are forced to do it electronically and they hate it.
Walk away.
Well, one could try to contact the seller directly. In your case, why could you not talk to the seller himself?
Peter wrote:
why could you not talk to the seller himself?
I found out who the owner is.
Then I used ceo/firstname.lastname/etc.. @companyname.abc to email directly.
Soon after, an employee of the company called me: “Hi, I am supposed to contact you…”.
This guy was very friendly but his job at that company wasn’t selling this plane, so he had other things to do.
Some things he could answer, others he referred me to the broker (adding he knows that they are probably not doing their jobs well).
Through various contacts I got a hold of a Cessna expert who has a CAMO and agreed to do a prebuy. He did ask beforehand for the current maintenance program, engine paperwork and if the location/hangar of the plane would be equipped with and if he’d be allowed to use the tools necessary for the prebuy and engine boroscoping.
Last contact was “I’ll scan the docs and get back to you after easter”.
Anyway, I feel pity for the owner of the plane, he could have easily sold the plane by now were it not for this “broker”.
I bought both of my airplanes sight unseen online after a few beers.
It has worked out remarkably well!
I just sold one of my planes. After endless calls from unqualified dreamers, buyers showed up, gave the plane a quick look over without any attention paid to the maintenance logs or other records (!), called their bank to arrange a wire transfer, and that was that. They didn’t even know what paperwork they’d need completed to register the plane.
After three days of ownership the pilot (a 20K hour major airline captain) put the plane on its back, reversing over 70 years of TLC by previous owners, one tenth of which was spent doing a ground up restoration. It’s not just low fidelity sellers who can be clueless and frustrating. It’s a fair fraction of people in general, in any open market buying or selling situation. In this case, for me, the only thing worse than the experience selling this plane on the open market has been taking a pet to to be put to sleep.
BTW, Barnstormers appears to be by far the most active site for buying and selling in the US. I’m hoping to have no need to use it any time soon… Mostly I buy things to keep and improve, the process of trading either way is a very occasional negative side effect 
Katamarino wrote:
I bought both of my airplanes sight unseen online after a few beers.
I’ll keep that in mind :)
Snoopy wrote:
I’ll keep that in mind :)
Results may vary :-)
Snoopy wrote:
Anyway, I feel pity for the owner of the plane, he could have easily sold the plane by now were it not for this “broker”.
Well, if you contacted the owner and he did not want or was not able to help then there is nothing to feel pity about, he should change the broker or get of his backside and talk to you if you are already taking the trouble locating him.
It amazes me how brokers can act like that. After all, no sale, no money.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It amazes me how brokers can act like that. After all, no sale, no money.
Well, it depends what you are after.
If you are looking for a unique airplane (and that 207 seemed like it) then you can set some of the rules of the game but not all.
Sometimes the broker is busy making money elsewhere and needs some motivation to ‘waste’ time with a buyer that he has little faith will make him money. I cant justify that attitude, I am just saying it happens.
While you run the risk of looking too motivated to negotiate, my only way forwards on a situation like this is to take some risk in a stepped way. Zero risk is not possible.
Perhaps you could buy a cheap airline ticket, go spend a day scaning the records yourself with your phone cam if required, and even looking at and taking photos of the airplane if colocated, effectively doing the broker’s job for him, then get your CAMO evaluate the records, try to get most of the answers there with little broker involvement, and if satis, go and inspect the aircraft.
In the end, what you are after is the right airplane at the right price, not necessarily the right type of salesman/broker. Of course it is easier if you satisfy the latter, but if you do a proper due diligence and have some safeguards for your cash (escrow or otherwise) then it is not necessarily essential. After all the seller (dont know about the broker) seems to be a reputable industry person, so he would not be expected to put his reputation at risk.
For me it was difficult enough to find the right airplane in two continents over six years…had I been that selective on salesmen, I would probably be still looking. Yes, the world is full of crooks but we still have to live in it!
I would try not to lose sight of the overall picture and your target.
