Have to admit selling mine last year was relatively straight forward – here are examples of several people who lets say were interested
- airbus pilot who drove 3 hours for a test flight – seemed highly motivated – 2 weeks later asked me to fly it to a nearby airfield for an inspection – that was ok but in the meantime I had a deposit from a buyer
- 2 people who phoned and texted said they would arrive that week to inspect the plan and then never arrived.
- another interested buyer who said he would send a mechanic to do an inspection – by the time he had a mechanic it was too late plane already sold
- finally the real buyer who bought it full price sight unseen on the recommendation of my former mechanic – paid a deposit, then full price and my expenses to fly it to him (4 hour flight) -
All of them were very nice poeple to deal with – nice to talk with and seemed highly motivated buyers – but as you can see it takes all sorts and the selling experience is never the same – given the highly illiquid market for planes and specifically the plane you want in europe – I would advise – have your mechanic ready to go and your cash – when the right plane appears move quickly
I am brokering from Belgium. Sold 6 airplanes for 6 happy buyers and sellers last 18months. The market is very hot now.
See:
Pro.abeam.be
I currently have a TB20, a SR22 share and soon two C172 for sale.
My main passtime is to weed real buyers from less real buyers and scammers. You hear the scammers coming from far away: they want to buy immediately without asking questions or negotiate price. They call with a “southern” accent on a normal cell phone number using a fake local name. They want to meet somewhere public and pay immediately. You get rid of them by saying that you only work with bank transfer and that I am a professional broker.
I provide the same info to real buyers and less real buyers. The difference comes out in their willingness to travel over to visit the aircraft. I dont mind them doing a prebuy or arrange a test flight.
aidanf123 wrote:
Have to admit selling mine last year was relatively straight forward
A good M20J seems to be a high-demand aircraft. They never last long on Planecheck. May have to get rid of mine if my home base doesn’t re-open as the only other viable options are only 600 m strips :-(
I’m not sure the definition of Tire Kicker is one who asks a lot of questions and then doesn’t buy.
I’d define a TK as one who never intends to buy abut go just to look at the machine they can’t own.
Often, it is individuals who don’t have the means, but somehow try to convince themselves, or get you (the seller) to convince them to make a financial mistake, or to take $0 for your valuable item.
I’ve been to several aircraft, flown them, asked questions, and in the end said no. Every time the individual was angry and felt I wasted their time.
However, all aircraft had issues: one had been in a (minor) flood, which took me looking through logbooks to discover (should have told me up front).
In another, the flight stick came off in my hand on takefoff (yep, experimental). Thankfully, there are two sticks and two pilots, or I might not be writing this right now…
The third was the worst aircraft I’ve ever seen. The prop was worn like a lawnmower blade (literally), and the instrument panel was missing (required) instruments, with others “not working” but no INOP lettering.
The guy was really young, and very friendly, but had absolutely no clue. His mechanic (local yokel) was telling him everything was great, no problem. The aircraft was in such disrepair, I refused to fly in it.
I’ve never felt so insecure in an aircraft, and warned him as gently as I could.
It reminded me of an old farm truck… it runs, but you need to jiggle something every time to make it work.
In any case, I own a plane, and it was with an owner who was very up front with good communication through the whole process.
I spent about $10k in the search process — doing what was labeled “Tire Kicking” but really wasn’t…
I’d expect cowlings and inspection off at inspection. At the values I can afford, no more tools would be invived than a screwdriver.
AF wrote:
I’m not sure the definition of Tire Kicker is one who asks a lot of questions and then doesn’t buy.
Was I a Tire-Kicker?
Well, back in 2010, I was looking at buying an aeroplane. I made alot of phone calls & sent a multitude of Emails. I spent money going to see 4 aeroplanes across Europe. One here in France, Two in Hungary and One in Switzerland. The type in question was ex-military and this was during the year it became clear JAA was to be replaced by EASA and it wasnt clear how the aeroplane would be maintained on what registration for best utility etc. I spent alot of effort trying to get info from various CAAs. In the end I never bought an aeroplane at all. Looking back now I should have bought one of the Hungarian aeroplanes.
Regards, SD..
Its so nice to see this topic, as I was beginning to think that the issue is perhaps in me for not being able to purchase an aircraft for more than a year now of active searching (and I am probably a person with the widest range of types, anywhere from Arrow II/IV to A36 to SR20/22)
At first I started communication without discussing the price, but I would look into documentation, get an overview of everything in detail and then make an offer. I would give a very fair offer based on the condition and (sometimes serious) issues. I was writing here on my offer on A36 from last year, the guy sells an aircraft which hasn’t flown for years, engine due for overhaul more than 6 years back, accident history – prop strike, no maintenance history (he ‘maintained’ it himself), instrument panel not updated since 1945 etc. and on top of all that he is asking a price like an aircraft is in a mint condition ready to fly with modern avionics. I wasted a lot of time and money (had a mechanic over twice). He doesn’t accept my offer and the aircraft is still on PlaneCheck, still asking for the same price for over a year now.
Then I would send a bunch of email inquiries and receive no response, or talk on the phone with the seller/broker and they would not follow up, or straight not answer questions.
Then I changed my strategy, I would look up the aircraft find about its condition, google any accident history etc. and give an offer straight up in the first email to see if the seller would even consider it without me wasting time on mechanics and asking friends for favors to go through the documentation. I had a situation where I gave substantially lower price but with a very clear explanation (used in flight school, accident history, overhaul due next year etc.) the guy gets in a conversation with me, telling me all about the aircraft, we agree that I would come and inspect the aircraft, if all checks out I wire the money right there and fly back with it. At that moment, the seller tells me that he is firm on the price and that he can’t go anywhere near the price I initially offered – that is after I spent two weeks researching the aircraft, paying for a mechanic to go over the documentation, paying for the lawyers to draft up the contract and all that.
Then a few months ago in this whole covid thing I find an aircraft in EU, everything checks out, price is agreed, but I can not physically travel to the country because of the travel bans, but the guy can travel to my country without any issues. I offer him 3000 euros in advance(expenses/market price for flight hour, both ways + 1000 euros on top + hotel/airtickets) for him to bring the aricraft for inspection here, if it all checks out I wire him the money he leaves the plane here. If I don’t purchase the aircraft he basically got all expenses paid euro trip + 1000 eur profit, and I am out of 3000 euros + hotel fees. He doesn’t accept the deal even though it’s risk free for him, and it got me thinking that the reason is because there is something to hide that he would try to do perhaps better in his home base.
The whole market seems sketchy and shady af, and as it seems I will probably and up buying blindly some piece of crap, as doing it any other way just doesn’t seem probable that I’ll ever purchase anything.
dvukovic wrote:
He doesn’t accept the deal even though it’s risk free for him, and it got me thinking that the reason is because there is something to hide that he would try to do perhaps better in his home ba
Might also be a more simple lack of trust. There have been many reports (true or not…) about people receiving very attractive offers for their cars from “Eastern Europe” also promising a lot and then they were ripped of when they got there (according to some reports even physically threatened).
Perhaps your offer was regarded just “too good to be true”, unfortunately …
Peter wrote:
What % of piston GA uses an escrow agent? I’ve almost never heard of it, in Europe, for pistons. Maybe for jets, etc. The escrow agent has no means of checking that the plane is as described.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought an aeroplane without using escrow, but it’s true to say the majority of deals I have done have been for turbine types our business.
It’s really easy, not expensive, and protects all parties
It is important to establish good personal rapport between the prospective buyer and the seller and/or broker. Deals are about a lot of money and typically cross cultural boundaries: there are a lot of reasons to distrust one-another. On top: selling and buying are always emotional decisions. Aircraft are typically old and carry a lot of history. It’s normal for an airplane to have had accidents, being used for training, having gone through periods of leaving outside etc. Buyers seems to have unrealistic expectation of virgin aircraft and even when they find a virgin, it’s such a rare occasion that they often mistrust it.
Also, buyers tend to have irrealistic value ideas, soaked into a sauce that they are not yet really into selling. Others haven’t flown for five years becoz of medical or age issues that they once expected to magically cure from.
It’s a curious and interesting market. If everyone would just be a tad more realistic about it all, we wouldn’t have this conversation ;-)
And then there is the idiotic scamming …
