I SOLD THE 2006 X3 yesterday. Cash. For the asking price. Without a test drive.

I met up with the couple that bought the car. They said, “We have the money if you have the title.” I offered a test drive, and the woman half of the couple said, “You drove it here.” The easiest car sale ever.

We have sold three cars via CraigsList in the last several years with great success. Here’s what I did this time:

Pricing. I looked for the same model car on several used car sites, filtering for total mileage just on either side of my car. I found 26, which I put into a spreadsheet and averaged prices and miles and calculated my car’s price accordingly. Twenty-six people selling a BMW X3 in the SE United States can’t all be crazy on pricing, so I figured that was a good exercise in crowd sourcing. I assumed the asking prices had some negotiating room built in. I read a used car selling guide once that made the claim ending prices with $~75 looks much more like a real person that a dealer pricing at $~99, so the price became $5,975.

Pictures. I’m an avid photographer, so wasn’t concerned about taking pictures until the Nikon DSLR seemed to have died and then the battery died on the Canon camcorder I used in still shot mode. So, most of the pictures ended up being from an iPhone. Not the best tool for the job – but it obviously didn’t hurt things! I had googled for tips on pictures for selling used cars, and only one thing popped up that was new and intriguing. The suggestion was to photograph the dash by moving the front seats back and fully reclining them. I thought that picture worked out rather sell, despite being shot with the phone.

Text. I followed all the tips in articles I found about writing effective used car ads. That seemed to have worked, too. I suspect that people believe if you are honest about the flaws then you must be telling the truth about the rest.

Timing. I posted the ad on Friday night, having kept the weekend pretty free. The idea being I don’t have to spend week days dealing with people who won’t come look until the weekend anyway. (This has worked three times now!) Then, I can see a lot of people who saw a brand new ad.

I’ve shared the story before about the “Gretel” name. I bought a 2015 BMW X1 in January, so I’ve wanted to sell Gretel since then. I’ve been calling the X1 Helga to avoid confusion, but with the departure of Gretel 2.0 yesterday, Helga gets elevated to her reginal name of Gretel. Is that 3.0 or maybe “just” 2.x-something since this car is also an X-drive vehicle? Thoughts?

Gretel is gone. Long live Gretel.

PS I bought Gretel 3-1/2 years ago for $7,000. I’m pleased!