Quote:
Originally Posted by Northendzone
Need some opinion on wether I was a tool in this situation.
Listed my current daily driver on auto trader and Kijiji. After some limited initial interest, I lowered the price.
Had a guy drive about an hour to look at it yesterday and we agree to a price and have a handshake deal. Early this afternoon, I get a message, from some guy saying he is in town looking at a vehicle, and he would not mind taking a look at my vehicle.
After a test drive and some tire kicking, he makes me a cash offer, which I accept.
Was I acting in poor faith to the first guy? He did not leave a deposit, and he had a few things he wanted to check out with respect to my vehicle.
Both the first offer and the sale price were the same - so no low balling.
I did not expect the sale to go this way, and it was first time selling privately.
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I played the 'good guy' twice trying to sell my car 3-4 years ago. Twice I verbally accepted an offer, let them go home without a deposit and found myself turning down one or two offers each time before I realized too late that I put far more weight into that offer than they did. Only one of them even answered back that they bought another car and were no longer interested. The guy that eventually bought the car left without a deposit, but I told him it's his 'as long as someone else doesn't buy it before he returns'. Basically, you're only agreeing that "I'll sell you the car for this price, when I see it".
Edit: Hell, that's not even something all buyers like abiding to themselves. Selling the car before that one, I remember agreeing to the price... and the guy showed up with less money to negotiate even further.
If you'd sent him an email or something to let him know that the offer passed, that's more than he might've been willing to even extend to you. They run the risk of someone swooping in and accepting their own risk of not doing the same due diligence. Cash in hand is very powerful for that reason: they are putting money forward at risk that they misjudged how truthful you are. I now view it as rewarding the people who trusted that I was a forward guy, or at the very least came prepared to immediately lift the burden off my shoulders of selling a car.