telephone millionaires/flippers

[agtw31]

i see your point,steve.maybe i am just spoiled by people that are serious buyers.

i just cant take seriously anybody that makes an offer over the phone,then has it contingent on receiving pics,after ive sent 20,instead of hiring a professional to inspect the car.

ive had 4 people hire somebody to inspect this car,and one guy flew down from Boston.all were sincere cash offers,and very close to what was an acceptable figure for me.

im glad i dont do this stuff for a living,like some of the guys on this board do.

[olredalert]

------I have been in this business/hobby for a long time and one of the things that has remained a constant all of those years is that pictures NEVER tell the truth. Anyone who doubts the validity of my statement is in for a rude awakening.........Bill S

[nuch_ss396]

[quote.... pictures NEVER tell the truth. .....

[/ QUOTE ]

Bill,

I'd actually like to know exactly why that is. After my
Cobra arrived, and I surveyed the minor paint & sheet metal damage,
I looked over the images again. It was almost impossible to
find the defects in the images with the car right in front
of me.

Steve

[Jeff H]

[ QUOTE ]
------I have been in this business/hobby for a long time and one of the things that has remained a constant all of those years is that pictures NEVER tell the truth. Anyone who doubts the validity of my statement is in for a rude awakening.........Bill S

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with that! I took some pictures of one of my old 88 Toyota 4Runners I had for sale and the lighting was perfect and the pictures came out looking like it was in mint condition! I even had a tree shadow in the perfect spot so you couldn't see the transition from good paint to faded paint. And I didn't even do it on purpose. I had to explain to people that the picture made it look much better than it really was. With that being said, I've bought a couple of cars based on pictures and assumed they weren't as nice as the pictures and I was pleasantly surprised when I got the car.

[Charley Lillard]

Jeff...Didn't you buy that JL8 Z based on pics ?

[Charley Lillard]

Of course he then tore it down to nothing....

[Jeff H]

[ QUOTE ]
Jeff...Didn't you buy that JL8 Z based on pics ?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes I did and I have no complaints. I can honestly say I've bought 3 or 4 cars based on pictures and discussions with the owners and they have turned out to be what I expected or even better than I thought. But pictures usually hide stuff even if you're not trying to hide anything. It's just a lighting and resolution thing. The one car I had where pictures made it worse was the 93 Indy Pace Car. The multi color stripes confused the digital camera and blurred it. But I've found it difficult sometimes to try and get a well detailed picture of a bad area when people asked me to. It takes great lighting, a great camera and the perfect angle to show some stuff.

[budnate]

for what its worth, taking good pics of a car top to bottom dont take that long and put them on photobucket, and then vid the car all the way around and with vids you can show a ding or scratches pretty easy by moving around a little on the spot , then the buyer will see exactly what your refering to or least get a good idea if they want to live with it or factor in fixing it in the deal .

then swing by a shop with a lift and do some vids underneath the car and that only takes a hour plus at the same time I do a few driving vids. do this and life becomes way easier selling, basically cover everything you would want to see on a car you are buying...... then you dont get 500 questions, they can tell pretty much what you have and a good phone conversation will make the deal happen, people who go at it half ass or dont want to talk by phone have trouble selling there stuff, its a techno world now, roll with it man.

fact is seams like we dont sell our stuff locally anymore we all trade back and forth across the country, so long distance deals are pretty much the norm anymore.

[Xplantdad]

Couldn't agree with you more, Bud! If you don't want to make the effort to sell the car...then don't sell it!

Doing the videos and putting it up on the lift are great ideas... And fairly easy to accomplish

[SuperNovaSS]

Let's keep in mind that people lie just as much as pictures do. If you advertise a car on the internet for a price that is not a give away, I would expect to take 100s of pictures of the car. This is so the potential buyer has an idea of what they will be looking at before buying a plane ticket or hiring a inspector. If you do not want to put up with the hassle then I suggest advertising locally. Even when advertising close to home you will get jacked around. It goes with the territory. I remember someone here saying recently that they cancelled looking at a 68 Firebird because it was sitting in wet gravel and they did not want to get dirty. Now that is jerking a seller around.

Jason