“I was wondering what the average time it takes to sell a used car? I realize this will vary but I have never sold a car before. I am selling my 2001 VW Passat. The car I’m selling is silver and loaded with black leather interior, sunroof, 6 CD changer, premium sound system, power everything. It has 89K miles on it. I have service records of engine cleaning, synthetic oil changes. I even put new shocks, struts, tires, and brakes on in the past 6 months. I am advertising in my local paper and craigslist. How long should it take to sell this car? It’s been two weeks and I’ve only had one call so far. I have a minimum price I would like to get. I’d like to keep the interest local, so I don’t want to advertise outside my area. Can you please help?”

A reader submitted the question above about the average time it takes to sell a used car…

I have no idea what you are trying to sell this car for and don’t know how you arrived at the selling price, but it sounds like maybe your selling price might be too high based on the fact that you are having a hard time selling it. Lower the price some and see if you get more calls. Oh and make sure your ad has the asking price in it too. Seems obvious but many people run ‘Car For Sale’ ads and don’t put the asking price in the ad, or they will just put something like “best offer.” Don’t do that. Put a selling price in your ads always!

But to answer your question about the average time to sell a car; well, my answer is that it depends on a whole lot of factors. Sometimes if the car is in demand, and the price is right, and the planets are in alignment, then you can sell a car within hours after advertising it. I personally have sold a used car in as little as 45 minutes after putting it up for sale, but I’ve also spent as long as two weeks. I can tell you that holidays are terrible times to sell a car because people are busy doing other things.

Your local newspaper might be okay to advertise in and Craigslist is good too. I suggest you also advertise it in Kijiji.com and Backpage.com. Those two are very similar to Craigslist. You need nice photos of your car to put in the online ads too. Since the free online ads have no limit on how long your description is, then be sure to blab away on how great your car is. Tell them about how great it drives and all the recent new stuff you’ve put on it. Really SELL them on how cool your car is!

If you have a good place to park your car with BIG ‘For Sale’ signs on it that gets lots of traffic, then do that too. Be sure to put a price on your sign and a tear-off sheet with lots of your phone numbers on it.

I don’t understand why you want to “keep the interest local” though. Who cares where they come from as long as they have the cash man. Right? Right! Why don’t you put up an auction with a reserve in eBay? It would help a lot if you already have an eBay account with lots of ONLY positive feedback too. eBay can be national and you could even include Canada too. You would be amazed at how far people will travel to buy your car.

The key is to increase your exposure, so do ALL that stuff I just mentioned and you should find that you can sell a used car fast…and for the price you are looking for too.