I am the new person on this forum and a few days ago I was the one who posted pictures of "my new 1998 Carerra S" in a new thread. Many people asked me how I found the car. Some asked me what I paid. Those details seemed to surprise people so I'ved decided to shed some more light on my tactics via a new thread. I have no idea if this is useless information, redundant or really interesting. As I said early, I'm a new member here. So, with that caveat, here's my story:

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Hey everyone. So it seems there is a little interest in my story. Maybe I'll post a new thread on this topic. For now, here's what I'll tell you.

My car has 72,258 miles. I paid $31,000 even for this original 1998 Carerra S. It has never been repainted. It has never been in a wreck.

I bought the car from a private owner in Minnesota. I live in Seattle.

I work in the software industry. I basically noticed that eBay and Craigslist are marketplaces that are far too efficient so there aren't very good deals to be had there. UNLESS, you can monitor them very, very closely. Along with every other outlet for buying one of these cars.

I developed some crawlers that return every entry anywhere in the world to my desktop each morning. The crawlers look for the exact years, models, makes, keywords, acceptable prices etc that I was targeting. In this case, it was the very last air cooled 911 (1998). I then coupled that approach with patience. I was willing to wait quite awhile to find the right car. I knew very well I could write a big check and get exactly the right car if I was willing to pay a premium. But, that didn't feel like good car shopping to me.

I parsed through many results over the course of 4 months. I found this car in Minnesota. It was NOT on Craigslist. Once my crawlers did their job it was up to me.

I realize that some of you probably do the same thing with something like Google Alerts and I also used that as part of my process. It works ok but is not exacting and it misses a lot of stuff. The crawlers I use are part of our "listening strategy" that I use to keep up with competitors. Thus, I can't say too much more than that. All I can tell you is that it is my belief that a human being cannot efficiently track all the deals out there by hand.

I hope this sheds some light on my story. As I said, I may post this as a separate thread as others may be interested in new ways to find great deals.

Kelly

 

There's a business plan there for a subscription based service you know....

 

+2

 

Nice. Thanks for sharing (both the pix and your efforts). Great fund, perfect color.

 

What was to forum or classified that you actually found the car in via your search?

 

I don't really understand what you're talking about in your post about crawlers because I'm not in the software business but I'm glad you found exactly what you want for a good price.

I did do exactly what you said most people do and found my car with no problem after 3-4 months of looking through a standard classified ad on autotrader, at exactly the price point I could afford (low!).

Cheers,
Steve R

 

There is a business plan for this right now. PM me and we could reach a reasonable paypal fee I could send you for your "crawler". I have been shopping for many months now. I'm patient, but becoming less so. I am looking for something very special, so this would be particularly useful to me :-)

 

Great deal, congratulations!

So, I get the SW you used to find it... I am sure you realize there is still a lot of luck in a deal like this.
You can find cars but finding an owner this far out of touch with it's value is pretty exceptional.
It does happen, just a rarity to find "the car" in the hands of a seller who uses Bluebook to set the price.

 

Kelly, congrats on a beautiful car and a great deal. I agree with your crawler search system being a very useful and valuable tool. PMing you as well.

 

that selling price is not too far out of line... I'll just add this car to the on-going list of mid-high mileage WB's selling in the low-mid $30K range.

There continue to be many WB's in that mileage range in the high $30K, and low...even mid $40K range also. I have sifted thru many, to find dirty Carfax's, no records-or BIG gaps anyway, as well as paint work.

I've said it before, these cars sell fast when priced right. I've been looking at many of the same cars multiple times daily for months. The higher priced one's, even with mileage in the 40-50K range are still available.

Personally, since I'm shopping..I'd like to think it's becoming more the rule, than the exception.

 

Thanks for sharing. Great post to assist those in the hunt, which can, depending on the person be a lot of fun or a Royal PITA.

Also relied on a search query during my searches, but limited it to USA sources. Current car was listed as a high mile '97 WB, advertised in low budget community newspaper.

Was pleased the seller was only a 20 minute ride from my house. Twenty five minutes later we shook on a deal; of the three WB cars that I've bought, Rennlist provided the first opportunity, Ebay the second and the community newspaper the third.

 

Yes, where was it excaclty? An obscure PCA chapter site or something?

Seriously, I think you should buy another, flip the one you like least, and repeat the process over and over until you tire of it. Sounds like fairly easy money...

 

It ain't easy money. Take my car for example. Changed hands twice in 14 month. Great states of OH and MA got about $3,300 in taxes. That's about all the profit that one could have had dreamed of, 15% or so.

 

^^Only register one "keeper" at the end of the process^^

 

But this car has 72K miles?

That puts this car in line with what you have seen, right?
The transactions I have heard match what you said above... that makes this car $8K+ less. Not bad!

BTW, I cannot wait to see what you end up with... I am vicariously enjoying your hunt