HardHitter

So as some of you know, I'm in the market for a well put together 996 Turbo or a higher mileage 997. I've searched locally through Craigslist and through Autotrader to come up with a population of cars which I would be interested in. I know it is hard to really figure "is it worth the money" but what I've done is calculated a "cost per mile" based upon their asking price and the MSRP of the build if VIN number is present.

From there, you could "visually" see how each car compares to the other to see if it'd be a "good deal" As an overall disclaimer, this cost does not take into consideration non-valuable items such as history of ownership, maintenance done, etc. It is really on you as a buyer to have a confidence in the car you're buying to ensure that you just don't buy the "cheapest" one and then all of a sudden figuring out you need to put $20K into it because the previous owner didn't take care of it. Note that I have X's on cars where there are aftermarket mods which could play a factor into the higher cost per mile, but in the end, understand you will not get your money back from mods and the price theoretically should not take that into account from the seller when pricing.

Thought I'd show you guys in the attached picture of the population I have so far.

Dock

Are you going to use data like that to help you decide what car to eventually buy?

HardHitter

Ideally, yes. I'm hoping that over the next couple months, I can build this out so one can really get a "feel" for what a specific car goes for that way I know which ones to "focus" on if I want to give my attention to it.

For example, by looking at my limited population for a standard turbo, one would likely throw out the $65,555 car if they were looking for a lower mileage car, because there are two lower mileage cars, one all stock, one with similar modifications, asking less.

Again, in the end, one should not rely solely on this, but I'm hoping this will help myself and others know what the market is for certain cars with certain miles and mods.

Dock

Good luck with that approach.

I personally think that there are other factors outside those metrics that could swing the decision. For example, my 996 Turbo, although not for sale (I'll never sell it as a matter of fact), is Polar Silver, has Porsche's X73 suspension (can't buy it new any longer), has the sunroff delete option, is in very good condition, has been very well maintained, and it's never been tracked. I would personally bump my asking price quite a bit just because of these things. So with my opther mods and my current mileage, my car would probably anchor the high end asking price for an '02 996 Turbo. If I were selling it, I'd wait until someone came along who valued what my car represents and was willing to pay for that perceived value. If it didn't sell at close to my asking price, then so be it; I wouldn't sell it.

HardHitter

I agree with you which is why I have that disclaimer in my post that you need to take into consideration everything. These "numbers" are just going to tell you 1/4 of the story. Again, I would pay a premium for a car that is well documented and I can tell the owner took care of the car meticulously vs a cheaper car which the owner knew no history about.

Dock

It depends on what the $65k car has to offer.

I think it's obvious that if two cars are essentially equal in terms of what the buyer is looking for, then buying the lower priced car would be a no brainer.

HardHitter

For your wondering, this is the $65K car. But I just noticed, in his actual details, he is listing it for $55.5 so I've updated it.

http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-s...modelCode1=911

I've also updated Car # as a unique identifier so people can make references to the table

Jymmybob

The best way to get a foundation is to try to find recent actual sales prices then scatter plot them. The cost per mile won't help find a target price since you're using price in the equation. Given enough data you'll be able to model a curve to fit the data with mileage, significant mods (yes/no), and general condition, maybe even color. Those need to be modifiers for a baseline car value, just like how bluebook, Edmunds, etc do value estimations.

HardHitter

Agreed, this is just a "quick and dirty" way for me to understand where the prices are sitting for these cars.

Unless you can point me to a place that contains sold prices (other than eBay), this is what I have to go on for the time being.

BioBanker

I tried an analytical approach when I bought too and it worked well.

What I did was list 4 or 5 factors that I valued, color, price, mods, mileage, etc... and weighted each factor for degree of importance.

I then rated each car on a scale of 1 to 10 for each factor and I matrixed the hell out of each car I cared about.

It it was a good way to keep track of cars and it also captured the gut feel thats important.

Good of luck with your search!

Colorado964turbo

Wow.

techweenie

I did something similar, but I "weighted" wanna-haves, so that instead of $ per mile, it was a number range based on how I valued the features and mods. And then ultimately, I bought a car with no "pluses" of any sort and a couple negatives (and I'm super happy with the result).

So yeah, do all the analytical stuff, but listen to your gut.

Dock

"Weighted wannna-haves"...IMO, that's the way to do it.

Alan A

You could have cut that down to:

"I would personally bump my asking price quite a bit just because"

All sellers do. Doesn't matter what's on there, they still think it's rare and therefore worth more than average.

The question is whether you can find someone that wants what you have at your price, or whether you can find someone that wants what you have and is willing to pay a price you can live with.

This isn't meant as a personal thing. It's just that every seller I've ever come across for anything, unless they desperately need cash thinks what they have is better than average.

As a buyer, a weighted approach based on the factors that mean the most to you makes sense. OTOH I wanted a green car with an m/t. Nothing else pretty much mattered, so my weight was skewed. I paid a little more than I should have because of this.

Dock

It's a matter of whether or not a seller's 996 Turbo has one or more "wanna haves" that a potential buyer is looking for. Two 996 Turbos can be exactly the same in terms of the tune, exhaust, brakes, etc (as listed by the OP), but because one may have one or more "rare" items (color in your case), the asking price could be substantially different, making it appear in a matrix as a car where the owner is out of line with some notional "standard".

I personally don't think that buying a 996 Turbo is a very analytical "forumula based" process based on something like cost/mile (or cost per anything). A large number of Corvette owners I've conversed with use objective data as the basis for their Vette buying decision. They have many times opined "Why would anyone pay substantially more for a 996 Turbo when it's 0-60 and quarter mile times aren't as good as a ZO6?". They use objective stopwatch data (straight line acceleration and track times), as their "formula" for deciding what sports car to buy. Obviously it's their choice to make, but I would always tell them that for some people there is a substantial amount of subjectiveness involved with deciding what sports car to buy.