Hello,
I will soon be out in the market for my first Porsche and wondering if you could advice me on how reliable the sellers' asking prices tend to be? Is there normally room for negotiation and if so, by how much %-wise? Do I need to be incredibly well informed if I am to bid below the asked price? I'm asking because I'm trying to determine what my budget can tolerate. For information, I will likely be purchasing in Germany or elsewhere in Northern Europe, and the cars I'm looking at are 997.2 2/4S and GTS.

Thanks

 

Check the market to see what they are going for. Here in the U.S, you can offer what you can afford. They can either accept or decline. If it's a rare build like a GTS in manual, there is very little wiggle room as it'll sell.

 

Most people will accept approximately 10% less than what they are asking. So offer at least 15% less... which leaves some room to negotiate. If you offer 10% less, you will probably do no better than 5% less.

 

Unfortunately it depends on the seller. Sometimes there is no room to negotiate like in my case. The car was priced below what it probably should have been so I put a down payment within hours of them posting it online. When I went to pick it up in California and drive it back to Texas the guy said he had received so many calls about the car and people wanting to buy it sight unseen, but thankfully he was a man of his word and held it for me until a proper PPI could take place and I could fly out to get it. Good cars sell themselves.

 

One point to consider relative to the negotiations is the importance of knowing the maintenance and repair history of the car. A purchase price that may initially seem like a bargain can shift quickly into negative territory if the car has a laundry list of past-due maintenance. Maintenance is expensive - even if you do some of it yourself.

Knowing what the car may need puts you into a much better position to understand your overall initial cost to acquire the car and make it right from the outset.

 

Tough question. There are cultural issues that make this difficult to answer.

In the US, the best advice is to know what you're buying and decide what it is worth to you before you even start to negotiate. Americans haggle, but nowhere near as much as some other cultures. In the US, it is expected with many products (including cars) that the seller will come down in price a little bit. Used Porsches are not immune to this. Some sellers need to sell, some don't. I bought my car used from a dealership and paid about 8-9% below their advertised price.

I have no idea how Germans feel about haggling. Have you bought a used car before?

 

If you are buying from a dealer, never tell them you are paying cash until the the deal is done. In the USA, dealers make a lot on finance charges. They are a lot harder to deal with when they know they won't be getting that money.

 

If you are buying from a dealer, never tell them you are paying cash until the the deal is done. In fact sometime you can get a better price if you finance, then simply pay off loan, just compare discount with any loan costs.