Bottom line, and unfortunately, there is no trusting anyone, anytime these days. Shitty how so many people have evolved to this state , but it's reality. That said, not everyone is a crook or dishonest, but how do you know? Don't judge the book (buyer) by it's cover. That's a great way to get financially harmed.

With that in mind, as a seller, I would offer to ride the bike in the presence of a perspective buyer, demonstrating it in every way, but his *** won't ride it until he owns it. The liability issues and potential life-disrupting hassel in the event things go wrong,regardless of whether or not it's insured, is irrelevant to me and is something that I will always avoid by allowing no test rides.

So if he has to ride it to buy it, then he won't buy my bike. Plain and simple.

Offer to meet the perspective buyer at a neutral location, not your home. You don't want some Craigslist dick casing your property. If you have a friend that has time to go (in his cage) with you for the meeting, then take him along for security and back-up. Extreme maybe, but remember the kind of drug-crazed society we live in today. Plus you may need a ride back home if you ride on to the bank and seal the deal. And remember that most perspective buyers come with a "friend".

Speaking of sealing the deal, I accept verified cash or bank transfers. All of this would transpire at the bank or CU. No bike til the funds are verified in my account. I then complete a bill of sale, remove my tag, and then sign over the title to the new owner. I also require a copy of his driver's license. If he objects to any of this, then his *** can walk away.

Without some kind of deposit, I never "hold" a bike for anyone. The first buyer with the means to get the funds into my account gets the bike. So be prepared for the "can you hold it for me" question.

You may be lucky and get an honest buyer with the financial resources to provide for a smooth transaction, at least I hope you do. Best of luck on the sale of your bike.

 

I have bought and sold a lot of used bikes over the years and I find that most buyers and sellers way over think it. The buyers of my last five bikes didn't do a test ride before they made their decision to buy it because I gave a good enough description of the bike in the ad for them to decide if they wanted to buy before they even called. Yet, my ads are shorter than most because I've learned to give only what a buyer wants to see to quit searching.

I would like to take this opportunity to give some ad etiquette suggestions that give buyers enough information they need to consider your bike without your ad being insulting or condescending.

Many sellers spend 2/3s of their ad explaining who can and can't buy or consider your bike when just few simple strait forward words get to the same point. For example:

"Cash Only" tells scammers to pass on this ad because they don't deal with person to person deals. I used to say "scamers pay cash" for my own entertainment, but most buyers aren't looking to be entertained.

"Cash on hand for test ride" tells the reader several things like serious inquires only and no free rides for those sellers who have such a fear. I am amazed at the paragraphs of words sellers put in their ad to mean what these five simple words say without insulting the reader.

"No Free Rides". Come on folks, how many times has someone come over to test ride your bike without the intention of buying? Leave it out.

"Cash only, no trades" mean just that. But my personal advise is to consider trades because you would be surprise what folks may want to get out to make room in their garage. I just passed up a really really good deal on a 4 wheeler. The seller was leaving town for a new job in a few days and needed to just get rid of it. He was giving it away. You DON'T need to say you will "consider trades", because that will attract a lot of unwanted calls of people who search for those words to tade their junk, but just don't say "no trades".

"Cash only, firm" means serious enquiries only. What is a "low ball" offer anyway? I rarely consider a bike at the advertised price, so I tend to ignore "No Low Ball" ads because who knows what they consider low ball. If you don't want to negotiate, "Firm" makes that point without further explination. If you want to allow some negotiation (I always do), then is it really so hard to listen to an offer? You can always say no to the offer like a mature adult and "Cash on hand to test ride" generally sorts out ridiculous low ball offers.

"2013 Harley Roadglide Road Glide RG FLTR 19,500. 12,000 miles."

Strive to make your ad attractive for the eyes, and for the search engines like Craigslist. That ad tells you everything you need to know to consider looking at the details. And it can be found by any search phrase using "Harley", "Harley Davidson", Road Glide, roadglide, RG, and FLTR. I just made a steel of a deal on a Evo because the seller only had "Harley $6500" in his title. I got the bike for A LOT less because nobody responded to that ad for five weeks. Who would, its to much trouble to call and ask what kind of Harley is he selling. I called only because he eventually added "moving this week" to that ad. But anyone using the search engine for the key words "Softail", "Evo", "FXSTC", and "Custom", (like me) missed the ad.

Please Proof Read your ad, you would be surprise how many sellers are tying to sell their "2009 Harley GS" get no responses.

As for the details, the more the better as far as I'm concerned, but remember most people who are looking at your bike already know the basics of a 2012 SG, so don't talk about the engine unless you added mods like Stage 1's and so on. And then list only the mods, don't give your life history of how you were motivated to do the mods.

Stage 1
Chrome Lower Sliders
Chrome Forward Controls.
Tour Pack

You get the point.

"Always list the miles" even if they are high because your bike will still sell if you are asking a fair price. I tend to pass on ads without miles because that tells me the seller is asking too much even in his own mind. And please don't lecture readers about how Harleys are good for 200,000 miles. There are too many low mile bikes just like it. If you want to sell your high mileage bike, sell it for less than the same low miles bike.

IF you want to explain why you are selling the bike, that's OK, but I tend to hold that for buyers willing to ask. I like to keep my ad to the point.

"Never Been Dropped", "Always Garaged", "Never Wrecked", "Never rode in the Rain" LOL, ddoesn't hurt your ad if you keep it to one short phrase. But if the pictures look good, they may not help much either.

"Always Serviced by Local Harley Dealership" is something that helps an ad because the buyer can call the dealer. I always do. But if the price is right, you don't have to have it. If you do your own work, don't say anything. Again, the right price will sell anything.

Pictures, at least four good pictures taken at seat level that show all sides of the bike. Please take the bike out of the garage so we don't get distracted with the junk in the way and take each picture with the sun or light shining on the bike at the angle you are showing. You can show the mileage on the speedometer, but the ad title says it already, so don't waste the shot unless you are showing off some chrome of something. Take a picture of any dent or ding to make the ad fair. Or at least let the buyer know that their is some of the typical road dings for this mileage or age. I can hardly complain about a few scratches on my 15 year old Evo now.

Know your market, I don't care what Blue Book says. I have bought three bikes in the last year for well below Blue Book because the economy doesn't match the blue Book rates. And I sold my last three bikes when others are still trying to sell theirs months later because I was $1000 less. I made up that $1000 with the cash to jump quick on a good deal. Spend a little time studying ads to find what folks are asking and note how long those ad have been out there. Be realistic if you really want to sell the bike.

The interesting thing about Harleys is that they have a high low-end value no mater the year. A 1975 Sporty is about the same value as a 10 year old Sporty. Most Harley fall into that situation. Only the Gold Wing seems to have that distinction among most metrics.

Now we Harley owners love our bikes and we love to personalize them with lots of mods, but rare is the modded up bike sold for more than Blue Book value. Trust me, heavily modded bikes generally don't sell for more than the plain Jane bike because taste is in the eye of the beholder. Mods don't ad value unless you find the one guy, which doesn't happen. That is why CVOs hold their value so well. I'm watching three highly modded Harley ads asking half the price they starting out with several months ago. All three will be lucky to get whole sale value because they are just crazy.

These are a few of the basics I have found work for selling bikes. Yes, we get hung up on test rides. But as I said, if you write your ad correctly, they will not need to test ride the bike to make an offer before even seeing the bike. At that point, they don't mind handing over the money to test ride the bike because they are already buying in their mind.

Hope this helps

Beary

 

This is probably the best thing I have ever read on any sort of forum, ever. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Beary.

 

With all of the knowledge you have on writing a proper craigslist add, you could charge people for writing theirs. Kinda like a resume writing firm.

Hey you're not Craig from craigslist are you?

Lol

 

The last bike I bought I had already negotiated the price before i arrived. I also had it insured (I had no idea you could insure a bike you didn't own) so there wasn't any issue with test riding it. Go with your gut on the test ride. Personally, if you won't let me ride it, I assume you're hiding something. I'm also not going to tell a stranger I'm bringing a bag full of cash to his house.

 

I buy and sell older HD's . At some point it starts with a phone conversation, I feel the person out and tell them not to come over without cash or REg. or certified check from a local bank we have all of the major banks. I like cash.
When they come over, I will pull the bike out of my garage (don't want them to get sidetracked looking at my other bikes) if they like what they see, I start it up for them. If they want a test drive I am ok with a short one, after I see and hold drivers licenses with MC endorsement, keys to car or what ever they came in, and see cash or check made out to me. I only have to see the cash or check that way I know they came to buy. This has worked for me, by the way I also have a 380 strapped to my waste under my shirt and make sure they see the budge in my waste line. By the way if I get cash I check it out first quick scan of serial numbers to see if any are the same then go right to the bank and deposit it.

 

Beary, what a great thing you wrote! Very helpful for those who are considering placing ads. One more thing I've noticed in the last few years in my area is that buyers want to negotiate either via email or via phone without coming and looking at the goods. Personally, I will never do that! You'll negotiate a price, and IF they come to view the thing you're selling, they'll point out things to drive the price lower.


Hey, if you ain't willing to take the time to come see, I'm not gonna consider you a real buyer! And I make note of that in my ads!

 

Hmmmm,

 

Fifty years of owning cars, m/cycles, and even a few small planes and only once have I traded a vehicle in on another one (I was on vacation with the family and needed a new car). I sell my own homes, also.

There's some good advice in this thread.

PS I've got 2 m/cycle for sale right now ... see signature.

 

Ive sold multiple bikes and vehicles privately and heres what Ive learned:




list the bike on craigslist and forums. if you don't get any bites, put it on ebay. on ebay the entire country can see it.


Payment: cash is king, certified bank check is its close cousin. I never take full payment in certified bank check. You can also go with the person to a bank to make sure its legit (did this once before).


Test ride: someone above said they allow test rides after the person pays, that's horse $h!t. no ones gonna buy a bike without test driving, I sure as hell wouldn't hand over any money without test driving. In fact I just bought my bike 2 weeks ago and test drove it before buying. So you need to make sure the person has the money on them before test driving. If you don't, you will get what I got years back when I sold my '71 nova: a bunch of jerks who just want to test drive your car and never call you again. They show up, show you the money which translates to "im a serious buyer", they test drive it, everythings good you exchange money for title.


If you don't trust the person, snap a picture of their license too.