12/10/2021
After two months of low balling, this car is sold, also to Australia.
We barely made any profit on this sale, but we decided to let it go ASAP and despite the meagre profit, we are delighted with the sale because of the story behind this car:
A, who sold us a couple of cars in the past, has a friend, B, who owned this car. B's mother was ill and he wanted to liquidate some assets to cover the hospital bill. B who has been driving this car for years reluctantly contacted A and A contacted us to help sell this car.
The price he wanted originally necessitates a sale of atleast RM45k for there to be profit. Now is this car worth RM45k? Most good condition ones are transacting at RM50k or above. Slightly poorer condition ones can easily fetch RM35k to RM40k. So RM45k for this unit is not a big ask, but it's slightly on the high side for today's value.
Fast forward a month, and the car was still not sold. A, informed me that B is desperate for money and is willing to cut us a deal. He will sell to us at RM35k, payable in 2 parts. RM20k upfront and RM15k after sale. We really wanted to help, but based on the offers we were getting, it looks bleak. A close friend in the industry made an offer of RM30k, while most direct offers were in the region of RM25k. So we lowered the asking from RM45k to RM40k with intention to close at lowest RM37k. (Basically no profit as the car cost RM35k and transport from Kuching to semenanjung is RM1.6k) At this point, we are doing this basically to help this guy sort out his mother's hospital bill.
Another month passed, and the low ball offers are still in the region of RM25k. There were some overseas offers coming in at around RM40k already but they wanted us to handle logistics of export, which our contacts have failed to even provide a quote, let alone going through with the sale.
It is also at this time that A informs us that B's mother has just passed. But B is laden with debt nonetheless and A took over the car from his friend for RM35k to help him through the difficult period.
This hit us right where it hurts. Because we couldn't help B out when he needed help the most.
It was a stroke of luck that we sold another car a few days ago which was destined for Australia, and the buyer is arranging his own logistics. So we got his logistics contact, got In touch with all the Australian and New Zealand offers that came before, and basically gave them a bid. At this point, anything above RM35k we are selling, to help A recoup his RM35k. Even if it doesn't fully cover the cost of shipping to port Klang.
The bid closed at RM38k and we take a small profit from it. 🙏
