Whether you’re in the market to buy or sell a truck tractor, internet listings will stir up reactions and judgment. Personal bias can be a powerful influence, as friends and mentors broadcast opinions all with the best of intentions.
Every seller, and every buyer, should embrace some sense of reality to avoid costly missteps.
Key point: Private purchases may not be the deal you think they are.
There are some very real differences when managing a for-sale-by-owner transaction as opposed to a dealer transaction. There's widespread belief among owner-operators that they might save significant money buying privately from an individual owner by avoiding the margins dealers and salesmen must maintain to cover expenses accrued being a dealership. Yet that’s not always the case.
Do the necessary homework. A purchaser's natural tendency is to lean into optimism -- if it wasn't, why would we ever want to take a seat at the table and ante up to begin the negotiating phase?
Where the bidding goes from there will vary greatly person-to-person. Optimistic about the prospects for freight? That will carry a lot of weight for a purchaser -- and recent years have been quite a roller-coaster ride of emotion for many, highly variable depending not only on freight-market realities but political leanings.
It's crucial whether you're buying or selling to get the best sense of pricing reality as possible -- do the homework, dig out current sale prices. Overdrive sister Fusable company Price Digests' tracking of used-market value is one reliable source. A single vehicle valuation look-up there is available for less than $40. It could also help you determine the valuation needed for comprehensive/physical damage insurance coverages, typically marked for adjustment on an annual or more frequent basis by your insurer.
Price Digests' "Commercial Truck Single Search" value-lookup tool offers:
- A complete report on the vehicle including all available data points among those listed under "Product Detail" at this link.
- Access to truck specs, values, and data for three months.
- A downloadable pdf of the report.
Get started with Price Digests' Commercial Truck Single Search, whatever your market-valuation needs, via this link.
Additional resources:
- For sellers and/or buyers, ACT Research’s “State of the Industry: U.S. Used Trucks Classes 3-8” reports offer broad overviews of used-truck volume/pricing trends.
- For sellers and/or buyers, Overdrive's Equipment section features at least monthly reports offering value-data check-ins from sources mentioned here, among others, showing volume and pricing trends.
- For buyers, as detailed in the previous piece of the Partners in Business playbook, Overdrive’s own RigDig Truck History Reports offer a truck’s title history and much more detail.
Read next: There's plenty to consider before entering a lease-purchase agreement with a motor carrier
