When Tillie Mortier-Young and her husband were deciding whether to buy or rent a car, they opted to buy as they believed it would be a better deal. It probably wasn’t, as it turned out.
Two years after buying their top-of-the-range Ford Explorer Sport for Dh220,000, they relocated and were forced to accept just Dh104,000 for the car, which had been valued at Dh165,000, after trying but failing to sell it for four months.
“The adverts first went up in July. We tried on Facebook and then we put them up on Dubizzle,” says Ms Mortier-Young, 34, from the UK, who moved from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur in October.
They had two cars to sell before they left; Ms Mortier-Young found a buyer for hers first, a 10-year-old Range Rover Sport she’d bought for about Dh60,000 in 2014, and sold for about Dh30,000 at the end of August. They hoped to do better with the Explorer.
“It was on Dubizzle and we had a few people who showed an interest, but we received no serious offers,” she says.
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“We were getting quite desperate because we needed to leave the country, so we approached agencies and companies and they were offering about Dh70,000. We thought we could not sell it for that.
“In the end, right at the last minute someone got in touch. We had to lower the price three times on Dubizzle. Initially the buyer said he would pay Dh110,000, but when it got to the exchange he said, ‘Listen, I am only going to pay Dh104,000’. Steph, my husband, was really upset but at that point he said we are here now, so what choice have I got?”
There are numerous options open to UAE residents wanting to sell their cars, so what are they and which is best for securing a good deal?
Online
One of the most popular routes is selling your motor online using classified sites such as Dubizzle or Facebook pages. The cost of listing a car with Dubizzle starts at Dh199 for a month. There are various pages on Facebook where you can advertise your car for free.
Dubizzle receives 1,000 new car adverts a day, which is about six times more than the next largest motors platform in the UAE, according to Osman Bhurgri, a product-marketing manager for motors at Dubizzle. The site also receives about 1.68 million unique visitors to the motors [site] per month. “If you think about that in terms of eyeballs to our adverts it’s huge, which is what gives us our dominance,” Mr Bhurgri says.
Experts say this option offers the best value for money, if you get the approximate price you ask for. But it comes with a significant downside – the time you need to invest in compiling the advert and fielding calls.
“You will get over 20 inquiries within 30 days of the ad being posted. We call that liquidity and liquidity is when an ad gets a lead within the first seven days of being posted. Our liquidity for an ad on Dubizzle is one of the highest globally compared to other online classified sites,” Mr Bhurgri says, adding that the average car sells on the site within 30 days.
However, this does not always hold true. It took Ms Mortier-Young and her husband four months to offload their Ford Explorer Sport, which had no accidents and was in immaculate condition, on Dubizzle, and they reduced the price several times.
Second-hand dealers
If you want to sell quickly – the process can take just 20 to 30 minutes in some cases, from entering the showroom and signing the registration over – you could take it to a second-hand dealer. This option is virtually hassle free, but bear in mind the dealer has to make money to cover their outgoings. “We buy cars for cash. We fix them a little and then we sell them,” says Aladdin Mouafaq, 27, a salesman from Syria at Emco in Motor World in Abu Dhabi.
He says the price depends on various factors, such as the year, the quality, the condition of the car, the condition of the seats and interior. Even the colour can have an effect on the price you are offered.
“We might ask Dh70,000 for it if we buy it for Dh60,000. You never know how much you are going to sell it for. Sometimes, we make Dh10,000, sometimes Dh7,000, sometimes Dh2,000. Sometimes we sell the car at the same price you buy it. It depends on the car,” Mr Mouafaq says.
The brands
Several franchise dealers buy cars back when residents want to upgrade or are leaving the UAE. Many sellers assume this option will not secure a good price, but that is not necessarily the case, according to experts.
“If you are selling the car back to the original supplier, so if you are selling a Nissan back to Nissan, or you are selling a Toyota back to Toyota, you would normally expect to get a better price than you would selling it to an independent [agent],” says Bill Carter, head of valuations and product manager at Autodata Middle East.
“They want to protect their brand. If you lose a lot of money on a car, you are not going to buy another one, are you?”
He says most dealers operate certified pre-owned schemes for cars that reach a certain standard. Cars being sold by these schemes are typically under three years old, or less, with one owner, reasonably low mileage and a full service history.
“Check that the car you are selling falls within that pre-owned classification; that it is under a certain age, has low mileage and full service history. Then your best bet is to go back to the franchise that sold it to you,” he says. As for price, you can expect to receive a bit less than the price the certified pre-owned dealer charges for a car of the same model and condition as yours to cover its costs, which include extra warranty, preparation, valeting and advertising the car.
The people who do it on your behalf
This is a growing industry in the UAE. SellAnyCar.com, for example, launched in September 2013 and claims to buy any car in 30 minutes. Visitors to the website receive an instant valuation for their car based on the answers to a set of basic questions. The car is then subjected to a short inspection and a live auction where hundreds of dealers globally get the chance to bid for the vehicle. The website buys the car from the seller and then later sells it on to the successful bidder.
“The more you get, the better for us as well, because we take a small cut of the highest bid and offer you the price,” says Saygin Yalcin, the founder and chief executive of SellAnyCar.com, adding that the cut it takes depends on the car value.
“Let’s say you come with a car which is worth Dh1,000, to cover our costs we will probably add another 20 per cent. But if you are coming with a Rolls-Royce, we are happy with one per cent. So it really depends on how much the car is worth.”
Experts warn that the price you receive selling through sites such as this, and there are a handful, will be less than virtually any other option. But there is an alternative.
CarSwitch.com launched at the start of the year and claims to take the hassle out of selling your vehicle. It acts in the same way an estate agent would to sell a house, taking the process out of sellers’ hands.
“We send a certified mechanic, who comes under our staff, to the seller, wherever they are, and they will inspect the car. They run a full 200-point inspection and spend two hours with the car. They photograph it and if the car’s warranty has expired we purchase a warranty and add it to the car, because now we have inspected it so we know that it’s in good shape,” says Imad Hammad, a cofounder and chief executive of CarSwitch.com.
“We then put it up on our website and we advertise the car.” CarSwitch.com fields the calls and gets in touch with the seller once they have lined up people who are both serious and interested in buying the car. The service costs Dh150 and there is a success-based fee to pay, which is typically between Dh1,000 to Dh2,000, if CarSwitch.com sells the vehicle.
The old fashioned way
It is illegal to put a notice in your car to advertise its sale, according to RSA Insurance, and if you are caught doing it you risk having your car impounded. However, you can legally advertise on supermarket noticeboards. This is usually free but you need to have their permission. Noticeboards in offices are also an option.
Take the car with you instead
If you are relocating elsewhere and fail to secure the price you want, the alternative is shipping it to your next destination. To get a range of quotes, submit a request on ServiceMarket.com.
“The cost and timelines of shipping your car depends on the type of service you have requested and where you are shipping it from and to,” says Emilene Parry, content officer at ServiceMarket.com.
Shipping a car to the United States generally costs between Dh9,500 and Dh26,000, to the United Kingdom between Dh7,000 and Dh15,000, and to South Africa from Dh8,000 to Dh14,000. Duties and taxes vary depending on the destination.
“Depending on the country you are shipping your car to, the requirements and process will differ slightly, but the car shipping company will talk the customer through the whole process in detail and explain all the required documentation, as well as the cost of the taxes and duties,” Ms Parry says.
“It is important the customer always reads the fine print and fully understands what is included in the quote as there may be taxes or other local charges that might apply at the destination that are not included.”
So which option is best?
Bill Carter, head of valuations and product manager at Autodata Middle East, says you should first try selling your car privately to another consumer, be it over Facebook, Dubizzle, through a supermarket or office ad, or even through a service like CarSwitch.com.
“CarSwitch.com are very good. They are very switched on and we are quite impressed talking to them, so that’s going to see some growth if they keep their head screwed on and keep it together,” says Mr Carter.
Failing those options there is a pecking order for which company you should approach first.
“At the top of the tree there is the franchise dealer,” he says. “Next down are the big well-established, well-known used car dealers, such as Al Futtaim Auto Mall and Rostamani. Then you have the independents which are not tied to any dealer, and after that you are looking at sites like SellAnyCar.com. They have been classed as a last resort because they are catering to people who are desperate and need to leave the country. And that’s their main market.”
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