Pricing is the decision that does most of the work in a private sale. Get it roughly right and the enquiries arrive on their own; get it wrong in either direction and you either wait months or hand money to the buyer.
Below are the pricing questions private sellers ask most often — how to arrive at a number, what buyers will do with it, and what to change when it isn't working.
If someone offers more than you're asking without seeing the car, treat it as a warning sign rather than a win. Overpayment offers — usually paired with a request to refund the difference, or to pay a "transport agent" — are a long-running scam pattern. Scamwatch publishes current examples.
FAQs
How do I work out what my car is actually worth?
Start with what comparable cars are advertised for right now: same model and variant, similar year, similar kilometres, and preferably the same state or territory, since demand and on-road costs vary regionally. Narrow it to your exact spec — a base auto and a top-spec manual are different cars to a buyer, even wearing the same badge. Then adjust for the things buyers tend to scrutinise next: kilometres, service history and condition. Bear in mind you're reading asking prices rather than sale prices, so the real market usually sits somewhat below the figures on screen. The private seller's playbook walks through the whole process.
Why is my car's asking price different from what it sells for?
An asking price is an opening position; a sale price is what two people agreed on. Private sales commonly settle below the advertised figure, because buyers arrive expecting to negotiate and will usually try at least once. There's a comparison trap too: some dealer ads quote a drive-away figure that already includes on-road costs while others quote a price excluding government charges, and a private ad usually quotes the car alone — so check which you're reading before you anchor on it. Watching how long comparable listings sit unsold is a useful correction, since a car still advertised after several weeks is a price that hasn't found a buyer.
How much negotiating room should I leave in my asking price?
Enough to let a buyer feel they won something, without pricing yourself out of the searches that would have found you. There's no fixed convention in Australia, so work backwards instead: decide the lowest figure you'd genuinely accept, write it down before you advertise, and set your asking price a little above it. A large buffer tends to backfire, because a wide gap between what you ask and what you'd take reads as a number that isn't serious, and invites lowball offers. Negotiating against a plan is far easier than negotiating against your own mood at 9pm on a Sunday.
Do round numbers matter when pricing a car?
They matter, mostly because of search filters rather than psychology. Buyers commonly cap a search at a round figure — $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 — and a car advertised at $20,400 won't appear for someone filtering under $20,000, however well it would have suited them. Shaving a few hundred dollars to sit just under a common threshold often buys more visibility than it costs. Whether $19,990 reads better than $20,000 is arguable; being on the visible side of the filter isn't.
How much value does my car lose each year?
The steepest fall comes early. A new car typically sheds a substantial share of its value in the first year or two, and the rate of loss eases as it ages, so on an older car another birthday tends to matter less than kilometres, condition and paperwork. Published depreciation percentages vary widely by source, model and body type, so treat any single figure as a rough guide rather than a valuation. The practical consequence for a seller is that deliberating isn't free — the car keeps depreciating while you think about it. Our guide to car depreciation in Australia covers what you can and can't influence.
Will a service and some repairs before selling pay for themselves?
Some do, many don't. A documented recent service, replacing worn tyres, fixing cheap cosmetic faults like blown globes, and a genuinely thorough clean tend to return more than they cost, because each one removes a point the buyer would otherwise negotiate against. Major mechanical or paint work on a modest-value car often doesn't return its cost, so getting a quote, disclosing the fault and pricing accordingly can leave you better off than doing the work. Roadworthy requirements are a separate matter and differ by state and territory — some jurisdictions require a roadworthy or safety certificate before a private sale and others don't — so check with your own transport authority, because where it applies that work isn't optional. What's worth fixing before you sell goes through the trade-offs.
Do better photos and a fuller description really get a higher price?
The research points that way, without being unanimous. Studies of online vehicle listings have generally found more photographs going with higher prices, more interested buyers and a better chance of a sale, and some of that work found the effect more pronounced for private sellers than for dealers — though at least one study found no price premium. The likely mechanism is information: a thin photo set reads as something being hidden, and buyers rationally discount what they can't see. Shooting the car clean, in daylight, from consistent angles, and photographing the flaws as well as the good bits, costs an afternoon. We've summarised what the research actually says about car photos.
What does an instant-offer service typically pay compared with a private sale?
Usually less — the convenience is priced into the quote. There's no fixed discount to quote you, because the gap is whatever margin that buyer needs to recondition and resell your particular car, and it moves with the model, the condition and the service. Online estimates are typically provisional and can change after a physical inspection, so treat the written figure you get after inspection as the real number, and get it in writing before you commit to anything. Collecting several competing quotes, or using a service where dealers bid against each other, narrows the gap. Listing privately on MotorLoop is free, so running an ad while you wait on quotes costs nothing but time — see our comparison of Australian instant-offer services.
When should I drop my asking price, and by how much?
Judge by enquiries rather than by the calendar. If people are contacting you and inspecting the car but not offering, the price is roughly right and the sticking point is the car, the ad or the negotiation; if a fortnight passes with almost no contact, the number is probably above what this market will pay. When you do move, make one meaningful cut that lands you on the useful side of a search threshold, rather than three small ones. A listing that steps down repeatedly teaches watching buyers to wait for the next reduction instead of contacting you.
Should I write "or nearest offer" instead of a firm price?
Sellers differ on this, but a firm number with a short reason behind it is usually the stronger position. "ONO" tells a buyer the figure is soft before they've even seen the car, which tends to open negotiation lower than it otherwise would have started. If you want to signal flexibility, wording like "price negotiable after inspection" does that without discounting your own ad, and pricing sharply in the first place does it better still. If you'd genuinely rather field offers, say plainly what you'd accept, since vagueness tends to attract time-wasters.