Craigslist. Well actually, a Craigslist app.
I don’t understand Craigslist; how do they earn money to operate? I don’t know but I’m sure glad they exist.
I’ve used Craigslist for years and have found it to be the most useful for both buying and selling vehicles; though I’ll focus on the buying for now. I’ve mentally built my standard searches for the vehicles I’m after and I have a couple other search strategies that I use a little less frequently.
So about the app. There are two Craigslist apps I’ve used over the years: cPro and CPlus. Of the two apps I prefer CPlus for the key reason that their available filter options are equal to that full Craigslist site, whereas cPro has a very brief set of filtering options.
The reason I prefer the app is that I’m often traveling or away from home and while I’m sitting around I’m still able to search for vehicles. In both apps you are able to enter multiple locations wherein to search and it will query each of these locations simultaneously and apply the exact same search criteria and filters. I think this is awesome! What I’ve done is to enter the primary cities/locations that I frequently visit or pass through. These locations are only major cities as I’ve found that most people tend to associate their posting to the nearest big city anyway, knowing full well that people aren’t going to go looking for their ad in some obscure local.
This similar functionality can still be obtained when using your computer though too. The website searchtempest.com can be used to search for your desired criteria within a defined mileage range of the location you enter. The website then does all the queries of Craigslist locations for you and reports back the items and locations of each criteria match. While I have used searchtempest.com on occasion I’ve never actually bought something as a result of using it so take it for what it’s worth. A guy I know through work who buys and sells specific classic model of V8 engine apparently uses it frequently and this is a tip I got from him.
Back to the apps. The locations I’ve saved in my app are as follows: Northwest Suburbs, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Minneapolis/St. Paul. I live in the Northwest Suburbs and I have family in Green Bay and Minneapolis, the other locations I’m frequently passing through, either for business trips or to visit family. There have been numerous times that I’ve been able to swing by and pick something up off Craigslist while traveling. Granted these items are usually bikes or car parts, items that are easily transported on a whim, which I’ll snag on my way through town. Pretty much every time I’ve purchased a vehicle from a Craigslist ad I’ve dedicated the focus of the trip for that specific purpose. When you find a good deal on a vehicle you often need to move quickly on it before it sells. If I find a good deal on a certain car part I’ll try to figure out my upcoming travel schedule to determine whether or not it’s feasible for me to swing by. For instance, I’m certainly not going to dedicate a 2 hour drive to pick up a set of tires that will save me $100 from purchasing local; time and gas alone eats that $100 right up.
If you’ve not yet used a craigslist app I’d recommend you give it a whirl; CPlus is the one to use for iPhone/iPad, I think anyway.