I have been on both sides of this issue; both buying and selling airplanes. When you buy a plane you are setting yourself up to someday be a seller. Remember the golden rule.
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>When you land go over your list of squawks. Personally if you can?t find any you probably weren?t looking hard enough.<
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You are exactly right. You are going to be looking at a twenty to forty year old airplane and it will not be NEW.
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Be calm in discussing these with the owner, if the owner replies that they are minor fixes and cheap to repair then ask him why he hasn?t fixed them himself and at the very least insist that the cost of their repair comes out of the final purchase price (get it in writting).
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The plane should be priced to reflect it?s general condition. If it isn?t you most likely shouldn?t even be considering it. Remember that an ?average? airplane is just that AVERAGE. It is not perfect any you shouldn?t expect it to be.
All AIRWORTHINESS issues should be resolved before the sale but all other items are what they are. Consider them in your offer and don?t nit pick individual items. In selling an airplane some time back one of the prospective buyers started this nit picking routine with me. After going over a number of small items I politely and gently told him that ?I just don?t feel that this is the airplane for you? and terminated the transaction. After the third telephone call from him I had to just flat out tell him that I have no interest in dealing with him because of his nit picking and pleas don?t call back. The airplane sold a couple of days later, at my price because I had a fair price on what I was selling.
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Things to avoid paying for.
A dash full of old and useless avionics. Let?s face it, this day in age the average VFR pilot?s main navigational aid is his GPS. I don?t know a single pilot who?s first purchase after his plane (or even before) isn?t going to be a GPS. Therefore, VORs, ADFs LORANS etc in my opinion don?t count for much these days unless of course your express interest is in getting your instrument rating and or doing instrument training with the plane.
Were I selling the plane and you made that assertion to me I would simply say that I agree and offer to pull all of the avionics out and sell it to that way, for the same price since the avionics ?don?t count for much?. The old knife cuts both ways you know. Actually I would thank you very much for your interest and just walk away.
