Thanks for the advice guys. The 150G, N3760J, we went flying in Saturday afternoon is owned by a local Chiropractor who is now 74 and feels like he is on the verge of loosing his medical. The plane has been hangered and is only about 8 miles from our home. It is IFR equipped(so he says, I don't what constitutes this), TTAF 5084 SMOH 69 (Nov. 2002)with new magnetos this July 04'. Last annual was March 2003. It has a King 170-VOR and intercom system with pilot PTT with 2 headphones, At 150 Narco transponder and Garmin 195 GPS hard wired with yoke mount. Interior and exterior(original paint) are both probably a 6-7. Seats were redone in 2002 at the time of overhaul. All logs are available.
Ironically, this plane is the same plane that my neighbor's father used to own and he learned to fly in it. This neighbor is a CFI and will be training both me and my wife @ $25/hr and will only charge one money for the lesson time spent on the ground when we attend together. Best I can tell, that's a good deal!
The owner talks about the tricycle landing gear being replaced and upgraded to one from a 152. What is he talking about? Apparently the 152 nosegear is better? Also, at overhaul he replaced the engine with an 0-200 from a 1972 model. He felt like this was better in some way but I don't see how. I wouldn't think it would make much difference.
Everything seems to fit, right? The problem is he has kept every receipt for repairs and upgrades totalling over $22,000 from the day he purchased it(not a bad thing in and of itself), and has added this to his purchase price of $15,700 he paid for it 3-4 years ago, for a grand total of $37,000.
I've been researching our club classfieds, AOPA classfieds, tradeaplane, the plane exchange and watching eBay for about 2-3 weeks now. Based upon comparisons I've found, it seems to me fair market value should be $25,000 tops (probably $23.5K is closer to fair) and that's only because it is right here at home and he is willing to finance it for 25% down at 6.5%
You asked me to narrow it down for you a bit so I'm throwing this one out at you.
Yesterday, I went to the club classfieds and printed off probably 20 listings of planes that were comparable in one way or another. They were from $20,000 to $26,000 with many around that $23-24K range. I'm hoping to present him with these to him in an effort to open his eyes to what the market effectively is. I hope he will understand that although the money he has spent on the overhaul, new magnetos etc. add value, they are also simply a part of normal and routine maintenance that must eventually be preformed. Also, wouldn't it be customary or prudent to require a fresh annual at his expense since the plane is out of annual?
I have one incentive in my favor, he really loves to fly, been flying since the 1950's. He's owned several planes over the years and both his son's learned to fly, etc. He would very much like to sell it to someone local so he could go flying from time to time. I hope this will also influence his decision to revise his price.
Any comments or suggestions about the value of the plane(taking the intangibles into consideration), my strategy to try and get him to revise the price or anything else that comes to mind.
