Not that I am looking to sell my Elise, but with all of the talk about pricing (potential buyers finding endless "look, this one sold for "$X") and sellers saying "sure, but you get what you pay for and even salvage title cars are selling for "$Y", I was wondering if there may be a correlation to number of owners.
My guess, and just that, is that the really cheap ones being sold are ones that have gone through 2 or more owners and each has sucked up depreciation with a total of more than if just one owner (spreading the pain, so to speak). Of course, cars that have gone through multiple owners are probably more likely to have issues in the first place (not WILL, just more likey, in my opinion).
All said, my question to you all out there is, if you were buying an Elise (or any other similar "purpose built' car) would it be important to you to get a single owner car as opposed to say one that is on it's third owner in 3 years? I define "important" as "yes, and I would pay more to know I am buying from the original purchaser". For me, I would be inclined to say yes. Probably worth a few (4?) percentage points for each additional owner. So a 3 year old car being sold by the primary owner that I would pay 3$0K for, might be worth to me $28.8K if second owner, $27,650 if third, etc. Maybe this somehow explains why some cars really are being sold relatively cheap. Again, may be a case of getting what you pay for, but would help explain why and what the risk is that you are being allowed the discount.
Thoughts?
My guess, and just that, is that the really cheap ones being sold are ones that have gone through 2 or more owners and each has sucked up depreciation with a total of more than if just one owner (spreading the pain, so to speak). Of course, cars that have gone through multiple owners are probably more likely to have issues in the first place (not WILL, just more likey, in my opinion).
All said, my question to you all out there is, if you were buying an Elise (or any other similar "purpose built' car) would it be important to you to get a single owner car as opposed to say one that is on it's third owner in 3 years? I define "important" as "yes, and I would pay more to know I am buying from the original purchaser". For me, I would be inclined to say yes. Probably worth a few (4?) percentage points for each additional owner. So a 3 year old car being sold by the primary owner that I would pay 3$0K for, might be worth to me $28.8K if second owner, $27,650 if third, etc. Maybe this somehow explains why some cars really are being sold relatively cheap. Again, may be a case of getting what you pay for, but would help explain why and what the risk is that you are being allowed the discount.
Thoughts?