Best selling used cars for buy and sell car business in UAE

[DEVEL32]

Hey guys, me and my friend starting a small side businesses to buy and sell used cars and seeking few advices from all the car experts here. We spent about 2 years now in uae and we feel there is a good scope to make money by buying and selling used cars privately. We may register them or not depending on how good deal we can fetch and then decide accordingly. Thanks guys.

1. Best selling used cars
2. Best selling car brands
3. Fastest way to sell a car privately
4. Best way to buy used cars
5. Best way to sell a damaged car
6. Best online sites to sell used cars
7. Best place to sell your car for cash

[Frederic]

Hi @DEVEL32 and welcome to Carnity.

The used car business is a very hawkish and cut-throat business, i hope you are aware of that. You'll need to distinguish yourselves from the others, either by having the best deals on hand, or being able to set yourself apart with social media, branding, or other things. If you are not able to store the cars cheaply you're already in for trouble. Unless you buy and sell one by one, but i am afraid you will hardly make money on that.

Below my two cents and opinions:

Best selling used cars and brands: DEFINITELY Japanese cars. Lexus, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, will always move easily. American brands are a bit tougher, and French and German cars are definitely hard, and that reflects in the resale value:

https://www.thenational.ae/business/money/which-cars-retain-the-most-value-in-the-uae-1.203803

Dubizzle, Dubicars, Carnity, Bayut, and other car buying portals are still a popular choice. On Facebook you'll find groups also, and within certain communities like Springs, Arabian Ranches, etc... there are also Facebook communities. The Ras al Khor automarket is an option to buy your car or get rid of it, but don't expect to find the real good deals over there.

A friend of mine in Belgium had a small business like that, and came up with the idea to buy up German corporate used company cars, like the BMW 3 series, or the Audi A4 series, that looked a bit dull and tired, got them polished and cleaned up completely, put some 19' wheels on them sometimes combined with a suspension kit, and voila, the cars immediately got attention from the young drivers. He charged more for these cars but the young guys bought these cars with their heart, and not with their minds.

[desertdude]

Three words. Don't do it 

[Gaurav]

Hi @DEVEL32 welcome aboard.

I fully agree with Frederic comment on how used car business has saturated in today's UAE used car market.

However, if you have a different and creative plan then surely you can make good money.

By saying creative I mean to be unique and not focus on mass commuter cars for various reason:

• Market fully saturated
• Difficult to acquire at good price and then even more difficult to sell at profit as those cars have almost fix value with a play of 1-2K max depending on kms and overall condition.

The best way to pursue this side business of buying and selling cars is to focus on rare/niche but in demand cars that have niche audience. Many times such car owner when they are leaving country they cannot find a right buyer "immediately" so they end up selling at half the value at sellanycar, buymycar kind of website.

So those people are your prime audience to acquire, if you can somehow reach those sellers and up the deal with couple of thousand more you will make good business by selling those cars.

Example: Guy want to sell Mustang at 80K (fair value) and got a quote of 60k cash from those bargain hunters then you can click the deal at 65 and flip the car at 75 in a months time. This will leave you with less pressurized and run around job as niche car buyers are less fussy and cranky tbh.

Here's the best I can answer your questions:

1. Best selling used cars
   • Mid-Premium segment: Golf, Touareg, Mercedes ML, Posrche Cayenne, Mustang, Camaro, Lexus ES, Audi A5, BMW 5 Series, Ford Explorer, Dodge Durango, etc., I think you will get it by these many example, if you are a car guy.
2. Best selling car brands
   • Any, where you can get good value to jump in. Stay away from most common cars.
3. Fastest way to sell a car privately
   • Office bulletins, supermarket notice board (fantastic area), friends and family.
4. Best way to buy used cars
   • Target sellmycar, buymycar audience through facebook or google ads - run creative campaign
   • I even heard a person following those guys and offering them better deal - don't know if its acceptable.
5. Best way to sell a damaged car
   • Too messy unless you are very technically sound, I say avoid.
6. Best online sites to sell used cars
   • None, tbh as all big giant classifieds is filled with bargain hunter dealers (99%) and real buyer (1%).
   • I get more leads for selling my car through my personal groups than featured paid classifieds.
7. Best place to sell your car for cash
   • To real user and not dealers.

I have given this advice to two different people in 2018 and now they both are doing this full time side business. Initially they started with one car within 50K budget, now they are rolling 3-4 cars every month.

And me being a car guy who love to try new cars every 1-2 years, I do take my time to look for such bargain so that I can save half or quarter the depreciation when i sell it. So this idea really works in any car market and in any used car uptrend or downtrend.

[desertdude]

^^^ Good advice, but you really need to know your cars in and out, have a keen eye to spot any repairs with just a quick look and know how to fix them on the cheap and even do some small DIY repairs to get a little extra profit.

If you know your cars you can get some good deals because luxury cars with issues people think big money to fix to they get rid of them cheaply, but many times its just something small and simple thats where the shrewd wheeler dealer comes in who knows its not a big issue and can be sorted out on the cheap. 

Bought a Range Rover which the lady said wouldn't start, looked under the hood the main fan belt had broken and missing, so got a big chunk off the price on that. 80dhs belt and 30 minutes fixing it got it sorted out. Another lady with another Range Rover said there was some issue with the drive train. Saw underneath, front driveshaft missing which usually is a since of a sized viscous coupling in the transfer case. So got another big chunk off the buying price, 400dhs for used transfer case and 200dhs for a driveshaft from the scrappies and half a day at a buddies workshop and the car was up and running around perfectly. 

Deals are to be had but prime rule number one is buy low, never buy just a few grand short of what you think its going to sell for. 

But having said all that, for reasons known to everyone, its a buyers market, more cars for sale than buyers, specially with higher gas prices and expensive insurance. 

[Barry]

10 hours ago, desertdude said:

Three words. Don't do it 

This. 

If you need to ask questions like this, it might not be the ideal thing for you to invest in.