How to price your car so it sells in two weeks
Updated 8 January 2026 · 5 min read
The market decides your price, and the market is visible: every comparable car currently listed is your competition. Twenty minutes of research beats any hunch about what the car is worth.
Build a comparison set
Search for the same make, model and body style within two years of your build year and within roughly 30,000 km of your odometer reading. Collect at least eight live listings and note the asking price, kilometres, transmission and location for each.
Regional pricing is real: the same car often carries a small premium in capital cities and less in regional centres where supply is thinner but buyers are fewer.
Adjust for the things buyers pay for
A complete logbook service history, fresh tyres, a long registration and a second key genuinely add money. Aftermarket wheels, loud exhausts and heavy modifications almost always subtract it, because they shrink the pool of interested buyers.
- Full service history: strongest single lever on price
- Under 15,000 km per year of age: reads as low kilometres
- Manual transmission: narrows buyers outside sports models
- Unusual colours: slower, though not always cheaper
Where to sit in the band
Price at or just under the median of your comparison set for a fast sale, and near the top only if your car is genuinely the best example listed. Leave a small, deliberate negotiating margin — most private buyers expect to move the price a little.
Avoid pricing just above a round number. A car at $20,400 misses every buyer filtering under $20,000; at $19,990 it appears in both searches.
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