Denali wrote:In addition to the usual suspects like Trade-a-Plane and Barnstormers, how do you locate these so called “gems” which rarely make it to market?

Be a mensch. Network with people. Be passionate about aviation. Make a point to stay in touch.

I got my plane this way. A dealer couldn't close a deal with a seller and gave me a call to let me know that I should take a run at it myself. Got a good deal.

A friend knows I'm interested in an aerobatics plane, so he's agreed to give me first swing when he sells his Christen Eagle.

Another friend owns the type certificate on a plane and has offered to sell it to me if I decide to go in that direction. For now though, I have to accumulate the large fortune that I intend to turn into a small one before I consider this path.

Personal check is usually ok and expected for the refundable deposit to get things started. Paying or receiving such a large sum in hundreds raises the eyebrows of law enforcement when you go to the bank. I've found wire transfers to be the easiest in the long run for both parties.

BTW, neither of the sellers of my last two airplanes required a deposit to hold the airplanes for me. One had me traveling to Mississippi and the other to Washington state. It would have sucked if after my expense of getting there, I had found they sold the airplanes out from under me. After having good conversations with each of them, I felt confident that each of them wouldn't. Luckily it worked out for me. Some deals are still done on a handshake and between gentleman. Your mileage may vary.

Rich

With the masters of thievery that are in operation today, any form of payment can be forged, even cash. I tend to get good deals because I pay in cash. I usually notify the bank ahead of time and tell them how much cash I need so it isn't an issue when I go pick it up. My bank is pretty good at getting me the cash on short notice. If I take 50k in cash from my bank and buy your plane, and you deposit it in your bank, there are no problems with a money trail transaction. The problems arises when you pull 50k out of your matress and the seller goes to the bank to deposit it.

Cliff wrote:.

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With the masters of thievery that are in operation today, any form of payment can be forged, even cash.

It gets more tangled every year. Here is an announcement I recently saw on Barnstormers.

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FLYING COLORS SCAMMED ME!!!!! • $10,000 • BUYER BEWARE !!! • Paid me VIA paypal, picked up my cessna 172, and then disputed charge! Beware fellow members. SCAM • Contact Bill Fernandez, End User - located New Orleans, LA USA • Telephone: 4426158947 . • Posted December 19, 2016

Like they said on the Monty Python TV show.... "and now for something completely different".

I've bought and sold a dozen or so airplanes, over a span of 35 years. And a few junk projects that weren't airplanes yet. I have a small amount of business experience, more than some and far far far less than some others on BCP. I have probably spent as much or more time looking for airplanes, reading the advertisements, scanning Trade-a-Plane etc. than most of the people on here.

One of the very worst days in my life was the day I realized that there we have plenty of scum bags, idiots, crooks, drunks, pedophiles, jerks, unrealistic dreamers, well-meaning fools, con men, wannabee posers, and morons in aviation. As a kid I had completely bought into the idea that we in aviation were smarter, better, more honest, etc. than the rest of the unwashed masses. On an overall basis we are, but not nearly by the margin that I had assumed.

Then I started reading Trade-a-Plane: "1946 Piper J-3 Cub, ($3X current market value) invested, you can steal it for only ($2x current market value) !!!!!!!!!" Back in those says a reasonably well restored J-3 was worth about $12-15K and a flying beater was 8-10. If someone is stupid enough to put a fortune into an airplane that exceeds the value of the airplane, that doesn't make it a steal at over-market value.

I had one guy start telling me how much he had invested in a Taylorcraft, and angrily offered to show me the receipts. I told him how much I had invested in the car I sold to buy the plane, and I had the original window sticker for the car, so would he give me credit for what the car had cost me? .

Having read a whole lot of ads, and having gone to see airplanes that were junk when they were advertised as good, I have to say that all of the tricks, lies, BS, and outright misinformation that we normally associate with used car dealers is often alive and well in aviation, even with private airplane sellers.

Went to see a Cessna 175 at El Cajon airport near San Diego several years ago. Several phone conversations with the seller, asking all the questions I could think of, before I went down there. "It's a good airplane, fairly well taken care of..." was the oft-repeated chant from the seller. When I got there, he said he was busy building his RV-6, so just go out to the airplane and look at it all you want, the logbooks are behind the pilot's seat.

Logs showed that a wing had been torn off when tied down in a storm. Any seller with any integrity would have mentioned that on the phone.
Seat track holes badly ovaled, would not have passed the "recent annual !!" by any IA who had any integrity.
15 degrees of play/hysteresis in the control wheel before ailerons engaged.
Considering the geared engine of the 175, and how he said it was "fine, meets all specifications", I left the scene without any further contact with him.

Went to see an Aeronca Defender (pre-war Champ) at Pismo Beach/Oceano CA airport. "Oh yeah, we fly it all the time !! Flies wonderfully ! You'll love it. You'll fall in love with it and fly it home "

Wings obviously attached hastily, rear wing struts rigged to provide wash-IN instead of wash-out (which directly leads to dangerous stall/spin behavior).
Aileron system turnbuckles barely screwed together, no safety wire, no cable tension
Logbooks missing, despite advertisement claiming it had logs (Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure my brother in law has those, I'll send them to you later")

There are more stories that I have, and I'm sure many people on BCP have plenty of similar stories than I do.

So although the whole "sell with integrity" and "I know what I have, here's the price, go elsewhere if you want to ask a thousand questions" thing may work in some cases, like it or not there are a whole lot of people who are not trustworthy but who use that same high-handed positioning and "take it or leave it" posture to get people to buy a junk airplane.

For me, and for most of us, an airplane purchase represents risking a fairly large sum of money. If it's your money, and someone is telling you "as is, where is, that's enough questions, don't waste my time", then you have every right to be really careful before spending it. Sellers you don't have to put up with BS and nonsense from buyers, but buyers you have the same right to not put up with evasiveness, misinformation, or fear mongering from sellers.

If a buyer gets screwed he's getting every bit as much of his time wasted as the seller is, but the buyer ALSO is losing hard money.

I came across this website that had some really great comments. I have excerpted a few paragraphs.
The whole article is at the link below. I have no connection or relationship with Casey Aviation.

Link: http://flycasey.com/things-to-know-about-purchasing-an-airplane

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It’s all about who you know: 80% of the airplanes that no one else wants are on Trade-a-Plane, Controller, and Barnstormers…and that is not a compliment! There’s nothing wrong with these sites, and we’ve bought many airplanes through their excellent service. However, many of these airplanes have been on the market for a long time because they are over-priced or have a major problem and have been turned down by many others. The best purchases are always made by hitting the streets, calling aviation contacts, and putting out “feelers” to let others know what you’re looking for. I’ve found many airplanes this way. I call type-instructors, premier maintenance facilities, and local FBO’s to find airplanes that are either new to the market or (better yet) not even on the market. Many times these people can give you lots of “inside information” about the airplane so you’ll know what you are getting into.

It costs money just to search for an airplane: The second you commit to searching for an airplane, the costs start adding up. Logistically, it is always simpler to find an airplane that is near you, simply so you don’t have as much traveling costs. You will probably look at quite a few airplanes that you don’t buy, and you will have to pay to go and see these airplanes. Spending LOTS of time at the outset really qualifying airplanes for purchase is absolutely required. The deeper you look into an airplane, the greater the chance you might find that one disqualifying factor that keeps you from making the purchase. …. (… more …)…

Also @ EZFLAP: +1 on your posting and the comments

Perfect and Used?

I have always wondered about what hassles and additional expenses (if any) faced by people in the US when buying and importing a plane registered in Canada?

Does it make any difference if a plane was at one time registered n the US and then exported to Canada?

Are there any major gotcha's to look out for?

Got my 77 180 in 1998 from Montana . Was dereg got can registration went down taped number over put can. On fly it home. Had it ltraned done . It's done every day. Exp. easy certified make sure all mods are stc.stock airplanes easy.mine moved over border 3 times.l looked at a 180k in Texas that had un recorded gear box damage that would have been a very expensive import as all damage would have needed to be repaired .about 40.000$ .good clean planes are easy

To add to EZ Flaps comments and support; lot of crooks out there. I've posted and alluded to it before, but I've personally seen flat out fraud on multiple cases. Egregious enough that I wondered on the way home if i should report it somehow.

Airplanes advertised as "no damage history".....you show up to the guys hangar and one wing is literally a different shade of white. 30 seconds of pulling an inspection cover and you pull out a hand full metal shavings from drilling out rivets. Obviously different generations of aluminum in the wing and tail. Cherry max rivets all around the gear legs and belly skins of 180's and 185's on "NDH, never ground looped" planes. My favorite is when you look in the log book on a "NDH" airplane and it says in the middle of an annual entry, "replaced Cessna part XXXXX with new part XXXX". You look up the parts and they are spars and wing ribs. Nice. I've looked at planes that were "never on floats"...just to get the pics and the logs and see the float attach fittings and logs showing it going on and off of floats. Nothing against a float plane...just don't lie to me to get me on the plane to come look at it. Also good to disclose to me that a "NDH" plane has been recovered by a crane barge from the bottom of a lake in Canada and rebuilt. Not kidding, I've seen it. It's either the sellers are dishonest or completely incompetent, I don't know which.

Lot of junk out there and plenty of crooks to go along with it in aviation. I know I'm venting here and I hate it when people just point out the negatives...so i refer to my previous post. Network and build a relationship the people that really know these planes and make them an advocate for getting you "a good one." Relationships are why most of us get into aviation, let those new relationships help.

Man... this last one was a project.

Finally convinced the wife to let me sell her plane... a '93 Tampico that I owned and operated on her behalf after we came to a realization that it wasn't fitting the mission anymore.

We would fly up and down the state and plan fuel stops around places where there were candidates for sale. Hell, it took six months to buy the 'pico, and a dangerous flirtation with a '67 Musketeer that probably would have cost me thousands at best.

After looking at PA-32's 28-180's, Trinidads, C-182's and 210's... Mooneys, yes, even mooneys, I talked her into looking at a Maule MXT-180 up at PVF (Nigel's old bird)

Well, before I could blink, it was gone, and she didn't like it that much anyhow. See, she gets motion sick in anything with a high-wing so it makes things very difficult. She also required that it is a newer model than herself... so '83 or newer.

Fast forward a month later and I took her to look at another MXT...with skylight and patroller doors.

We started talking things like stall speed, takeoff roll, parts costs, and capabilities, and the Maule really couldn't be beat. But this bird was $150k for a straight VFR and was not going to fly.

So we came home and I assembled the listings on TAP and BS for the Tampico. The next morning, we were going to fly down to CCB to look at one that I had already flown. The seller had to postpone so we decided to fly over to an air show at PRB.

By no fault of my own, we landed, walked across the ramp (whoopsie, the young eagles ramp, wholly owned by the local EAA Gestapo) and ran smack dab into N9NA.... a beautiful '99 MXT-180.

And it had a for sale sign in it.

Kelly and I chatted for a while, and I talked him into taking my wife for a ride after the air show.

She came back from her first Maule flight with a smile on her face, bugs in her teeth, and a phone full of pictures of oak trees that you could count the branches on. She was amazed at the takeoff roll, the handling, the visibility, the performance....

She had made up her mind.

The next morning, we flew to SBP for breakfast with our Socata club.... we met a guy who was enjoying breakfast with his wife who was asking me about the Tampico. I told him it was for sale, he bought it seven weeks later.

That next weekend, We looked at the other Maule at CCB and she flew with the owner, but it was rougher around the edges and had an obnoxious pin-up decal on the rudder.

Over the next six weeks, I researched every Maule for sale in our price range...watching the market, talking to Jeremy a few times, and waiting for my buyer to come through.

He came through on the last day of my work-cation in Kauai.

I hit the phones to close the deal on N9NA.... to my chagrin, she was under contract and scheduled for a pre-buy the next weekend.

So I went back to the "premier Maule broker" and flipped through his inventory again. I hopped a plane to Orlando to look at a '93 cream puff IFR bird with 670TTAF and the full patroller package, along with twin 430's...

$85 was at the top of the budget, but for a turn-key bird, I was willing to stretch it.

Within ten minutes of looking at the logs, it became glaringly obvious that the broker was a dishonest one--he was begging for a wired deposit before I stepped foot off the ground before I could discover that there was a fifteen year gap in the logbooks... yup, she was stashed in a hangar for 15 years while the owner hid from the bank. Not to mention, she had 50 hours more on the tach than advertised... I understand times change, but come on.....

I got back on the plane and headed home. They wouldn't bargain, despite the plane booking out $3k short of the $85 asking price.

Two mornings later, I get a text from the owner of N9NA....

The buyer backed out.

I drove straight to PRB and flew the bird, grabbed the logs, and submitted to the bank.

The A&P who did the pre buy had done some work for me before, and is good friends with my buyer, so I called him up and got the rundown on the plane.

Flew it home a couple days later....

While TAP, Barnstormers, and Brokers are the easiest way, they're often just rabbit holes..... the right airplane will find you!

Hell, my dad's C-175 stared at him on a ramp for months before he googled the N number and discovered he knew the owner's family.... a few weeks later it was annualed and flying!




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Squash wrote:Remember that it is always easier to buy a plane than to sell a plane.

True to a certain degree, but if you spend extra effort buying the right plane at the right price, it's always easier than the effort trying to sell the wrong plane at the wrong price.

Well, I just bought a '67 Cessna 182. Kinda ugly, but it's low time and has a PPonk engine and Scimitar prop with under 100 hours on both. It was never listed for sale. I spread the word I was looking, and a friend said, "You know. Jim doesn't fly his Cessna much any more. Maybe ..."

Three months later, it's mine. Putting in a new windshield and glareshield. Already bought the Airglas fork, bigger tires, folding jump seats, and extended baggage kits. Those go in in May.

It gets moved to Idaho in May.

Great replies and a ton of information.

I just bought my 5th airplane, a 73 185, and look most every morning at the ads online to see what the market is doing
Spent over a year seriously looking and traveling to look at over 10 planes. I think the most important factor is be ready to buy when the right plane comes by. Have cash available and know what you are looking at. A prebuy is essential but if it looks like the right plane put a deposit down contingent on the prebuy inspection.
I will say that the market is quite soft right now. I see 180/185's that have been listed for over a year still for sale. Of course there is a reason; they want more than they are worth. After traveling all over the US and Canada I found my plane 50 miles away from a ad I placed in the 180/185 club online.
Good Luck,
Tom