She sold! After a lot of work and much fretting over whether I was advertising the right price, I managed to sell the car. Here are the details: she was a 2000 Civic hatchback with nice rims, rear spoiler, and 80,000 klicks. I began the selling process last August by driving around with a for sale sign taped to the rear window (this produced very limited results). Again, the whole ordeal taught me a great deal about negotiation. Lesson 1 revolved around the selling price of the car and establishing a proper BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement).
With regards to the selling price, I first established an astronomical price by comparing my car to others listed in www.autotrader.ca. I soon realized that most people list their cars for way too much; $9K for my 7 year old darling was a little too much to ask for. In order to set a more realistic value, I decided to visit a Honda dealership to get a worst case scenario: $4.5K. I also checked the black-book (tade-in) value, which was between $6,700 and $7,200.
These two values helped to establish my BATNA: I would try to sell the car for $7,000. Anything less and I would keep the car until she was worth $4,000. (I didn't really consider selling to a dealer because this alternative felt like giving my car to someone for four thousand bucks and a kick to the teeth).
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