Opinions on AOPA's Vref program please

Jim Carter wrote:
I’m starting to narrow down my target aircraft and just today started
looking at them through Vref at the same time. I’d like to read your
opinions of that pricing service – both good and bad – and any
suggestions you might have as to other pricing tools that worked for you.

The free price estimation offered by AOPA and Trade-A-Plane both give
very high numbers.

I recommend http://aeroprice.com

I have no vested interest.

They have a couple of different price estimation products. They're not
free, but they seem to be based on solid concepts and in my experience
give pretty accurate results. The price for the appraisal is in the
noise level compared to making a mistake on the price.

When I bought my airplane several years ago, VREF seemed to produce
prices that were on average about 10% high. There's a software package
called Aeroprice (use google) that provided more realistic values.

I've thought that VREF should be used to set a selling price if you can
match what's in the airplane reasonably well.

I haven't used TAP's service so can't comment.

Jim Carter wrote:
I'm starting to narrow down my target aircraft and just today started
looking at them through Vref at the same time. I'd like to read your
opinions of that pricing service - both good and bad - and any
suggestions you might have as to other pricing tools that worked for
you.

BTW, the target will probably be something along the lines of the Cessna
172 / Beech Sierra or Sundowner / Grumman AA5. I like the Pipers also,
but want two doors - I've spent lots of time in the Commander 112
series, but don't have the budget for them.

I haven't bought any airplanes for a couple years now (my wife is happy
about that). However, in my experience Vref was about 10-20% low.
Prices were higher. However, its also regional. I'm in California. If I
were willing to fly out to Florida there seemed to be a lot of good
deals. You also sometimes find good deals in the MidWest. Last plane I
bought was a Mooney and I went out to Arkansas for it. Prices were
about 20% higher in California. We pay 7% sales/use tax either way in
California so taxes makes no difference.

-Robert