Next step(s) in purchase?

Douglas Paterson wrote:
Jack, thanks for the advice. Sounds like you're telling me I'm doing it out
of order: you had a purchase agreement (presumably including selling price)
*before* the pre-buy? I see some obvious advantages to that--if there's no
agreement, you don't spend any money on inspections, etc. (much like when
one buys a house). However, it seems to be impractical, unless I make a
sight-unseen offer. How to weigh those??

I wouldn't say you're doing it out of order Doug. The way I see it,
situations are going to be different depending on the seller. Add to
that your overall comfort level as a buyer in taking appropriate steps
in what you feel to be the right order and I'd say there are many ways
to skin the proverbial cat.

In our case, we talked to the owner (Dad living in NC), the daughter who
flew the plane (living in CO), and the shop that did the maintenance.
We also bought the package of info. from AOPA that contained all of the
337s, title search (may have been a separate item from AOPA for that,
can't remember). Based on all of the conversations we had and the
paperwork we could see, we felt pretty good about negotiating a selling
price contingent upon a satisfactory pre-buy. One partner was ready to
buy sight unseen. One other and myself wanted to eyeball the plane and
fly it so we headed to CO. We figured the most we'd be out was the trip
costs to CO plus whatever the shop was going to charge us for their
time.

Things moved fast for us. From the day I received an e-mail from
Trade-A-Plane with the add to the day we flew out of CO, it was a
whopping two weeks. We had many ducks lined up beforehand due to two
previous deals falling apart. Of course, it helped that two of us were
working on tracking down info. and talking to folks.

Perhaps split the difference? Have a purchase agreement (with a blank
selling price) ready to go when I look at the plane/logs, write in a price &
present it to the seller after I inspect but before the pre-buy?

This sounds like a good compromise.

I have a good
feeling about the one I'm looking at, the seller seems a straight shooter,
I've talked to his mechanic (annual just done in Apr) and others familiar
with him/his plane....

All good things. You really can't get enough of this kind of stuff.
Still, it can all come apart in the end. Sort of like buying a house.
Hey, I've heard that before :-) Seriously though, one thing I learned
through our buying process was that if something started smelling funny,
it was well worth walking away and waiting for the next plane to come along.

I'm sure this is easier the second (& subsequent) time around--but I'm
working harder on this than I did to buy my first house!! Thanks for
the help/advice....

I'll keep you posted on that score. Still on airplane #1 in life right
now. I have no intentions of changing that anytime soon.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

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