09-21-2019, 05:23 AM
If you're not in a hurry you can try buying something from GSAauctions.gov. They currently don't have any vehicles for sale in Hawaii but when they do they often have many. I bought a 7 year old sedan that had only 8,000 miles on it. They had an identical vehicle for sale that had only 6,000 miles on it but I could tell from the photo it had been stored outside by the UV damage. An added bonus of buying from the federal government is that there is no GET or any other types of taxes. The auction house put it on the barge for me for $70 so I never even had to go to Oahu to complete the transaction. I did have to go to young brothers in Hilo and show them some documents and pay for the shipment. As I recall I got the vehicle in less than 10 days after I paid for it.
I know a guy who buys cars there and flips them. One time he bought a truck, put it on Craiglist, and resold it the same day. Made about $2k on it. I don't remember the details any more but he never actually saw the truck himself, completing the purchase and sale from the BI even though the vehicle was in HNL.
If you are considering an online government property auction here are some pointers. First, don't bid until the auction is about to end otherwise you're just driving the price up. Be online "live" at the end somewhere with a fast and reliable internet connection. In the final few seconds, place your bid. Unlike eBay where the auctions have a set end time, a 'live' online auction any bid at the end increases the length of the auction. I don't remember how much, something like 3 minutes. So you'll enter what you want to pay and other bidders have 3 minutes (or whatever) to compete against your bid. For the HNL auctions a lot of the bidders are flippers, dealerships, and used car lots and they have a formula they use based on what they believe they can sell the car for and after it hits a certain threshold they drop out and you're only bidding against individuals like yourself. So an auction that looks like it ends at noon usually ends 30-45 minutes later.
There is another site they use to auction government cars in Hawaii. I don't remember it right now but they have vehicles that aren't on the gsaauctions.gov site.
I know a guy who buys cars there and flips them. One time he bought a truck, put it on Craiglist, and resold it the same day. Made about $2k on it. I don't remember the details any more but he never actually saw the truck himself, completing the purchase and sale from the BI even though the vehicle was in HNL.
If you are considering an online government property auction here are some pointers. First, don't bid until the auction is about to end otherwise you're just driving the price up. Be online "live" at the end somewhere with a fast and reliable internet connection. In the final few seconds, place your bid. Unlike eBay where the auctions have a set end time, a 'live' online auction any bid at the end increases the length of the auction. I don't remember how much, something like 3 minutes. So you'll enter what you want to pay and other bidders have 3 minutes (or whatever) to compete against your bid. For the HNL auctions a lot of the bidders are flippers, dealerships, and used car lots and they have a formula they use based on what they believe they can sell the car for and after it hits a certain threshold they drop out and you're only bidding against individuals like yourself. So an auction that looks like it ends at noon usually ends 30-45 minutes later.
There is another site they use to auction government cars in Hawaii. I don't remember it right now but they have vehicles that aren't on the gsaauctions.gov site.