A/C purchase buyers or sellers market?

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Duksrule

Well-Known Member
I am looking at buying a C-172 SP NAVII and have one lined up. Just a number that was thrown out was $140K but when I VREF the plane on AOPA it comes up with $129K it is a 2002 C-172 SP with 3K hours and it will come with a fresh 0 hour rebuilt engine.

I would be buying it from the flight school that I went to and leasing it back to them. I don't want to get into the pros and cons of leaseback. Just trying to get a feel for A/C pricing. Can I haggle a bit with them or is it a sellers market?
 
how does the leaseback work? do u get paid a fixed amount every month or for the hours they fly? what about the maintanance and the insurance?
 
With the lease back the flight school rents out your plane for you. You pay a management fee, fuel, maint, tiedown etc.... and whatever is left over is yours. While some schools this may not be so good, the school I went to is VERY busy and just got deals with 2 local colleges to teach aviation and flight training. They push the rentals to the lease backs first and then to the flight schools own aircraft. The A/C I am getting has been rented over 800 hours in the last 18 months and should be even more now that the school is growing. All I wanted was a plane that would break even. This is much better than that but I plan to put any extra money into an account for the plane and leave it there.

Also the school I went to, the people and instructors take great care of the planes. The 2002 that I am looking at looks like it should be a 2007. So that makes me feel better about leasing back.
 
Buying the A/C from a flight school IMHO gives you a lot of leverage. While the mx can be superb, a flight school plane is a flight school plane, with all its bumps and briuses
 
Maybe I should tell them $115-120? Then see what they say. I know I'm not going higher than $129 becuase I can get something different. I do like that I know this plane, know where it has been, how it's been taken care of and flown. This is actually the plane I did my PPL checkride in.
 
It's very much a buyer's market, however the price always depends on the individual seller/buyer, airplane, and particular local market. Some models are doing well price-wise these days... the C172 being one of them... particularly the later 70's/early 80's models. Single-engine in general is doing well lately (because of gas obviously), except maybe the priciest of the Cessna and Piper models.

I'll just be honest with you. There's nothing special about ANY C172. If you can't get one for the price you need today... just wait and find the seller who will give you the price you need. The 0 time engine is worth a lot, but make sure you get the particulars on the build, warranty and whatnot.
 
Duksrule said:
it will come with a fresh 0 hour rebuilt engine.
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When they tell you it comes with a 0 hour rebuilt engine, do they mean a rebuilt engine from Lycoming with a new logbook and factory warranty? I've noticed that some people play a little loose with the terminology, so be careful there.
 
Just sold our 2004 Nav II 172SP last month for about what we were asking. It, too was a flight school airplane from a Cessna Center. The plane did have some chipped paint and some marks on the pleather but other than that it is/was a great flying machine. Engine had about 900 hrs on it with a fresh annual. Sold it for $129.
Using Aopa to figure the cost I don't believe covers the compliment of avionics in the Nav II package such as the KLN94 or KMD550 and Nexrad (if subscribed) does it?.
 
It is a 0 hour rebuild from an engine shop. If you got $129K for a 2004 then I should be getting this one for less than that I would hope. I am not going to just buy it because it's there, if I can't get what I feel is a good deal then I will start looking somewhere else.


BajtheJino said:
Just sold our 2004 Nav II 172SP last month for about what we were asking. It, too was a flight school airplane from a Cessna Center. The plane did have some chipped paint and some marks on the pleather but other than that it is/was a great flying machine. Engine had about 900 hrs on it with a fresh annual. Sold it for $129.
Using Aopa to figure the cost I don't believe covers the compliment of avionics in the Nav II package such as the KLN94 or KMD550 and Nexrad (if subscribed) does it?.
Click to expand...
 
Duksrule said:
I am looking at buying a C-172 SP NAVII and have one lined up. Just a number that was thrown out was $140K but when I VREF the plane on AOPA it comes up with $129K it is a 2002 C-172 SP with 3K hours and it will come with a fresh 0 hour rebuilt engine.

I would be buying it from the flight school that I went to and leasing it back to them. I don't want to get into the pros and cons of leaseback. Just trying to get a feel for A/C pricing. Can I haggle a bit with them or is it a sellers market?
Click to expand...

AOPA's Vref is sometimes not even close to a real estimate. There are just too many variables that you CAN'T plug into that calculator. Trade-a-Plane has a decent calculator, but sometimes it is just as bad. The best way to get a totally accurate price is to get a certified appraisal from an NAAA appraiser. It is my experience as an aircraft broker that those appraisals are usually dead on (which is why most sellers don't like to see them done). If they are asking $140k, offer $120k. Don't let them make you feel guilty. This is a buyers market. If they don't want to sell at $120k, there is another guy with a late model 172 out there that will sell it at $120k.

Michael
 
BajtheJino said:
A "0" hour rebuild is just as good as a Factory new.
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There's a big difference between a 0 hour rebuild from Lycoming, and what an independent engine shop might call a 0 hour rebuild. It doesn't sound like this job was done at Lycoming. I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, just that the Lycoming Zero-Time Rebuild is a known quantity with a factory warranty.
 
Okay, not wanting to get into a pissing contest over meaning here. If the engine on the airplane that the guy is talking about was taken to an FAA approved shop and following the manufacturers guidelines the engine was overhauled it's just as good as a factory new.
The guys we used to overhaul our engine gave a warranty.
Plus, I'd say very few people actually use the manufacturer for overhaul/rebuild simply because of the price.
 
Definitions:

"A REBUILT ENGINE is an engine that has been OVERHAULED using new and used parts to NEW LIMITS by the manufacturer or an entity approved by the manufacturer. At the current time neither Teledyne Continental or Textron Lycoming approve any other entity to REBUILD engines for them. The engine's previous operating history is eradicated and it comes to you with zero hours total time in service, even though the engine may have had used components installed that have many hours of previous operating history . Textron Lycoming uses the term Remanufactured in their advertising and commercial media to describe their factory rebuilt engines. Although this term has no official definition in the eyes of the FAA, when used by the Textron Lycoming and only when used by Textron Lycoming the term Remanufactured should be considered the same as the term REBUILT."

"An OVERHAULED ENGINE is an engine which has been disassembled, cleaned, inspected, repaired as necessary and tested using FAA approved procedures. The engine may be OVERHAULED to NEW LIMITS or SERVICE LIMITS and still be considered a FAA approved OVERHAUL. The engine's previous operating history is maintained and it is returned to you with zero time since major OVERHAUL and a total time since new that is the same as before the OVERHAUL."

So there IS a big difference between an "overhauled engine to new limits" and a "rebuilt/remanufactured engine." The reman/rebuilt is more valuable as it is zero timed and overhauled engines, even overhauled to new limits, are NOT zero timed.
 
BajtheJino said:
Okay, not wanting to get into a pissing contest over meaning here.
Click to expand...
Oh, it's not that at all. I was just commenting that the difference is one that might have value to a particular buyer (perhaps due to nothing more than personal preference) and thus affect the price.
 
Its a good market for single engine planes now.

I just re-newed the insurance on my C152-and the market value for it has gone up because of the demand for light singles again-espeically those good on gas.
 
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