Trade or Sell
A private buyer has to beat more than the offer.
Where your state credits a trade-in against sales tax, the dealer’s offer quietly carries a tax saving on top of its face value. Enter the offer and your rate and see the number a private sale actually has to clear.
- Your numbers, not ours
- The tax credit made visible
- Negative equity named, not softened
The offer on the table
The credit rule genuinely varies by state — check your state’s own published rule. The saving assumes the replacement costs at least as much as the offer.
Before you buy
Check any VIN — free, instant, no sign-up
Decode the year, model, trim, plant and engine, then check NMVTIS for title brands and NHTSA for open recalls. The repair does not show on the paint. It shows in the record.
The credit is real money
Where your state credits trade-ins, tax applies to the replacement’s price minus your trade — a saving that never appears on the appraisal slip, and one that comparing offers at face value silently discards.
Private money is earned
A private buyer pays closer to retail, but the gap is not free: listing, reconditioning, title paperwork and your weekends all come out of it. The break-even is the floor — what it costs to beat it is the real question.
Negative equity follows you
When the payoff exceeds the offer, the gap does not disappear at the dealership — it moves into the next loan and keeps charging interest. The federal lending data on that pattern is a guide below, not a footnote.
