Importer prices not much more than auction price?

Customers often ask  how importers in their country can be selling some cars for prices that don’t seem possible.

The main reason is that they buy lower quality cars with higher mileage.

Some may tamper with the mileage to make the car more attractive to buyers.

Japan is one of the best places in the world to buy low mileage Japanese, American, and European cars especially over 10 years old.

Japanese people use their cars far less and drive much shorter distances than people in most countries, and the registration system here encourages people to buy relatively new cars, so anything close to or over 10 years old can be bought for incredible prices.

One problem with this of course is that international buyers looking for these bargains sometimes drive the prices up.

A good example is a customer of ours who  recently bought a LHD 2004 525i BMW with 125,000km for around 1.2 million yen.

Another customer bought the EXACT same car except RHD with 60,000km (in better condition) for 650,000yen …almost half the price.

 The LHD BMW is not worth any more than the RHD on the Japanese market.  It is buyers in countries that can only import LHD cars competing with each other over such models that cause such high prices.

A good plan of attach is to keep an eye out for models to buy, and regularly enter bids that you know will give you a definite profit margin.

It may take a little extra time, but eventually you will find something within your budget.