VegasJen

Just curious what people's take is on the values listed on BBB. I was looking at a Specialized Transition triathlon bike. Seller is asking $900 for it but I looked it up on BBB and it was listed as private party of $650-700 range. I offered the seller $700 but he said BBB undervalues bikes because they want to sell them. Fair theory I guess. But how does it benefit them to undervalue a bike for a private party sale? Would you agree with the seller's point of view?

As of now, the seller and I have not come to an agreement, and someone here has made me a deal on another bike that is too good to pass up. If that Specialized is still for sale in a month or two, I may offer $700 for it again and see what he says. Or maybe not.

But what's the going opinion of BBB here? Any other references you guys use when buying or selling?

Barry2 

I find there is a correction factor for BBB pricing depending of where you live.
Here in CA (Bay Area) BBB pricing tends to be lower than local sellers expectations.
But on the other side, sellers often overprice with the intention of negotiation.

Watch you local market and compare to BBB, you’ll get a feel for it.

Barry

SoCaled 

There are a good number of sold listings for Specialized Transition's, that gives a pretty good reference point - not sure which version/year you are looking at.

urbanknight

They used to be horribly low, like in-your-wildest-dreams pricing. They're better now, but as mentioned above, there are many factors that should be considered, and some are based on local markets.

bargainguy

Back when I was selling, prospective buyers used to rub BBB prices in my face constantly, with the not-so-subtle suggestion that I was way overcharging. My answer was always the same:

If you can find my bike in the same condition, but at your (artificially low) BBB suggested price - go for it. Otherwise, I'm not wasting my time trying to defend a decent price over an outrageous one.

For those of us who were doing good work - dialing in our bikes, presenting them well, and not overcharging - BBB was a major pain to deal with. But in an odd way, also revealing. If someone presented me with BBB pricing only in mind and won't budge - that's someone who I immediately rule out as a potential buyer. Thanks for the heads up.

veganbikes

Some people find it good some people find it low. It all depends on your local market and the actual condition of the bike but that at least gets you closer to something. I personally wouldn't want anyone's used tri bike if they used it. I prefer not to micturate on any of my bikes and having worked on them or talking to mechanics who have had to work on them they don gloves and charge for cleaning.

The key thing is if the bike is worth it, if in good condition and well kept it could be worth the higher price the seller wants.

dedhed

Local market matters.

​​​​​​https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...f-de3c016554c9

Camilo

I personally wouldn't even consider BBB. A bike is exactly worth what it is worth locally - unless someone (buyer or seller) wants to ship. Local conditions and availability of what you're looking for totally affects the value to you and the seller. National market conditions or data - what I assume BBB is based on - is irrelevant.

I think what you're doing VegasJen is exactly how t go about it. Look around, see what's available, what people are charging, how long they've been trying to sell, etc. Then you'll figure out what any particular bike is worth , to you, not anyone else. Might be more than BBB because there's nothing else avaliable that you'd want. Might be less than BBB because the seller can't sell it for what they're asking.

I buy almost all my bikes via eBay, the for sale subforums here, or mail order bike companies, if the seller has reasonable shipping charges, but they're usually framesets not complete bikes. I'm well aware of my local availability of used bikes, or bikes that are a bit outside the "norm"... which is NOTHING decent in my size, so I look carefully far and wide and pay what I need to.

VegasJen

I appreciate the advice, guys. As I'm sure most of you know, I'm still kind of new to the game. I got a good deal on a couple bikes, and overpaid for a couple others. Not knowing can get pretty expensive. I'm not really trying to lowball anyone, but I don't want to get taken either.

Steel Charlie

Sellers in NorCal come up with some pretty crazy prices, often thinking that they have something that they actually do not, or wanting buyers to think that. CL from the Bay Area to Reno has bikes on it that look to be quite nice but so overpriced that they sit there for months or more. Probably motivated by the the same thing on fleabay. One that I could be interested in has been posted for over a year!
I don't think that I'm unreasonable using BBB+15% as a max baseline but that may just be me

Oldsledz

How often are the prices on BBB updated?

Sy Reene

ehh.. suspect in my opinion. Feel free to check prices on any of the bikes that they list in their "Buy" section, against what the Value Guide section says should be a private sale price. From what I quickly saw, their actual selling prices are good amount higher than private sale 'values', and way above what they ostensibly would be offering if going by the Trade-in value.

sean.hwy

this ^^^

back in 2020 I was looking to buy used I could never get anyone close to what bbb listed. I think the values of BBB probably would have been accurate pre-covid I am guessing (never used it then ). I just bought new instead.

Iride01 

Bicycle Bluebook is still just a guide. Some markets they might be high and some low in their valuation. And a bike should only be worth what you are willing to pay not what someone else will be willing to pay.

When a seller tells me they value the bike more than what I offered, then I'm happy to let them go find that buyer that is willing to pay their price. I've had some call me back and offer a lower price. But since they were snotty, I'm snotty to them and just say I found something better.

Sy Reene

I think that's a bit of the questionable side of BBB.. it purports to be a 'guide', but is in the business of buying and reselling, or signing up LBSs to use their trade-in services, and has an obvious interest in creating an ability to buy low.

urbanknight

You'll be surprised to know that they were even WORSE before covid. They would list a 5 year old bike in "excellent" condition as 1/4 MSRP. Both before and after the lockdown, I have both bought and sold bikes at about double what BBB claimed them to be worth.

Precisely!

katsup

As a seller, I find BBB somewhat annoying. I've had people get mad at me when I wouldn't match the BBB price. I told them that if they can find the bike at BBB suggested price, I'd buy one too. They got more upset so I said we aren't going to make a deal and hung up.

As a buyer, I never bring up BBB, but I do notice some sellers will list their bikes based on that value. I tend to scoop those up if it's a bike I am interested in.

BBB prices in my market are much lower than what the bike is worth. I would agree that their suggested price is higher than they were pre covid. Back then I use to see bike shops with signs saying that they'd pay $50 over BBB value.

mstateglfr 

BBB pricing used to be comically unrealistic for 90% of transactions. It was really just as useful as throwing a dart and declaring the price to be whatever amount the dart stuck to. There was no consideration for time of year, local inventory, local pricing, etc. It also heavily devalued older bikes the the point of making it seem like anything 20 years old or more was worth less than $80, regardless of the variables listed earlier.
Now?...BBB is still comically unrealistic, but that is for fewer transactions. They have more real data, so some of what they claim is now more accurate(or should we say less inaccurate) than before.

It is quite easily the dumbest and least helpful website to come along for used bikes.

VegasJen

OK, so now that we've established that, is there a better, more accurate site to use when researching bike value and specifications?

soyabean

With the rise of the internet, I've found "book values" do not apply to anything anymore. Bikes, cars, or properties.

Nothing lies from supply and demand.

If a buyer really wants something, they will pay as much as they want, or fold. Folks are doing this now with food and groceries.

If a seller is motivated to sell something, they will sell as low as they can to obtain funds quick for food and groceries.

There's a stupid bike flipper in my town that has 120 vintage unicorns in his house, he sells about 4 bikes a year. Recently, he is advertising them agressively on every internet medium possible. From our last conversation, I am getting hints that his house is being forclosed. He didn't want to believe that bike demand has returned back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

I admit, I am a high volume bike flipper, so I price my bikes to sell accordingly to fair market value to actual demand, specific to my town.

That's why I never look at "book values".

Iride01 

If every valuation guide or appraiser says a bike or something is worth a certain amount of money, it won't do you one bit of good if as a seller you aren't able to find the people that are willing to pay that much for your item.

Don't worry what someone else says about the value. You aren't buying this bike for a future increase in your net worth. So pay what you feel it's worth to you and consider how hard it is or isn't to find something similar to fit your needs. But IMO, once you make an offer, don't let the seller jack the price. I offer my best offer first and I'm always willing to walk away. You decide how you wish to bargain.

urbanknight

Not really. You have to consider:
- How much a similarly equipped bike would cost new
- The perceived value to you (if any) of any upgrades to the bike
- Approximately how much life the used bike's components and parts likely have left (this is hard to do)
- The prices of other bikes in the area with similar specs and wear

From there, you try and determine what you're willing to pay for what you are getting. No matter what anyone else says, if you feel like you're not getting a fair deal, you will probably always feel that way. I have certainly resented some purchases and have been proud of others.

Camilo

Agree with all of the above.

One thing that can sneak through is the wheels. Most buyers, even enthusiasts, recognize the frame and component group, but may not recognize that the wheels have been upgraded or downgraded from the original. It happened to me. Back a few years after the turn of the millenium, I researched used "Ultegra" grade, high quality aluminum bikes and settled on a Cannondale R2000 outfitted with full Ultegra with a Dura Ace RD. Very fair price asked. What I didn't notice was that the bike originally came with the high-end Mavic Ksyrium wheels, and the seller kept those and put on some brand new Aksium Wheels for the sale. The Aksium wheels weren't/aren't junk (still have them), but they were considerably heavier and worth less than the original Ksyrium wheels. All in all, the price was fair, I was happy enough and the seller did specify "new Mavic Aksium wheels" so there was no dishonesty. I just didn't recognize the terminology and the value it represented.

Back to the BBB: although I think it's inherently worthless, it's doubly worthless for any bike that has been built up by the rider to his/her preferences, like every single bike we have in our garage.

So the bottom line is analyze the bike carefully and simply decide what it's worth to you. If you can get it for what you consider a fair price, buy it and then forget about it.

Sy Reene

How about the traditional method of just looking at recently completed purchases on Ebay? Is that still a thing? At least it tells you what something actually sold for, not the list price that only tells you what somebody wants to sell for.

msu2001la

The problem for the OP here is that they've tipped their hand.

They saw this listing, with the $900 asking price and still took the time to contact the seller and go look at the bike. Presumably the bike matched the description in the ad, the buyer seems to want it. So, the seller knows that $900 is not outrageously high - it's in the ballpark, otherwise no one would've even responded to the ad. The seller also knows that the OP is serious about buying the bike, as they've offered $700 for it which is a lot lower than asking price, but still a serious amount of money. That means the bike is a good fit, etc. Nowhere in there did the OP try to claim that the bike's condition was bad, or that it needed unexpected work, or that it didn't fit quite right, etc.

So the only argument to be made in justification of a lower price is that some arbitrary "bike market valuation" website spit out a lower number? Please. The bike is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. The OP is willing to pay at least $700 - and probably more. The seller knows this. Unless they're desperate to unload the bike (it's December) they could easily just wait till spring and see if a better deal comes their way.

If I were the seller, I'd come back with $850 take-it-or-leave it. The OP could probably get it for less if they find a comparable listing and threaten to buy that one instead, but otherwise the seller is in the driver's seat here.