I share all the frustration which has been reported. Yet the following approach works better (for me) than any other I tried before.
- call immediately (don’t email)
- if no response try 3 times, than dump it
- if the call goes well request full disclosure and ask how long he will need,
- if papers don’t come in, call again, and eventually … (you guessed it) dump it
- if it comes in, and looks promising, make an appointment
- if it does not … dump it
- always do your own pre-buy : a very good look at plane and papers before you call an expert in. He is worth the money on the last plane you really want to buy. But you can find many, many show-stoppers yourself.
And a last lesson I learned by wasting a lot of money: if you determine that she needs re-registration (example swiss planes unless you are swiss) … dump it.
PS: I hear that selling can be even more frustrating. Half of the Saudi peninsula is calling and emailing, and there is no chance in hell that any one will ever buy your beautiful plane built in 1989 or before. If you turn your phone off, you don’t sell. If you don’t you won’t sleep any more. That’s why some buyers turn to “email only”, which of course busts my first step above ;)
Well, it depends what you are after.
If you are looking for a unique airplane (and that 207 seemed like it) then you can set some of the rules of the game but not all.
Sometimes the broker is busy making money elsewhere and needs some motivation to ‘waste’ time with a buyer that he has little faith will make him money. I cant justify that attitude, I am just saying it happens.
While you run the risk of looking too motivated to negotiate, my only way forwards on a situation like this is to take some risk in a stepped way. Zero risk is not possible.
Perhaps you could buy a cheap airline ticket, go spend a day scaning the records yourself with your phone cam if required, and even looking at and taking photos of the airplane if colocated, effectively doing the broker’s job for him, then get your CAMO evaluate the records, try to get most of the answers there with little broker involvement, and if satis, go and inspect the aircraft.
In the end, what you are after is the right airplane at the right price, not necessarily the right type of salesman/broker. Of course it is easier if you satisfy the latter, but if you do a proper due diligence and have some safeguards for your cash (escrow or otherwise) then it is not necessarily essential. After all the seller (dont know about the broker) seems to be a reputable industry person, so he would not be expected to put his reputation at risk.
For me it was difficult enough to find the right airplane in two continents over six years…had I been that selective on salesmen, I would probably be still looking. Yes, the world is full of crooks but we still have to live in it!
I would try not to lose sight of the overall picture and your target.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It amazes me how brokers can act like that. After all, no sale, no money.
Snoopy wrote:
Anyway, I feel pity for the owner of the plane, he could have easily sold the plane by now were it not for this “broker”.
Well, if you contacted the owner and he did not want or was not able to help then there is nothing to feel pity about, he should change the broker or get of his backside and talk to you if you are already taking the trouble locating him.
It amazes me how brokers can act like that. After all, no sale, no money.
Snoopy wrote:
I’ll keep that in mind :)
Results may vary :-)
Katamarino wrote:
I bought both of my airplanes sight unseen online after a few beers.
I’ll keep that in mind :)
I just sold one of my planes. After endless calls from unqualified dreamers, buyers showed up, gave the plane a quick look over without any attention paid to the maintenance logs or other records (!), called their bank to arrange a wire transfer, and that was that. They didn’t even know what paperwork they’d need completed to register the plane.
After three days of ownership the pilot (a 20K hour major airline captain) put the plane on its back, reversing over 70 years of TLC by previous owners, one tenth of which was spent doing a ground up restoration. It’s not just low fidelity sellers who can be clueless and frustrating. It’s a fair fraction of people in general, in any open market buying or selling situation. In this case, for me, the only thing worse than the experience selling this plane on the open market has been taking a pet to to be put to sleep.
BTW, Barnstormers appears to be by far the most active site for buying and selling in the US. I’m hoping to have no need to use it any time soon… Mostly I buy things to keep and improve, the process of trading either way is a very occasional negative side effect 
I bought both of my airplanes sight unseen online after a few beers.
It has worked out remarkably well!
Peter wrote:
why could you not talk to the seller himself?
I found out who the owner is.
Then I used ceo/firstname.lastname/etc.. @companyname.abc to email directly.
Soon after, an employee of the company called me: “Hi, I am supposed to contact you…”.
This guy was very friendly but his job at that company wasn’t selling this plane, so he had other things to do.
Some things he could answer, others he referred me to the broker (adding he knows that they are probably not doing their jobs well).
Through various contacts I got a hold of a Cessna expert who has a CAMO and agreed to do a prebuy. He did ask beforehand for the current maintenance program, engine paperwork and if the location/hangar of the plane would be equipped with and if he’d be allowed to use the tools necessary for the prebuy and engine boroscoping.
Last contact was “I’ll scan the docs and get back to you after easter”.
Anyway, I feel pity for the owner of the plane, he could have easily sold the plane by now were it not for this “broker”.
Brisk one sentence emails etc.. „server error“, „come view anytime it is 100% perfect“ and the more than a month without reply concerning dates etc..
Yet another illiterate person.
In the old days, the wide boys did their dealing face to face. Now they are forced to do it electronically and they hate it.
Walk away.
Well, one could try to contact the seller directly. In your case, why could you not talk to the seller himself?
