Seller crashed the car right before I was supposed to buy it — how much should I renegotiate?
I was planning on buying a black 2022 Hyundai Elantra with about 45k miles from a private seller for $17,500.
I went to see the car in person a few days ago and everything checked out. It’s in pretty good condition for a 4-year-old car—just normal small dings/scratches here and there. The seller has also been really honest and transparent throughout the whole process, and I was basically set on buying it.
A couple days later, I withdrew the money from the bank and was literally on my way to meet him and buy the car when he called me and told me he had just gotten into a fender bender.
The damage was enough that the car needs to go to a body shop, so he decided to hold off on the sale until it’s completely repaired.
I’m still interested in the car assuming the repairs are done properly and there’s no structural/mechanical damage, but obviously the situation has changed. When we agreed on $17,500, I was buying a one-owner car with no accident history. Now it’ll be a recently repaired car with an accident on its history, which could hurt the resale/trade-in value later.
We’ve already talked about renegotiating the price once the repairs are finished.
What do you guys think would be a reasonable price after the accident? Would something around $15k be fair, or should I be looking lower?