Upgrading to sell ever worth it?

A

Artimas

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Artimas
Is it ever a good strategy to upgrade a plane to sell it? I know you never get full value back from upgrades, but if a plane is cosmetically tired in and out, will doing a decent interior and paint get most of the value back, or at least make it easier to sell? Will a buyer suspect that you're hiding something if you do that? Or just hope for a buyer that wants to do upgrades themselves. How many are out there?
 
I've seen folks do this....but I can't imagine it's profitable. Nice paint and interior can run north of $13-15k.
 
It "might" help you sell the plane faster, but lowering the price will work better and take less effort.
 
There was a Mooney for sale here and the owner redid the interior for the sole purpose of selling it. Jacked up the price to try to recoup that money. I'd have preferred a lower price and let me (or the new owner) decide what interior to put in (or not put in). Just my preference in that case, yours might be different.
 
Sell it AS-IS. Save the $$ to invest in your next aircraft.
 
Depends, maybe tossing in some new carpet and buffing the paint out, new dash overlay, stuff like that, sure,
 
I agree with everyone else. If you can redo the interior for cheap and invest your own labor, maybe. Paint jobs and avionics are pricey, and I can't see most people breaking even. IMO, there is a market for people trying to fly in something economical. I would just market towards that group.
 
JOhnH said:
It "might" help you sell the plane faster, but lowering the price will work better and take less effort.
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Ryanb said:
Sell it AS-IS. Save the $$ to invest in your next aircraft.
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Yup. That has been my operating philosophy for 9 years. Buy-lo-sell-lo baby :D Sure, the uppity zealots grimace at my demographic' existence in this avocation, but hey

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rbridges said:
I agree with everyone else. If you can redo the interior for cheap and invest your own labor, maybe. Paint jobs and avionics are pricey, and I can't see most people breaking even. IMO, there is a market for people trying to fly in something economical. I would just market towards that group.
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Interior for cheap?! How I do dis?!
 
If what posters here say is true, I wonder why projects sell, pristine aircraft don't?
 
Tom-D said:
If what posters here say is true, I wonder why projects sell, pristine aircraft don't?
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Projects sell if the price is right and the buyer knows what they are doing/getting into.

Pristine aircraft sell too, to the right buyer.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Projects sell if the price is right and the buyer knows what they are doing/getting into.

Pristine aircraft sell too, to the right buyer.
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Not on the sales web pages I frequent. there must be a real shortage of "Right Buyers"
 
Ryanb said:
Indoor-Outdoor carpet..it's about 15 bucks a roll at Home Depot. Cut as needed. Done.
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It's also an attractive selling point. :lol:
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YGTBSM, that stuff burns hotter than a road flare.
 
Tom-D said:
Not on the sales web pages I frequent. there must be a real shortage of "Right Buyers"
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Yes, simply by demographics, there are going to be fewer people who can afford and appreciate pristine aircraft. But they are out there. The key to selling a pristine aircraft is waiting for that buyer to come along. You just have to be willing to wait.

Take the fighters for example. Wildcat/P-51/P-40....etc

Those restored all go for a million plus and they get their price, but they may sit on the market for a year before the buyer comes along.
 
Ryanb said:
Indoor-Outdoor carpet..it's about 15 bucks a roll at Home Depot. Cut as needed. Done.
Turf_GreenSqFt.png
It's also an attractive selling point. :lol:
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That's awesome, but it would be even better if you covered the top of the wing with it. Then you could put a couple of lawn chairs on the wing during Oshkosh with a beer cooler. Maybe a bug zapper from hanging from the tail too.
 
ircphoenix said:
Interior for cheap?! How I do dis?!
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Search my user name and find that link I posted a few times about upholstery.

Just tossing in new carpet, not very spendy if you do it, use the old stuff as a template, only stitching for the most part is simple edging, and it makes the plane look quite a bit better, after its probably the #1 wear/stain area on most planes.
 
As a potential buyer, let me suggest you think about the economics of the engine if it is at or near TBO from my potential buyer's standpoint.

I see many, many airplanes with engines (well) past TBO that I won't even consider buying because I'm not going to buy an airplane for 25k and then put another 25k into an engine - the bank won't loan me 50k for that airplane. I especially won't buy an airplane for 35k when it's worth 25k and then put a new engine in it. Similar for engines approaching TBO because my economic model for operating the airplane requires me to set aside an engine kitty in the amount of (25k / time to TBO) every hour. If I've got 2000 hours of time to play with then I have to put aside $12.50 every hour I fly for the engine. If I have 200 hours of time to play with then I have to save $125 for the engine every time I fly. Pretty much anything over half TBO gets prohibitive for me to start saving to fix the engine and I have to start looking at how to get additional money to pay for the engine. That decision for how to pay for more money complicates the sale and removes me as a potential customer.

Assuming I otherwise want the plane, I will buy a 50k airplane with a brand new engine, one that has 200-300 hours is even better. That's an easy one.

Those are not hard rules. I have some funds to work with and I could take out an equity loan for an engine without thinking too hard about it. But I have to want the airplane more, so all other things being equal, a high engine time make it more difficult for me to pull the trigger.
 
I'll use my plane as an example.

Cherokee 140. 325 SMOH when I bought it. A bit over market at 36,000... but it's a California plane with solid avionics. Paint needs work, interior needs work.

So say I was going to turn around and re-sell it. I spend 15k on interior/exterior. I throw in another 3k for the WAAS upgrade. Might as well upgrade the transponder to ADS-B as well. So there's another 5k.

Guess how much my plane is worth after that? Not $59,000. Probably still around the ballpark of what I paid for it to begin with.

Nobody is going to look at a 140 and say "Yeah. 60k is about right" when they can find a nicely appointed/equipped 180 with half TBO for that price.

Such is the plane market. At the low end of the market, you're not going to get much of a return on what you spend.
 
ircphoenix said:
I'll use my plane as an example.

Cherokee 140. 325 SMOH when I bought it. A bit over market at 36,000... but it's a California plane with solid avionics. Paint needs work, interior needs work.

So say I was going to turn around and re-sell it. I spend 15k on interior/exterior. I throw in another 3k for the WAAS upgrade. Might as well upgrade the transponder to ADS-B as well. So there's another 5k.

Guess how much my plane is worth after that? Not $59,000. Probably still around the ballpark of what I paid for it to begin with.

Nobody is going to look at a 140 and say "Yeah. 60k is about right" when they can find a nicely appointed/equipped 180 with half TBO for that price.

Such is the plane market. At the low end of the market, you're not going to get much of a return on what you spend.
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true. I bought my C model mooney for 60k give or take. On the high side, but it was pretty solid. Anyway, looking through the logs, I saw that one of the previous owners spent 49K on upgrades in 1998! He either planned to keep the plane a loooong time, or he had quite a bit of income to spend as he wanted. Either way, I know he didn't get that money back when he sold it.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think the advice to do as little as possible before selling is the correct path in this situation. I may take a little hit on the price, but still better than the loss on new upgrades.

Thanks again!
 
Let someone else do the upgrades,then buy low and enjoy the airplane.
 
No two buyers are alike. Some want the turn key airplanes and others want to be able to pick and choose every detail about the interior/engine/panel/paint..etc.

It's kind of a crap shoot. Doing upgrades yourself won't return all of your investment, but it may help the airplane sell quicker. Just depends on the kinds of buyers you happen to be attracting. You never really know.

You can always list it as-is and see for yourself and then later put in some upgrades if necessary.
 
Depends on the plane, the more expensive a plane will recoup most of the money. For planes less than $50K, no , but for planes over $150K yes.
 
ircphoenix said:
I'll use my plane as an example.

...
So say I was going to turn around and re-sell it. I spend 15k on interior/exterior. I throw in another 3k for the WAAS upgrade. Might as well upgrade the transponder to ADS-B as well. So there's another 5k.

Guess how much my plane is worth after that? Not $59,000. ....
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I agree with this. Also, I wonder if you could get new paint and interior for $15K. I recently priced a simple paint job on my Tiger from a well known Arizona shop. It was $15K, "if no fuselage repairs are needed". The impression I got was- it would definitely cost more. :) Without any interior work. Like everyone says, upgrades are great if you have an aircraft you plan to keep. For a long time. You get to enjoy the upgrades and you help your resale as well. Just don't plan to get all of that money back. You won't.
 
edo2000 said:
I agree with this. Also, I wonder if you could get new paint and interior for $15K. I recently priced a simple paint job on my Tiger from a well known Arizona shop. It was $15K, "if no fuselage repairs are needed". The impression I got was- it would definitely cost more. :) Without any interior work. Like everyone says, upgrades are great if you have an aircraft you plan to keep. For a long time. You get to enjoy the upgrades and you help your resale as well. Just don't plan to get all of that money back. You won't.
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Is is possible to get a "cheap" paint job for an airplane? I know you get what you pay for, but I had a car that got hit and I replaced the hood and fender and took it to Maaco for a $349 whole car special. It wasn't a perfect job but it looked better than with a mismatched hood and fender. Is there an equivalent paint job for airplanes and what would it cost to turn a 100 foot airplane into a 20 foot airplane?
 
edo2000 said:
I agree with this. Also, I wonder if you could get new paint and interior for $15K. I recently priced a simple paint job on my Tiger from a well known Arizona shop. It was $15K, "if no fuselage repairs are needed". The impression I got was- it would definitely cost more. :) Without any interior work. Like everyone says, upgrades are great if you have an aircraft you plan to keep. For a long time. You get to enjoy the upgrades and you help your resale as well. Just don't plan to get all of that money back. You won't.
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I got quoted for a paint job at 7k locally. Pretty sure that's the Maaco equivalent where they'd sand the existing paint then reshoot and be done.

Interior was 9,900 for a complete interior refurb.

Needless to say, I'll be doing neither.
 
If I do upgrades, I'll do decent quality ones. I'm pretty sure an interior and paint job will be $30,000, maybe more depending on what's uncovered. I think it will be tough to get all of that back in a sale.
 
Tom-D said:
Why hasn't this aircraft sold at this price? all the upgrades have already been done, look at the engine/prop times
http://www.trade-a-plane.com/search...N+COMANCHE&listing_id=2206734&s-type=aircraft
I've never seen one that well equipped listed at this low price.
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How long has it been for sale AT that price? In other words, did he just lower the price? Unless there is some underlying issue, hat should sell for close to what he's currently asking. Probably not much more.

Twin Comanche market is really soft right now. My friend that bought my Baron waited over 7 months for his PA30 to sell and reduced the asking price several times. Ultimately took a little less that what that one is asking. He had a lot of tire kickers, but very few serious buyers.
 
Short answer no way. Best to buy plane with these upgrades already done. I'd rather pay more for a nice well equipped plane than have to spend more $ and time having this done.
 
Blueangel said:
Short answer no way. Best to buy plane with these upgrades already done. I'd rather pay more for a nice well equipped plane than have to spend more $ and time having this done.
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Unless you're picky and what you want can't be found easily.
 
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