siegelaviation said:
It is a superb airplane that should not be grouped together with the other aircraft on TAP or Controller.
First let me say that I am sorry that the owner lost his medical. That will be a sad day for each of us. That said, business is business.
It very well may be a superb airplane but it is over priced. From a logical standpoint there is no reason to say that one example aircraft available for sale should not be compared to other, similar, aircraft for sale.
The one thing that strikes me is the times on the engines. First I note that their is a wide variance in the engine times. Some see that as a good thing others not. To me it is a neutral, especially since the ad states NDH which I take at face value until something triggers me to think otherwise. Second, while there is time left before the recomended TBO these engines are past the halfway point (one of them much more so than the other) and there is no guarentee that the TBO will be made (acknowledged that the O320 is a reliable engine which if opperated half way well should make TBO and that under Part 91 that TBO is only a line drawn in sand). It is also unknown when and where the "remans" where done and to what level the overhaul was accomplished. Of the when and where the when is, at this point, probably the most important as it could have been a long time ago given that the average plane is flown way less than 100 hours a year.
I see no mention of new accessories (mags, harnesses, carbs, exhaust, alternators) and so I'm thinking they were replaced with the engines. So they are several years old at a minimum, near the end of their life expectancy. Now the new owner will have some choices to make. At one end of the choice spectrum the new owner can replace accessories onsie-twosie on condition or do the engine(s) in the near futures and all of the accessories at the same time on the other end of the choice spectrum. Obviously there are a lot of intermediate choices available to the new owner but the fact is that more money will have to be spent over and above the very high acquisition cost.
I also see no mention of the condition of the paint or the interior. This does not necessarily mean they are good or bad, original or upgraded. It could simply be that the person creating the listing failed to include this information. I note that there is no picture of this aircraft on the apparent aircraft broker website link that is part of the signature line of the post. I would think that an aircraft broker would want to put the aircraft in the best light possible so, while it could have been simply forgotten, we don't know anything about what the condition of the paint and interior. Best case is that it is unknown but the fact that it is not present leads me to think negatively.
On the flip side there is a large quantity of twin aircraft on the market at reduced prices due to the current cost of fuel. Specifically, the research presented here shows that there is a significant number of this particular make and model of aircraft which, on average, are $80K cheaper (talking just asking prices, we will ignore wiggle room for the purposes of this discussion, using the assumption that all sellers will wiggle equally - which is probably not the case but is outside our scope).
There are specific examples of what appear to be nice to very good, maybe not superb but none the less fine Twin Comanches available. In looking at the specific examples you will see aircraft with asking as much as $100K below the asking price of the aircraft presented here. Going up the scale a notch there are a number of aircraft with asking prices about $80K under the asking price of the aircraft presented here. You can do a lot to an aircraft for $80 - $100 large. The nice thing is you can do what you want and it can be on a schedule that spans several years.
Len