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NATHAN MERZ, OWNER
Nathan Merz is the owner and founder of Columbia Valley Luxury Cars. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Nathan is a die-hard car guy who’s figured out how to wrap his passion for cars into his business.
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Here is my latest "Read" on Bring A Trailer's October 2024 Sales Results... Here is what they posted: • 4,069 listings (5% decrease vs. August 4,274) • 1,736 No Reserve Listings (42.6% of listings) • 80% Sale Rate But as you know, one must DIG Deeper into the data as the sale rate is skewed by the No Reserve Sales, so here is the real data: • 2,333 Listings w/ Reserves • 1,519 “SOLD” (remember sold doesn’t always mean transacted…) • 65% Sale Rate for Reserve Cars How does this compare: • August 2024-4,274 listings- Reserve sell thru rate 65.5% • April 2024- 3,497 listings- Reserve sell thru rate 64.4% • January 2024- 2,891 listings -Reserve Sell thru rate 64.4% • June 2023: 3,100 listings -Reserve Sell thru rate: 63.7% • September 2023- 3,480 listings -Reserve Sell thru rate 67% Key Takeaways: Despite the yelling and screaming that the market is cooling off massively and that cars “simply” aren’t selling, the data tells another story. Sell thru rates are holding steady at around 65% for Reserve Cars. Now this DOES NOT take into account PRICING, yes generally prices are LOWER than they were in 2023 so sellers have had to adjust their expectations HOWEVER great cars are still ringing the bell and certain models are still as strong as ever. More importantly cars are still WAY above their historic averages, let’s not lose sight of this! As I commented on my last post on this topic in August, we are still seeing some of the power sellers struggling as they are fighting two headwinds: people seek them out based on past successes and unfairly assume that seller can replicate a 2022/2023 sale price and secondly they are attempting to sell some cars they sold during that market peak and it’s hard to be honest enough with a customer that a market correct price might now be lower. So how do we at CVLC avoid this? Honesty upfront! While it is sometimes hard to deliver this news, this is always more fun that telling someone AFTER the fact and they are unhappy! We only take on a cars where we KNOW we can meet both the clients expectations and the market realities. Hence why you won’t find wildly mispriced cars in our inventory and why 95% of our Porsche BaT auctions are run at NO RESERVE! Price and presentation MATTER, when one analyzes the “BID TO” Reserve Not Met auctions two trends are VERY clear… #1 the seller’s expectation for price exceeded the current market value or #2 their presentation was lacking in some fashion (poor seller engagement, lacking key pieces of information, poor photo quality or many times, all the above!). The most successful sellers are those who know the art of the presentation and have real world pricing expectations. IF you are thinking of selling your Porsche on Bring a Trailer, please reach out and I will give you an honest assessment of whether or not it is a good fit… believe it or not, while I am very successful on BaT, I sell the VAST majority of my cars OFF of BaT…..
As we enter the WET season here in the Pacific Northwest, 15 minutes will SAVE your Porsche! I plan to drive our newly acquired 986 Boxster this weekend and the forecast is calling for heavy rain, DO NOT be the person whose Porsche gets totalled out because water gets inside the cabin. So we did a few easy things: -On a 986 there are 3 drains in the front cowl, get yourself a bike derailleur cable/trombone cleaner/sunroof drain cleaner and work that thru each of your drain lines to remove any debris. Used compressed air to blow everything out. Clean up your cowl area of any debris and test with water to make sure it all drains immediately under the car! -Put your top in the service position and do the left and right drains under the top, same as above. -Now this next trick is WORTHWHILE: In Porsche's infinite wisdom they placed the alarm module under the drivers seat at the lowest point in the car and made it a sealed little well that acts like a bathtub... water gets in due to clogged drains, fills up your alarm module and VIOLA your car goes CRAZY, wont start and $3-5k evaporates from your wallet! Since I only paid $6k for this one, that's simply not an option! So we cut down 4 ~2" legs from PVC that we secured to the bottom of the module, then secured the module down, leaving it 2" above any potential water, yet still allowing the seat to clear it. This buys you a LOT of time. Sure we could have spent $150 for one of those "waterproof" cases, but I find how they caulk the wiring harness to be inelegant + my solution was free and easy! Took ~5 minutes. PRO TIP: if your windows are always steamed up in the winter, it smells damp inside, make sure you check your interior for moisture, do NOT ignore this! These same tips are true for almost all modern Porsche's, the next worst offender are the Cayenne/Macan/Panamera with the Panoramic sunroofs, make sure their drains are CLEAN!
Ok, who in my network can help me out with a fun project... I HATE that Porsche's have gotten so EXPENSIVE so I am going to try and make a REALLY nice Porsche on the CHEAP! Just bought a really honest, clean 1998 Porsche Boxster with a full service history for $6,000! Paint is nice, interior is clean, everything works and it is current on service. Hard to believe but true! I am going to resist the urge to spend my usual thousands of $$ to make it nice. The biggest wart on the entire car are the burnt headlights, a common 986 issue. Does anyone have a clean set of OEM Halogen headlight assemblies they can sell me for reasonable $$? I am not talking about the outside lens, I can polish that. It's the issue where the bulbs burn the inside lens. Yes, YouTube videos show people prying these apart but that seems non kosher to me and I certainly would NOT buy those cheap Ebay/Amazon LED replacements! I will post progress photos so people can see what can be done on a minimal budget. Someone has to have a set gathering dust in their garage??