If you are in the market for a used car, Craigslist can be an additional market to review for potential deals. This guide will explain the process and steps needed to find a used car on Craigslist. clear, easy to follow steps on how to find a used car on Craigslist.

Craigslist is a community-moderated service, providing local online classified ads in bulletin board format. Craigslist also hosts over 100 different topical forums. http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet Craigslist ads include housing rental ads, houses for sale, jobs ads, textbooks for sale, etc. With a bit of effort you can even find free stuff on Craigslist.

Craigslist is the seventh highest English language site in the world in terms of traffic, serving over 20 billion page views per month. There are local Craigslist online classified ad sites covering over 700 regions and cities in 70 countries. With over 50 million users in the United States alone, and many more around the world, Craigslist published about 50 million new ads each month, and has over 120 million postings on its forums. http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet

Craigslist Terms of Use (TOU) make it very clear that the site does not accept any liability for the content of ads posted by users, or for the behavior of users in their interactions with each other.http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use Accordingly, it is highly advisable to follow the advice posted by Craigslist on how to avoid Craigslist scams.http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams It is also prudent to follow the Craigslist advice on how to maintain your personal safety while interacting with other users.http://www.craigslist.org/about/safety

The first step in buying a used car is obvious. You have to decide what car you want to buy. Are you looking for a late model family sedan, or for a cheap pickup truck from 1980, or are you really an admirer of large used SUVs and would really like a late model Hummer H2 or Chevy Suburban? Do you want the car to have low mileage, or are you willing to get a more heavily used car in return for a more affordable price? One resource you can use is the Consumer Reports April issue which is their annual cars report, providing among other things a used car reliability report. You can also review their online site used car ratings.http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/used-cars/index.htm Another resource is the Edmunds.com site. http://www.edmunds.com/used-cars/

Craigslist has a regional site for over 700 cities and regions in the world. This does not cover every last town and city, but especially in the US the coverage is rather extensive. For example, if you live in the Washington DC area, including Northern Virginia and Maryland, you would start your search by going to the Craigslist DC area site, and more specifically, the cars and trucks section.http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/cta/

Let’s assume you’re in the market for a low mileage Honda Accord, for under $15,000, you hate the color blue, and you want to buy from a dealership to reduce any risks of scams or personal safety considerations. In this case, you would go to the search bar on the cars and trucks section sold by dealerships page.http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/ctd/ There, you would enter the following string: Honda accord “low miles” –blue. Before hitting “search” you would also enter the $15,000 maximum in the block for maximal price, and then you’d hit “search.” The minus sign in front of the word “blue” means that if the word blue appears in the ad, that ad will not show up in the results. The quotation marks around low miles means that only ads with the words low miles next to each other will come up in your search results. Craigslist provides detailed instructions on the search process.http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/search

Click on the link of the listing or listings you prefer. In the above example, clicking on the link of the 2006 Honda Accord EX would take you to the ad itself, which turns out to be by a local dealership, Ourisman Toyota of Fairfax, Virginia. The ad includes many images, all the specs, the asking price, and contact information. If you like this car, proceed to the next step.

Keeping in mind the cautions about how to avoid scams and how to stay safe, contact the seller and arrange to meet at a public location. In the case of a dealer, the dealership lot is fine, as long as it is during business hours. With a private seller you might prefer to meet at a nearby mechanic’s shop, after making arrangements to have the vehicle inspected. When you decide to buy the car, make sure all the paperwork is filled out correctly, and take care of both the financial aspect and the transfer of ownership together. Going to the bank and to the Motor Vehicle Administration (or Department of Motor Vehicles, depending on the state) may be a bit of drag, but not anywhere near as bad as finding out the car you just purchased was a stolen one.

The content of this page is intended for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional financial advice. Contact your loan administrator or financial aid counselor for more information