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Tracking Price-Drops for Used Cars on Craigslist with RSS

Posted by Sean | Posted under Cars, Craigslist | June 16, 2008

"HowTo" post on getting the most out of craigslist…

What you see in the screenshot below is NOT uncommon.

If a car does not sell in the first couple weeks, chances are decent you will see a re-listing at a lower price. Not always, but often. And thanks to the wonders of technology, if a listing changes, you can get updates delivered to your email address or web browser.

"Pre-Negotiation" for Used Cars

possible benefits:

  1. Avoid spending time on people who are stuck on a too-high price.
  2. Find people willing to "mark to market" only after they are ready.

possible downsides:

  1. Cars will sell. This is only an option if you have time and flexibility.

If you want to track a listing for price changes, here is how you do it…

Choosing Your Search Phrase

The trick is to narrow the results to only the car you are watching, but leave some flexibility in case the re-posts have changes in wording.

For example, in the above screenshot, you would not use the whole title (minus the price) because "Very Clean" was changed to "Clean Car" in later listings.

At the same time, you might not want to use the generic "Hyundai Sonata" because the car you are watching will be obscured by a lot of other listings.

Finding a balance depends on the number of cars for sale in the local market. In this case, "2005 Hyundai Sonata" looks like a happy medium. That part is less likely to change, and if a few unrelated listings appear in the meantime, they should be manageable.

Choosing Additional Parameters

Once you have settled on the search phrase, scroll down if necessary, and look for the little orange "RSS" icon on the bottom-right corner of the page.

Click "RSS" to bring up your options, depending on your browser & settings:

p.s. - RSS, Feeds… what does this mean?

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