Owning an airplane is an aspiration shared by a great many pilots. Magazines whet our appetites. Videos build on the desire. Gazing skyward from pretty much anywhere in the United States will provide confirmation that owning an airplane would give us a magic carpet to adventure we crave.
If that urge to own resides in you, read on. This may be instructive.
There are three types of people in the world. Those who are buying, those who are selling, and those who are holding their treasured belongings for the long haul.
That last group can actually be included in the second. It is self-canceling. Simply put, you can’t take it with you. Eventually you will transition from being a person who is holding on to your acquisitions into a person whose heirs will be liquidating them.
The world is full of buyers and sellers. Pick a lane and be happy there.
Now, at your local grocery store there’s no wiggle room on the selling price of the items in your cart. The number on the can, the wrapper, or the shelf the item was stored on will be the price that rings up at the register.
Conversely, when shopping for a house or a car or an airplane, the asking price is sometimes more of a suggestion. The buyer can negotiate both price and terms.
Buying an airplane is far closer to buying a house than it is to buying a loaf of bread. The bread costs what it costs. The house? Who knows?
Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who owned a beautiful home on the water not far from the center of town. While talking one day he told me the story of how he came to buy the house. He was young, gainfully employed, ambitious, and newly married. He was also a little tight on cash.
The house he came to buy was on the market for $80,000. A tidy sum at the time. And even though he and his new wife loved the house, its location, and the view out the front windows, they weren’t in a tax bracket that would allow for such an expense.
While touring the house with the seller my friend was made privy to the reason for the sale. The seller’s life was slightly less magical than my friend’s. His marriage had fallen apart. The divorce was settled but the memories were painful. All he wanted was to be shed of the house and the planned life he could no longer achieve.
My friend offered half the asking price. The seller agreed. Both got what they wanted.
Price is negotiable. In some cases, the price the seller is willing to accept is far less than the price they’re asking. This flexibility is often affected by their motivation for selling. This is true in real estate. This is equally true when it comes to buying airplanes. Some prices are firm. And that rigid selling price may be absolutely warranted. Others are quite malleable for equally good reasons.
The first airplane I ever bought was a 1963 Cessna 150. A C model, it had the straight tail, manual flaps that went to 40°, and an odd blue interior that reminded me of nothing so much as an old Aeroflot cockpit.
Like my friend with the half-price house, I was motivated to buy, but not financially capable of being extravagant. In other words, I wanted an airplane badly. My ability to pay for an airplane fell quite a bit short of my ambition, however.
The owner was selling because he’d bought a house and realized it would be difficult to manage the home and the airplane and the hangar it lived in all at the same time. He put up a single flyer at the local airport. A flyer that was subsequently blocked from view when a vending machine was placed directly in front of the bulletin board it was affixed to.
I happened to be in the FBO when that vending machine was moved out of the way, five years after the flyer had been posted. It didn’t take long to verify that the airplane was still for sale and still in a hangar on my local field. It had some great benefits. A new windshield and propeller among them. Then again, it hadn’t turned a blade in five years.
There are pluses and minuses to any purchase. Buyer beware. Do your homework.
After checking out the airplane from tip to tail and considering what might be required to get it up and running safely, I made an offer. He was asking $20,000. I offered $10,000.
Perhaps the story of my friend and his home purchase made more of an impression on me than I’d realized.
The seller said he couldn’t sell for $10,000 but he could and would sell for $11,000.
We met at my favorite coffee shop, signed the papers, exchanged the largest bank check I’d handled to that point in my life, and parted ways happy men. He’d been relieved of a financial burden and blessed with an influx of cash. I had an airplane.
We both won.
There is no shame in negotiation. In neither of the cases described above was anyone trying to take advantage of anyone else. In the first case the seller’s goal was to make a deal quickly and move on. In the second, the seller wanted to be rid of an expense that was making his life harder. Although both involved the seller receiving far less than they’d listed their item for, all parties went away satisfied. That is the very definition of a win/win situation.
Can you afford an airplane? Maybe. Maybe you are closer to ownership than you know. The key is to look broadly and often. Avoid extravagance, be willing to negotiate with honesty and integrity, and be prepared to hear “no” a lot. That’s okay. You only need to hear “yes” that one time.
The dream is alive. Negotiate with hope. It just might work out for you.
After have owned 2 airplanes, I can honestly say that the least expensive part of owning an airplane is when you buy it. From there the sky is the limit (or the moon, since we already ran around there, too!)!