Only a few dealer/brokers keep very much inventory. Many of their planes
are brokered, so its not really theirs. Consequently, they mostly do not
care about the prices. They make money on the margin, so propping up prices
with lies would be a stretch.

Small firms, and FBO's who sideline in planes often have a very low cost of
sale because they have a facility already, or the owner is also the sales
person. They do not have to mark planes up as much, but they have little
room to help you out if you get a lemon.

Large firms, and new plane dealers have to make a lot of money on each sale
due to overhead. Also, a dealer who deals in a certain make generally gets
a higher price on that make because he is expected to stand behind it to
protect his reputation. These guys are not necessarily going to be there for
you if there is a problem, but they generally have a little more ability to
help. Some are still just jerks, so watch out.

One important thing that will prop up averages is the tax code. Plane deals
with trades involved sometimes get inflated because one side perceives a tax
advantage to the higher costs, and the other doesn't care. Another is
owners pride. Just like a car trade, they can inflate your trade in instead
of giving a discount on your new car.

For a tax advantage example, say the 206 is going to be a company plane, and
it will be depreciated, so the dealer charges you over list price on the new
plane and gives you a high trade in on your trade. He only cares about the
difference, but you can now depreciate more on the new plane. Of course,
this only works if there is no tax penalty on the trade side, where there
often is.




"Elwood Dowd" wrote in message
...
I appreciate the sentiment, but I doubt it is true. You are right about
where the data comes from, but I wouldn't suspect the dealers to that
degree. My guess is that planes sold through dealers simply get sold
for more money than the average.

Anyone know the ratio of dealer- or broker-sold aircraft to those sold
through private parties?

Howard wrote:

I don't know for sure but I'd bet that Vref prices are high becasue the
dealers who report sales tend to either report them too high or they
ONLY
report the ones that sell high.

Vref and Aircraft Blue Book get their data from dealers who report sales
to
them. It serves the dealers interests to keep prices high, so they
serve
themselves by mis-reporting aircraft sale values in such a way as to
inflate
the Blue Book and Vref prices.

Just a theory.