Ken Reed wrote:
I have a 1967 'C' model Mooney and am thinking about upgrading. I'll
probably end up with a Mooney 231/252/262, but I'm looking at everything
turbocharged. In poking around Barron's web site I saw the following:
http://www.barronthomas.com/34772.htm

Garmin 430 and Garmin 530. Known ice and factory air conditioning with
reasonable times and a good price. I called and talked with him last
week. He was pleasant enough if not terribly helpful. I made an
appointemnt to see the Seneca today at 1pm. I walked into his office at
exactly 1:00 pm. No Barron. His secretary paged him. No Barron. She
paged him again at 1:15 pm. No Barron. She paged him at 1:30 pm. No
Barron. She paged him at 1:45 pm. No Barron but he called the office and
said he would be there in 15 minutes. At 2:00 pm and no Barron, I left.

I had tied down a fair distance away. Just as I was getting back to the
Mooney, here comes Barron in a bright yellow Hummer. He said we could go
look at the Seneca now if I want. It wasn't even there ! It was at
another airport we would have to fly to. I told him no thanks, I have
other appointments I have to attend.

Barron won't be getting my business with this or any future transaction.
Since I doubt Barron owns the plane outright, he's probably just
brokering it, I wonder if the owner knows how he's screwing potential
buyers ?
---
Ken Reed
http://www.dentalzzz.com


I had a lousy experience last fall with another broker based at SDL.

A friend and I spent the better part of a year looking for a 70s AA5B
Tiger to partner on. One popped up in T. A. P. last fall right here in
Scottsdale, so we went over and took a look. Everything looked decent
on the surface so we inquired about moving the airplane across town to
Deer Valley for a pre-buy inspection. The broker informed us we'd
need to place a 10% deposit before we could put the airplane in the
hands of our mechanic. This was the first time I'd heard of anything
like that, but he assured us it would be refundable in the event we
didn't do a deal. We went home to begin scraping up the cash and the
broker called my partner later that afternoon and laid on a sales pitch
worthy of the slickest used-car salesman. It seems there was a party
in Tucson interested in the plane and we'd need to agree right now to
pay his asking price and we'd need to fax over a signed purchase
agreement right away. He assured us that anything that came up in the
pre-buy would be negotiable off that price. My partner and I knew we
were being worked over but based on the airplane we saw and others we
had looked at, and the price (and knowing how tough it was to find an
airplane in that apparent shape), we decided to go for it.

That was Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Monday morning after the 4-day
weekend we called the broker. No answer, no return call. Nothing
Tuesday, Wednesday, ... finally heard from the guy the following
Monday. He said sorry to have to tell us but another party had
purchased the airplane. My partner said he didn't understand how
that could be the case seeing as how we had purchased the airplane over
a week before, but the broker waffled, holiday weekend, didn't get
the fax, yadda yadda...

Not much we could do, but (maybe not surprisingly) the broker called
back a week later with the news that there were some problems with the
other parties pre-buy inspection and maybe we would like another crack
at it. The partner told him, ah, we wouldn't really ever do business
with him thanks. He went ballistic and called my partner a
Mother****er.

What's with these guys?

Anyway, the story get worse then much better. We found another fine
specimen of a Tiger for sale in April, and after paying for a
(spotless) pre-buy inspection and negotiating terms, the seller
suddenly stopped returning calls when we called with financing all
lined up looking for an account number to wire funds into. I'm not
sure if they got cold feet about selling or if someone else offered
more money. After stewing about that situation for a few days my
partner called with details on another Tiger for sale in northern
California. It was just a few bucks more than the most recent deal
that had fallen through, but it had an even fresher factory re-man
engine, a Garmin 430, new paint and new interior - among many other
upgrades. The sellers were an absolute pleasure to deal with and
we've been getting acquainted with our new acquisition for the past
few weeks and having a ball! Now, rats, I've got to find a way to get
her out of town for some real cross-country. I'm thinking maybe a week
somewhere in maybe mid-Wisconson... Maybe late July...

I guess the moral of my story is to hang in there, and watch out for
those brokers.

-R