“The quality of the car and its documentation and history and provenance are very important to us,” Gooding said.
3. Send photos. If your car is very good, the auction house will shoot it, too. But they’ll want to see what they’re working with. Every angle of the car’s front, side, doors, rear, trunk, engine, detailing, back seat, roofline and spoiler or fins helps the auction house understand your car better and consider it for placement in a sale. Once the house determines it likes your car, it will send out a representative to evaluate it in person.
4. Sign the seller’s agreement. Each one is slightly different, and each is confidential, but a good rule of thumb is that cars valued at less than $250,000 are offered without reserve and require a 10 percent seller’s commission, plus a $1,500 entry fee that covers marketing, such as photographer and printed materials. As you cross over the $300,000 mark, the commission tends to be negotiable depending on the car’s value and sale price. There is also generally a buyer’s premium associated with the sale that stands at 10 percent. That is a fixed commission that also goes to the auction house and is attached to the sale of the car. (The seller’s commission is an entirely separate commission that the auction company earns from both buyer and seller.)
5. Schedule transportation, which can run a couple of thousand dollars or more for international transport. Unless you have a $10 million Ferrari, you’ll pay the cost for getting the car to the auction site. If you do have that Ferrari, the auction house will often work out a deal on shipping. Again, the earlier you can get the car to the auction site, the better, because that allows the organizers to promote it to media and potential buyers.
6. Watch the sale: You never know when a certain car could ignite a bidding war.
“Yes, it’s an election year, but if someone sees something special, all bets are off,” Kelleher says. Keep your fingers crossed.