Anne wrote:I'm hoping to buy myself an elliptical trainer for Christmas. I really want something for the winter months that I can do while watching TV as a break from exercise DVDs.
The embarrassing part: it will have to be a cheape
Embarrassing? The embarrassing thing would be to pay full price for a new one, only to find out someone in your area is selling a nearly unused one for less than 40% of the new price.
Very typical of this equipment, is for eager buyers to decide this time, they're really going to change their lifestyle. So they spend, say, $1,000 on some new machine. They then use it for, say, typical about 5 to 10 weeks.
The it sits and torments their mind for about the next 24 months until they realize they'er never gonna use it again and they need the space as well as the need to get rid of the evidence they actually ever planned to exercise.
So they try to sell this machine which still has 97% of its effective life left and they then find out they can't get even 50% of what they paid.
So they end up selling their perfect barely used machine for 40% or 30% or 20% or sometimes just give it away for free.
Depending on your area, and if you are willing to wait just a few weeks or so, you may come across a super-duper deal.
And DON'T forget to bargain them down if they're asking 40%.....
Suggest 25% sounds better. Have the cash ready and a way to haul it away.
OK........You are on Michigan right?
You probably have a Craigslist near your area
http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/mi
Type in elliptical in the search
ann arbor (15486)
central michigan (329) new
detroit metro (72554)
flint (1589)
grand rapids (8860)
jackson (301) new
kalamazoo (1408)
lansing (2969)
northern michigan (1135)
saginaw-midland-baycity (953)
south bend / michiana (1705)
upper peninsula (644)
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area which has by far the largest Craigslist, I find 65 listings although some of them may be repeats. You've got to look daily to find the real bargains.....meaning nearly new, and about one third of the new price..... But hey, rarely will you find anything in this category that is truely used, such that most of its life is gone. NOPE, this is the one area in which MOST of the items are rarely used very much.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions", and now you get to benefit from that fact.
Just for fun, go to
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/
and punch in elliptical......look at all the ads.....from $30 to $3,000
I see the first one for $500 ......orginal retail $2995
BTW, some of the best values are in machines a few years old. Remember, age of the machine is not that important, since very few of them have been used very much.
Lastly, DON'T ever pay 50% of the orginal price (the true orginal price, not some inflated MSRP)
Typical is....orgian MSRP list price......$1,495........real orginal price $995 on sale......Now, after its been used 20 times over the past 3 years, you pick it up for $250... (25% of what the buyer paid and only 16% of the orginal MSRP) Got it?
Remember, people almost always have a wildly over-inflated idea of the value of their machines in the used market.......so let them down gently to the reality.
