What is the first thing you do when looking to sell your car?

Where do you go to value your car or trade-in? How are those values determined? What is my car truly worth? These are just some of the questions you might ask your yourself when looking to trade-in your car. 

  • TRADEPENDING has introduced the first ever, easy-to-follow, market-based pricing reports for customers within the industry that is based on real cars for sale. It combines Kelly Blue Book, Black Book, NADA, and more.
  • SNAP by TRADEPENDING helps you research the value of your trade. When TRADEPENDING asking customers what they value most when they visit an auto dealer website, customers top answers were research new and used inventory and research the value of the trade. SNAP offers transparency with real market data. SNAP Market Reports use real values of local cars for sale.

NADA Guide vs. Black Book vs. Kelley Blue Book? How do I know which one will get me the Best Deal?

You've probably heard it all at this point "You Need the Blue Book pricing!" "We're selling Our Car below Blue Book!" "Get true Blue Book value for your trade-in!" Whether you're buying or selling a car, truck or SUV, it's easy to get lost in the blue book chaos. What does it all mean?

These Valuation Systems started as a dealer to dealer comparison so they could stay competitive with pricing in the local market. Using the dealer only "Nada Guide" was the way to go. Since its humble beginning the "Blue Book" standard became the staple in all modern car sales and used car valuation. In turn the "Blue Book" trend also gave buying and negotiation power to  common customers who didn't know the car market values at any given time.

So, I know you're probably wondering like most buyers, what is a "Blue Book", how accurate are they, and how do they get their numbers? Most importantly, do they provide truly valuable information to help you get the best deal on your car? These valuation companies are just research systems that do all the leg work for you through data collection from various sources, including print, web, and autoblog communications. This allows the customer to get the correct median value that he/she is looking for without having to do the research themselves. 

So Who is Who, and What Do They Do?

  • Kelley Blue Book

Kelley Blue Book, or as it's more commonly know KBB, has been giving accurate and optimistic new and used car market values for over 90 years now. They have become a trusted name thru their hard work and research. They have collected their encyclopedia like knowledge from attending actions throughout the nation. They are said to create more than 20 million unique visitors to their website each month. KBB uses and say to rate system of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor. This Allows even the beginner customer to seem like a pro at the valuation process whether selling or buying. Their pricing is also very complete, giving a wholesale value to each unit, which includes costs for reconditioning, auction, and transportation fees.

  • NADA Guide: The Yellow Book

The NADA Guide is a Mulit-value predictive system, which collects data which is generally separated into two categories, transactional data and market data. The data gives more of a social understanding of the market value including factors such as fuel price, employment figures, interest rates and incentive data, among others. This style of valuation gives a wall rounded look at the car being valued throughout several markets. It can even give predictive look into what the value will be in the future car market. The NADA guide also references loan values of the car's value to the market value. 

  • Black Book

Black Book® is a corporate style valuation tool which has a reputation for giving "industry qualified" users quick, unique, and accurate pricing information for vehicles. their product is mainly available through various subscriptions or license agreements. They have been a staple in the car market since 1955. The company is still growing by providing constantly evolving data analysis to make success for any company looking to buy,sell, and lend. 

So What What Do the Pro's Actually Use?

It looks like the majority are still stuck between using the KBB tool and the Black Book for valuing used cars and relying on Black Book for rare vehicles which are going to have less comparison on the market due to the rarity of the car itself. It seems like it would be more useful to just use a tool that could do both. 

The bottom line as to which book to use is that there is no steady, set, fixed bottom line; they are all good, dependable, honest sources of information, The best part about tool's like SNAP's TRADEPENDING, is that it grabs various quotes from multiple sources to give you the best overview of what your vehicle can be worth no matter whether your selling to a vendor or a personal buyer. Save yourself some time and energy by using them best tools at your disposal.