Upgrade panel or sell airplane for less?

Hypothetical question for those who would like to buy an RV9A.

Is it better to keep the cost low with an older (2005) panel, or upgrade the panel with a contemporary EFIS. Let's say the price difference is $8,000.

The problem with an upgraded panel is that it won't be perfect for everyone, whereas the older panel allows a discounted price with the opportunity to perform a personalized upgrade. Panel is easily removable.

What are your opinions?

Im building so I may not be the best person to answer but if I was buying, I would rather buy it as is and do the panel myself later. I think there is probably a bigger discount than $8k for older panel based on what I am spending for my new panel!

Vern - paint it like the Rocket and you can charge whatever you want!!

Purely opinion here, but I'd imagine it's like adding a swimming pool to your back yard - you will pay $50k for the "upgrade", but only add 50% of that to the homes value. You might do better than 50% of your original investment for a panel upgrade, but I'll bet you would have to find exactly the right person to even break even.

panel upgrade

Personally I would take the discount and want a panel of my liking. You may update it with stuff I don't like. Just my 2 cents.

I help people buy and sell airplanes for a living, so my opinion may be a little slanted, but....

Leave the panel the way it is and sell it.

1. First off, 50% of the buyers want steam gauges anyway.
2. 25% of the buyers want a specific brand/flavor of EFIS and won't buy a plane unless it already has that in it. With all the EFIS options available, how do you choose?
3. The other 25% would rather buy a less expensive plane and upgrade the panel to exactly what they want

The other consideration is this: Say you spend $8k on a panel. Will that increase the value of your plane by at least $8k?


Anyway, just my two cents worth.

I agree with Craig and the others but would add that this forum is dominated by builders, thus the slant will be toward cheaper price because "we're builders and we can do an upgrade." That may not truly represent the entire buyer pool, as there may be a number of them out there that won't/can't do the work to do an upgrade.

And everyone is correct that if you put x dollars into a panel (or any other) upgrade you are very unlikely to recover those x dollars when selling.

my two cents.

I specifically looked for an RV with "less panel" so I could upgrade it later. Your -9A is quite capable as it is, and the easily removable panel makes it much easier for the next owner to upgrade.

I guess it doesn't really hold a candle to the Rocket, eh?

A cheaper sell that is upgrade ready, may help move it faster. It leaves the buyer with more cash to put in the panel they want, you save the work and money, and you're done paying insurance, hangar, tie down, etc sooner.

Another vote for selling as-is and let the new owner upgrade the panel themselves. You'll never recoup your costs of an avionics upgrade regardless of whether a plane is experimental or certificated.

Think of it like this: If it were a house and you chose the paint colors, it's unlikely whatever color you choose to paint the rooms would be exactly what the buyer is looking for. Spend the money on the important things and the "bones" of the plane. Couple things:

1) $8K isn't going to do much other than plop an EFIS in place of some flight instruments, which changes the overall base functionality of your airplane almost zero.
2) If it's a VFR plane, spending the bucks will not return much on the investment for certain things as compared to an IFR plane.
3) Realizing #1 and #2, if you have an old tube transponder and a 760 radio, no GPS, then upgrading those to something relatively modern would be a wise decision just to get offers on the plane and for it to be minimally competitive in the marketplace.
4) If it's an IFR airplane, buyers just expect it to have a WAAS GPS in it.
5) Any crazy home brewed or kludged together electrical systems/devices should be replaced with industry standard.
6) I wouldn't say you "never" recoup avionics expenses, but it's a VERY specific few that do - there are some specific instances you'll be money ahead...but admittedly that is a minority.

Overall everyone is pretty much on the mark. Discount the airplane for taking into account the panel, and let the new buyer upgrade it to exactly how they want. We do a whole lot of that, and it's almost always better when done that way verses trying to upgrade before the sale (except in a few instances like mentioned above).

With all that said, there is something to keep in mind though. If your plane is poorly outfitted and there are a lot of competing planes in the market (not saying that's the case right now - just pointing this out), but all things being equal if you have 2 planes and one has a poor panel verses one with a nice panel both priced closely, it'll be hard to sell the poorly equipped one even with discounts. Everything will sell at a price that it's worth (whatever someone will pay), so it's just a matter of finding that line between making the plane attractive to a potential buyer and wasting money!

I should be telling you to "spend spend spend", but I'd rather you sell the airplane and have the new buyer "spend spend spend"!

Cheers,
Stein

Sig600 said:

A cheaper sell that is upgrade ready, may help move it faster. It leaves the buyer with more cash to put in the panel they want, you save the work and money, and you're done paying insurance, hangar, tie down, etc sooner.

Click to expand...

"Upgrade-ready!" A choice bit of ad copy, that.

Agree with all that was said but if it was me I'd:

Leave it as it is and get Stein or someone to work up a "what if" drawing with a realistic quote to put it in the airplane.

That way if you get a buyer who wants to buy cheap and then upgrade but is not a builder and has no clue how to do it you show them the quote and send them to Stein to get the thing done.

Going with the ever popular house analogy you are selling them the house with the outdated kitchen but with a drawing and brochures of what the remodel job would look like, how much it would cost, and the subcontractor all ready to go to do the work.

It might just expand your market a bit and get you a better price. A lot of buyers of Experimentals these days have no desire to ever build anything. Experiemntals have taken over a big segment of the used airplane market.

Sell as is

Mr. Little:

Concur with "don't upgrade before a sale."

From a quick review of your construction site, you have a well-constructed airplane; a buyer might find the more they fly it, the less flying time they might want spend fixing something that already works.

Good luck in any event.