Buying Process
Perhaps you’ve narrowed down your list of potentials to your top choices, and now you’d like to know if the plane of your dreams is available — or within your budget. There’s a website for that. You might also check the classified ads at your local airport, ask around within your flying community, or visit this other website.
Do your research. Just like buying a car or a house, the more you know, the more prepared you will be; in addition to the age of the plane, consider its total airframe time (hours in the air), and the age and condition of the engine, which is either noted as SNEW (Since New) or SMOH (Since Major Over Haul). You’ll pay less if the plane is old, and you’ll pay more if the engine was recently overhauled. The instruments and avionics may be original, or quite updated, or somewhere in between — this is rather like deciding whether to buy the house with vintage appliances, a brand new kitchen, or a not-quite-to-your-taste-but-will-work-for-now situation.
Don’t be too distracted by the paint job or the seat cushions — but do take seriously any mention of prop strikes (the propellor hit the ground, at some point), or missing log books (every annual inspection and maintenance activity should be documented by a certified mechanic). I recently saw a posting that explained that all logbooks were present, but in Polish. My guess is that until they can provide a certified translation of some sort, they’ll be hard pressed to sell that plane in the United States.
Location is a minor consideration, but shouldn’t outweigh these other matters — better to find something a few states away (after all, planes can fly) than settle for something local that isn’t quite what you wanted.
Depending on your financial situation and the plane you select, you may need to secure financing. Specialized lenders deal with aircraft financing, and if you missed a prop strike mention or miscounted the logbooks, they’ll notice. It’s their job to assess the value of the plane, and they may not be willing to take certain quality risks that you were prepared to overlook (or that a seller assured you was no big deal). There should be an opportunity for a pre-buy inspection — which may surface some topics for consideration, or for discussion with your potential lender, but is not a terribly thorough investigation. The financing process (and the volume of paperwork required) is much more like obtaining a mortgage than it is like a vehicle loan. Be prepared to produce tax returns and pay stubs and credit reports and a down payment and the whole nine yards.
You should see (and fly) the plane before you make a decision, and your lender will want many pictures (including, potentially, pages upon pages of the logbooks), so you’ll need to get yourself to the plane and arrange to spend a few hours with it, potentially in coordination with a pre-buy inspection. You may, of course, do all this and decide (perhaps in coordination with your lender) that this is NOT the plane for you. And so you will travel home and begin again, or revisit your list of top choices. Identifying the plane you will buy can be a time consuming and potentially expensive process.
Eventually, you will find the plane, and arrange for payment. There will be taxes to pay, insurance to obtain (from specialized insurance brokers), and titles to transfer. Be sure you are qualified to fly this plane — if it is considered high-performance, or complex (due to retracting gear or twin engines), you’ll need those certifications before you can retrieve it, or you can arrange to have it ferried to you (at a cost).