Part of it is the time of year. The end of the riding is fast approaching in a lot of areas. The 2012's were recently introduced so most dealers are overstocked with trade-in's. There are still a lot of new 2011's available. I think the used market will come back to some extent next spring.

 

Sucks. It is a hard economy, and when the decision is to feed the family or buy a bike, the bike is not an option. Luxuries are the first thing to go.

 

Don't trade it in or sell it; keep it and buy another one. Start collecting. I would never consider selling any of my HD's. They all have a soul and different personalities from my ultra classic to my rigid sporty. It's always good to have a spare when your newest ride is down for maintenance!

 

It's been that way for awhile. When I bought my '02 Heritage in Jan. 10, the salesman hadn't sold a bike in two months.

They knocked a bunch off the asking price, (which was UNDER what everything I saw on cragislist and ebay was) and I rode it home the next day.

.

 

Not just bikes, everything falls into a buyers market right now...cash talks. I found a Chopper back in February, it took until June to get it for the price I wanted to pay...but I got it. And I agree to what was mentioned earlier in the thread, sellers have to be realistic on the asking price. There's a lot of people in trouble, and when it comes to doing what's necessary to get by...you do it. If selling your toy means being able to stay above water, you're thankful it's there to sell. I've been in that situation, and knowing that better days would come, and that I would get a better toy later, got me through it. We have two types of sellers, those who NEED to sell, and those who would LIKE to sell. Those who NEED to sell will take just about anything to get out of it, helping to kill the resale market. We all know that a 2008 Fatboy is worth more than 5K, but that doesn't matter if you have someone standing in front of you with cash and a house payment due tomorrow.

 

People buy guns because they know something wicked this way comes. Too many things going wrong, not enough folks on the top know what is up. Stand by for a monumental collapse.

"if it does"

EXACTLY

 

I sold my '03 Ultra classic last April after over a year on CL. I dropped the price several times when I finally hit the right one. I figure it cost me about $4500 to own the bike for 3 1/2 years. That includes the few goodies I added to it. I still see ads where the seller go onand on about how much they sent on "upgrades" , that they hope to get all that money back. The truth is people look at the Nada , or Kbb prices and offer trade in value, which is the wholesale price. It may be the perfect bike for the buyer, but most know there are thousands of Harley's for sale and someone will take their lowball offer. The economy, being afraid of losing your job, having to take a job that won't qualify them for a loan, just not wanting another bill to pay, and a trend where people just aren't into the big buck bikes anymore. Look how the big dollar choppers went out of style. $30-$40k bikes are going for a song these days. Maybe it's true that the older crowd that was going for the last hurrah, are done spending the kids inheritance. I can't get over what Harley is still getting for new bikes, when almost everyone of them have a lot of used bikes nobody wants.,,

 

+1! This is how I got started with my car collection, and plan to move back into collecting motorcycles again. Keep the bike and start collecting, the bikes will have less miles and if you do have to sell one later on, it will be in a better market economy.

 

People are buying up guns because they still can. For now.

 

Funny thing is, right now, cars are selling like crazy. Used cars are scarce. Dealers are crying because they can't buy enough used cars.