iMac trade in or private sale

[JonD25]

I have a late 2014 27” 5k iMac with the 1TB fusion drive and I upgraded it myself to 24 GB of RAM. I’m looking to switch to a new 2019 MacBook Pro. I’m considering using the official Apple trade in service and just sending in my iMac rather than trying to sell it privately, but I’m unsure if it’s the best way to go.

Here are the details. Apple told me they’d give me $530 credit. I know that selling privately, I could probably get around $800-900 maybe, but here’s the tricky part. Functionally it’s flawless except the screen is exhibiting some pretty easily noticeable ghosting around the edges. This is a relatively common issue with these iMacs if you do a pretty cursory google search. However, if I were the person buying, I wouldn’t expect to pay full value for an iMac with this issue. I feel like if I sell it privately, I’ll have to knock off a couple hundred maybe, making the difference between trade in and private sale a lot smaller.

Should I just go with doing the trade in and not bother with the trouble of a private sale? It’s tempting, as I’m not super excited about putting in the time and effort to make listings and all that, especially if it doesn’t sell quickly. But when I really think about it, even an extra $200 isn’t something to sneeze at.

 

[QCassidy352]

these types of questions are hard to answer in the abstract because only you know (a) what your financial situation is, and (b) how valuable your time is. $350 for that iMac is a crap offer, but if the money isn't a big deal to you, and the time is, then trading it in isn't crazy. I'd say that for the average person, the extra money from a private sale is worth the trouble. But I don't know if your financial situation (or free-time situation) is average.

 

[JonD25]

these types of questions are hard to answer in the abstract because only you know (a) what your financial situation is, and (b) how valuable your time is. $350 for that iMac is a crap offer, but if the money isn't a big deal to you, and the time is, then trading it in isn't crazy. I'd say that for the average person, the extra money from a private sale is worth the trouble. But I don't know if your financial situation (or free-time situation) is average.

For the record, it's $530, not $350. Although $530 isn't much better, so your point stands. I did a little more research and found some threads about the third party company Apple does trade ins with and wasn't too enthused about it as an option. I'll probably just try and sell it locally for the extra money. Thanks for the input.