Before I start, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll state right now that I rarely (bordering on never) read the newspaper. My wife reads it every Sunday. The most I’ve ever read the newspaper is picking up the USA Today from the Alaska Airlines Board Room to read on my once a week flight a couple of years ago. Yes, I admit it was me that lifted the USA Today every Wednesday from the Portland Board Room. But I ALWAYS left the “Compliments of Alaska Airlines Board Room” sticker in tact and left the paper in the seat pocket in front of my for the next passenger.
For some reason I’ve never been a paper reader. I don’t have the patience and I hate my hands getting all dirty by the end of the read. Course I don’t watch the news either. The USA Today reads more like a magazine, which I can make it through strangely enough, and maybe I’m drawn in by the color.
Anyway…….
I was in Starbucks this morning and happened to grab the classified ads from The Oregonian (our largest newspaper in the Portland, Oregon area) to see what Porsches were available. I expected to see 20 to 30. There were 2! Both 911s. Very surprising.
I decided to check the other 2 local newspapers, the Portland Tribune (Portland) and Statesman Journal (Salem). Nada in either one. Next I checked the web sites of all 3. Portland Tribune, the smallest, had none. That’s to be expected. The Statesman Journal links to Cars.com which is huge to say the least and found 4 Porsches within 30 miles of Salem. Again, not ultra surprising given the size and atmosphere of Salem.
Finally I checked The Oregonian’s site. There were 19 unique listings for Porsche. A little more in line. Interestingly, only 1 of the 2 in the paper are on the web site along with 2 other private sales. The rest are dealers.
I wanted to double check that it wasn’t just a Porsche thing. I looked at Ferrari (there’s usually a couple in the paper), Lamborghini (rarely any in there), Rolls Royce (again usually at least a couple), Maserati (usually half a dozen), etc. If you’re looking for a Jaguar, you’re in luck! There were about 25 listed.
I came up with 3 possible conclusions:
- Nobody is selling their Porsche right now. I could see that coming into the holidays under normal conditions, but too many people are losing their jobs and with the economy in a pinch, I would think people with a Porsche sitting in the garage would be ready to move their ride.
- Porsche owners are snobs and hate the newspaper, but LOVE Craigslist.com.
- The newspaper is dead. Save your money, get your news online and don’t even think about looking for a used Porsche in print.
I’m guessing the newspaper is no longer a viable source for anything but yesterday’s news. It looks like I need to remove the local classifieds as one of my sources for finding a used Porsche.
They say that Craigslist killed the newspaper — and it’s true. Newspapers’ #1 source of income used to be the classifieds section. They’d charge you like $20/wk for a couple of lines and everyone would pay it. It was quite the racket. Then Craigslist rolls along (albeit after others a la eBay, etc. – but generally services that charged a fee) and offers their service free of charge and as a seller you can post photos, give 500 lines of text if you want, and get a much more targeted audience because people on there to look are generally using the search field to find the specific model and price range they are looking to buy in vs. someone leafing through the paper aimlessly in the frequent flier room in an Alaska airlines terminal. 🙂