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I got a job in NYC at a V10. Moving there from a small town with my wife and kid. We have a 2017 Corolla with 35,000 miles on it. Looking to live in Midtown or Long Island City. Wondering if I should get rid of the car. How do I do that? Trade it in or sell it? I owe $10600 on it still. Should I sell it?

Sell it. Parking in midtown costs like $600+ a month. You realistically won’t be able to afford that especially with a decent 2 bedroom apt in the areas you are looking. You’ll probably able to recoup the full amount so you can pay off the loan.

NYC is a buyer’s market for used cars. For every 20 people here looking to sell a car there is one person looking to buy. Makes sense to sell before you move (unless you want to pay to garage it or happen to live somewhere in Brooklyn or Queens where it’s feasible to park on the street).

Anonymous User wrote:I got a job in NYC at a V10. Moving there from a small town with my wife and kid. We have a 2017 Corolla with 35,000 miles on it. Looking to live in Midtown or Long Island City. Wondering if I should get rid of the car. How do I do that? Trade it in or sell it? I owe $10600 on it still. Should I sell it?

Congrats on the job!

Unless you're looking to live in the 'burbs and commute in, it makes no sense to keep the car. In NYC (Staten Island aside) the most practical way to get around is the subway, supplemented by Lyft/Uber. Driving is a huge headache and you'd pay eye-popping amounts to park anywhere you go.

Sell the car before you move. The easiest would be to sell to a dealership or CarMax, but you'd get less money that way. You can use craigslist or the like to sell it yourself. Check with your lender as to the procedure you should follow to sell the car.

On the other hand, you’re a family with a small child. Many families in that situation in NYC like a car for weekend trips, driving to the zoo, running errands, etc. Does your wife drive? Will she be staying at home or working? Does she want access to a car during the week? Will she want to drive places on the weekend?

Not saying not to sell the car, but there are other things to think about in your situation. Not sure how easy street parking is in LIC - or if you would have the time/energy to deal with alternate side parking.

lawfan2012 wrote:On the other hand, you’re a family with a small child. Many families in that situation in NYC like a car for weekend trips, driving to the zoo, running errands, etc. Does your wife drive? Will she be staying at home or working? Does she want access to a car during the week? Will she want to drive places on the weekend?

Not saying not to sell the car, but there are other things to think about in your situation. Not sure how easy street parking is in LIC - or if you would have the time/energy to deal with alternate side parking.

Zipcar or Uber/Lyft would still be cheaper

lawfan2012 wrote:On the other hand, you’re a family with a small child. Many families in that situation in NYC like a car for weekend trips, driving to the zoo, running errands, etc. Does your wife drive? Will she be staying at home or working? Does she want access to a car during the week? Will she want to drive places on the weekend?

Not saying not to sell the car, but there are other things to think about in your situation. Not sure how easy street parking is in LIC - or if you would have the time/energy to deal with alternate side parking.

Having a car in NYC is a luxury very easily replaced by public transit, taxi/uber/lyft zip car or rental cars if you want to go out of town. We have a car here and pay $650 a month just for parking but literally everyone in our combined families use the car for various things so it’s worth it.

Our car is a 2011 SUV with 80k miles and was paid for in cash when we bought it. If we didn’t have about 10 people using the car, it would just sit and be a huge waste.

Remember everything gets delivered here as well so there is no real need for a car.

Increased costs also include higher insurance rates, gas and even the minimum amount required on your EZpass.

Unasked for advice: where in midtown? You might look at the Upper East Side as it’s more family friendly and might even be cheaper. I don’t think of midtown as family friendly but I don’t know what you consider midtown.

I think you're all right. I want to sell it. We are thinking about midtown east. However, upper east side is something we are considering as well. Looking for rent below $4000 a month. Need a 2br.

I lived in Brooklyn for a few years and had a car. It was handy to have the car, but the cost outweighed the usefulness. It is cheaper to use zipcar or uber when you need a car. A zipcar for a weekend might be a few hundred bucks. I easily paid more than that in insurance and parking many months. And there were times when I wouldn't use the car for a week or more at a time except to move it for alternate side. It was the out of town trips where I wanted the car. But normally I took those trips with other people, so we could split the zipcar and it was cheaper in the long run.

Npret wrote: Increased costs also include higher insurance rates, gas and even the minimum amount required on your EZpass.

Apologies in advance as this is a bit off-topic, but be aware you can buy your EZpass from another state. For example, despite living nowhere near the state, mine is from NH where there's no recurring fee. Mine refills at $10, but I can turn that off if I want to run it to $0.

Anonymous User wrote:I think you're all right. I want to sell it. We are thinking about midtown east. However, upper east side is something we are considering as well. Looking for rent below $4000 a month. Need a 2br.

Look at the Yorkville neighborhood on UES. You could get a nice two-bedroom for under 4k. It's a nice family neighborhood and a pretty easy commute.