Buying an airplane is not an easy task.
After you decide what´s the model you need... or simply want, there are too many factors to be considered before you buy. For instance, their prices not only depend on the remainning potentials, equipment or looks, but also on the airplane´s location. What potentials are you going to need? what equipment are you going to use? How important it is for you how it looks (and how much would it be having your new airplane painted and upholstered as your dream plane)? Then again, every market has its own prices for certain model, so, would importing be a good idea at all? Would it be the best decision?
That´s just to narrow the options down. The easier part is done, but now the real work is about to start.
One could always buy an airplane for its looks, as soon as it has some hours left and guided by the sparkling lights on its panel, but considering the money involved and the infinite factors that dictate if it´s going to be an airworthy airplane next month (both, actual and legally), that purchase could end up being the bigger mistake. We can provide, or guide you through, a comprehensive inspection of both, its mechanical and legal state.
Don´t buy basing your decision only on the numbers you read, the sound it makes, the strong it seems to fly, the instruments you can see on its panel... Numbers can be a bit "imaginative", sounds can fool the best ears, trimming makes miracles in flight, instruments can be operative, partially operative, non operative at all or almost worse, not being installed fulfilling all of the legal requirements.
That ugly PA-28, equipped with some basic VFR instruments, quite a few hours on everything and not the best paint & interior job, can be much more of an airplane than that other one, fitting one million screens, with 50 hours SMOH and just painted and upholstered. If those VFR instruments are legally installed, work perfectly, those hours were well flown by some professional hands and maintained by some professional work shop, it´s probably going to be in a much better shape than if it had 50 hours SMOH, overhaul performed on the cheap side of the budget, hours flown along six years (which would equal to a prop overhaul about to come, by the way), instruments installed but not properly included among the airplane documentation, weight and balance not performed after it... The same goes for the paint & interior. Did it get a weight and balance? Was that interior legally installed?
We have heard of and seen quite a few new owners go mad because of the most unsuspected issues. Let us help you minimize the chances of being another one.