Oh, BTW, if you've never bought a car, you may not know this: when buying used, you will want to test drive first and then, if you are at the "we think we want to buy this" stage, first take it to a mechanic you trust to give it a once-over and avoid any surprises. This is a reasonable and normal thing to do and I'd probably not buy from someone who wasn't willing to let me do it. A good mechanic should also be able to give you a sense of what he/she'd pay for the car, but other than that, unless the car market is weird in the South Bay, I would expect to pay Kelly Blue Book prices, maybe rounded down.