Portland Craigslist Buyer's / Seller's Review

If you have never been exposed to the many resources available to you on www.craigslist.com, you are in for one of the most exiting discoveries you will ever make on the Internet.

www.craigslist.com is an international site that is broken down into local geographic sub-sites, or communities. Once you arrive at www.craigslist.com, you have the option of choosing which local community from around the world that you would like to actively participate in. Once you have chosen your community, the site is basically broken down into Community Bulletin Boards, Personal Ads, Discussion Forums, Housing Ads, For Sale Ads, Services Offered, Jobs, Gigs, Resumes, and a few miscellaneous sections that are useful, or informative.

The first time I used craigslist I was looking for an alternative to Ebay and I'd been referred to the site by a friend of mine who is a respected geek, while at the same time known for his views of global warming, "green" consciousness, "Bio-fuels" and the like. OK, my buddy is kind of a hippie throwback. That doesn't bother me enough to turn down what is usually his good techno advice, however. He had told me about craigslist and thrown in the caveat that people who use craigslist are like an on-line community. I didn't really care as long as when I sold something the buyers showed up to make their purchases with whopping loads of cold hard cash.

My first deal involved me posting an ad under "tools for sale" for about $500.00 worth of good used hand tools and power tools that were are duplicates of tools that I had in my collection already. I posted the ad making use of the four free color pictures that you are allowed to put up with every posting and listed the entire assortment for $450.00. I finalized the ad and the posting hit the Internet at approximately 08:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.

My phone started ringing about three minutes after I posted the ad and by 08:30 a.m. I had two guys, who lived within 8 miles of where I live, standing at my door - both holding $450.00 Cash in their hands. The phone was still ringing in the background as well.

Since that first great experience, I have used craigslist to sell everything from cars to software - always with similar exiting results. I have used craigslist to find employment, and I've always found reputable, honest, and professional employers in every field I've searched. I have purchased real estate from straightforward and trustworthy sellers. I've even gone on a few scavenger hunts after reading the free section where people give away items that are often times still quite usable if not valuable. One of the 36 inch TVs in my house was a freebie from a craigslist user who had just purchased four new 42 inch plasma screens for his home and simply didn't have any use for the perfectly good and fairly new CRT TVs that were being modernized and put out of service. The TV I picked up was only about 6 months old and came in it's original box along with the warrantee card and the owners manual. I don't know who was more grateful, him or me, but we thanked each other profusely as we each got what we needed. As a matter of fact, we had traded phone numbers, and he ended up calling me a few weeks after that because he bought a pressure washer I mentioned that I had while I was picking up the TV.

The bottom line is this. Craigslist is an outstanding, and invaluable locally based community resource. Give it a try. You'll be pleased to know that good, real people are on the other side of your Internet and ready to do solid, ethical deals.