Setting up an alert takes a few minutes. Making it bring you cars you would buy takes more care, and a dealer who buys every week will run into its limits.
Set up a saved search with email alerts
Craigslist's help pages on saved searches and search alerts describe the steps. You need a Craigslist account, since saved searches live on your account page.
- Go to your area's Craigslist site, open cars & trucks, and choose the by-owner listings. That leaves out cars posted in the by-dealer section.
- Set the location. Click the place name at the top of the page, then type a city or ZIP code or move the map. Some sites let you pick a subarea.
- Type your search words and set the filters. On a computer the filters sit on the left, and you click "update search" after choosing them. On a phone, tap the menu beside the search bar, choose "filter", then "apply".
- Click "save search" near the top right of the results page.
- Log in, open the searches tab on your account page, and tick the box in the alert column. Craigslist sends a welcome email to confirm.
The same help pages set a few rules that shape how you build searches:
- You cannot edit a saved search. To change one, save a new search and delete the old one.
- An alert email shows at most 20 results, newest first, even if the saved search sorts another way.
- Craigslist sets how often it runs each alert by how many results the last alert had. Fewer results means more frequent checks.
- Alerts include renewed, reposted and edited posts that now match the search.
- A search with an "&" in it only searches the text before the "&". Use the operators below instead.
The third rule matters most to a dealer. By Craigslist's own description, a narrow search with few results gets checked more often than a broad one. Several tight searches will reach you sooner than one search that catches everything you buy.
Filter to owner listings
Craigslist splits cars and trucks into by-owner and by-dealer listings. Its fee page lists $5 to post a car or truck in either section in the US. Staying in the owner section keeps out every lot that posts as a dealer.
It does not keep out curbstoners. A dealer who wants to look like an owner pays the same $5 and posts in the owner section. Read each ad for the signs in the curbstoner guide: a title not in the seller's name, one phone number on several cars, text copied between ads, or an offer of financing.
Search terms and exclusions that help a dealer
Craigslist supports a handful of search operators:
- Quotation marks find an exact phrase:
"one owner". - A minus sign drops a word:
civic -salvage. - A vertical bar means either word:
camry | accord. - Parentheses group terms:
(tacoma | tundra) -salvage -rebuilt. - An asterisk matches other endings:
mechanic*finds "mechanic" and "mechanics".
Searches a dealer can save and reuse:
| Search | What it finds |
|---|---|
"must sell" | moving | relocating | Sellers who say they need the car gone soon |
obo | "or best offer" | negotiable | Sellers who say the price is open |
"price drop" | reduced | lowered | Sellers who have already cut once |
"one owner" | "1 owner" | Cars the seller says had one owner. Check it against the history report |
mechanic* | "needs work" | "check engine" | Cars the seller says need work, if you have a shop to fix them |
(camry | corolla) -salvage -rebuilt | Two models, without ads that use either title word |
Exclusions cut both ways. -salvage drops the ad that says clean title, not salvage along with the salvage cars. -accident drops no accidents. -rebuilt drops rebuilt transmission, receipts, which may be the car you want. Exclude only
words a clean ad has no reason to use, and read the rest yourself. For what each title word means, see title problems on private-party cars.
When an alert lands
Open the ad before anything else and read it for the facts that end a deal: whose name is on the title, whether there is a loan, and whether the car runs. Look through the photos for the plate, and for a VIN if the seller shot the dash or the registration.
Then reach the seller the way the ad allows. If the seller posted a phone number, call or text. If not, reply through Craigslist's mail relay. The relay help page says Craigslist makes a random address for each posting, that the seller sees the name field from your email program, and that contact details in the body of your message pass through as you wrote them. Put your phone number in the first reply, with the car, one question and a time you can come.
What alerts miss
One area per search
Each search runs in one location. Around Los Angeles, Craigslist has separate sites for Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire and Ventura County, and a seller in Anaheim will usually post on the Orange County site. If you buy across the metro, save each search once per area. Then check that the location on each saved search covers the ground you think it does.
Keyword misses
A search finds the words the seller typed. Sellers write "chevy" for Chevrolet, "f150" and "f-150", and
"4runner" and "4 runner", and some misspell the model outright. Join spellings with |, and
keep one search per model rather than one search for everything you buy.
Reposts
Alerts include renewed and reposted posts, so the same car comes back. Craigslist's posting lifespan page says a paid post stays up 30 days, and that getting back to the top of the by-date results takes a new post or repost, paid again. A car that keeps coming back has not sold. Log the VIN, plate or phone number of every car you call, so a repost does not cost you a second call to the same seller.
Price changes
Alerts include edited posts that now match your search, so a price cut can bring a car back, or into your search for the first time. Craigslist's help describes no notice of what changed. The alert shows the post as it reads now, and the old price lives only in your notes.
Timing
Craigslist decides how often to run each alert, and its help gives no fixed interval. A buyer refreshing the by-owner listings sorted by newest can see a car before your alert arrives and call first. On a busy search, one email may also hold fewer cars than posted, since it shows 20 at most.
How a dealer covering a whole metro keeps up
Treat alerts as a backstop. Look at each area's by-owner listings, newest first, at set times every day, and call within minutes when a good car posts. A routine that holds up across a metro:
- One saved search per model and per area, with alerts on.
- A look at each area's by-owner listings, newest first, before the lot opens, at lunch and after close.
- A log of every car you called, with the VIN or plate, phone number, ask and date. It catches reposts and shows you price cuts.
- The same searches on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, each with its own alerts. An owner who posts only on Marketplace never reaches your Craigslist inbox.
The count grows fast. Four Craigslist areas and five models make 20 saved searches on Craigslist alone. Add the same five models on Marketplace and OfferUp, and you are watching 30 searches across email and two apps. See buying on Facebook Marketplace as a dealer for Marketplace's searches and notifications.
VinCount is one way to see Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp on one sheet. In Los Angeles it checks all three every 30 minutes from 6 AM to 11:30 PM Pacific. A reposted or cross-posted car shows as one row with its price cuts, and VinCount marks a car whose ad reads like a lot's as likely dealer. It does not send text or email alerts yet. New cars arrive on the open sheet as they come in.