The International Cessna 170 Association

Always on the look out to purchase a C170 but have been out sold several times because I am too slow presenting a offer. I am trying to accomplish my due diligence such as aircraft registration documentation before I proceed, which takes time to get a copy from OK City. I've reached out to several aircraft brokers for help but when I mention my price range limit of $90k the call is dropped or a long pause follows followed with "sorry can't help".
Any suggestions on documentation so I can present a good faith deposit yet have enough time to research the history and get a A&P involved for a
Pre-Buy inspection.

Thanks

A couple of things come to mind….

Just because some other buyer purchased the airplane you were looking at….. doesn’t mean they achieved a successful purchase of Your Choice…. (They may have been so hasty they now own a problem.)

You can make an offer to a seller… and even put up “earnest money” …. with the PreReQuisite that it must have “Clear Title Search, Free of Liens and Encumbrances, and complete an Inspection” (which you will pay for.)

A seller is anxious to get legal and valid funds on a completed-sale…. so a commitment from you is vital to the seller…but you can impose reasonable conditions for the purchase to be completed. Best to do this verbally followed by the agreement in-full in writing. Then act expeditiously for all concerned parties.

Also, it’s better if the airplane is near your base of op’s. You can waste a lot of your purchasing-dollars traveling the country in a search…. and then also be subject to a long-distance inspection process.

Hope this helps.

Aircraft registration and records info is available at cares.faa.gov

You can look yourself, save/print PDFs and have a good idea what's going on in a few minutes of work. Even using https://www.aerospacereports.com you can get everything in less than 72 hours. Your inspection of the aircraft will obviously include logbooks but having this info ahead of time can help narrow the scope of what you're looking at. If the plane is sold out from under you that quick then oh well. But this is an hour of work at most.

I'll follow up with the Aero-spaceports website. I think the escrow and title services are differently a good idea. I already have the aircraft registry ordered from OK City though I wish I would have waited since Aero-Spaceports guarantees the report in 72 hours. My mailed copy is going to take 1 to 2 weeks.
Thanks again for the suggestions.

Like mentioned earlier... get aircraft registration and airworthiness documentation from the FAA for free and immediately on their new website.

See this post.

viewtopic.php?p=152978

…and Don’t Forget to check out our own TradeMart section of these forums. viewforum.php?f=25

The faa.cares.gov is a nice addition to FAA web sights as it puts multiple services under one access site. I already had some of the sites saved individually on my computer so thanks for that.
On another note, would anyone have any recommended maintenance facilities in the San Antonio area for a pre-buy or annual inspections?