Sab's Guide to Buying and Selling Horses

This guide is part of the Sab's Guides Series see our masterpost here

Sab’s Guide to

Buying and Selling Horses

How to buy and sell horses hassle free* on Equiverse.
*not actually hassle free in the end, sorry.

This guide by Sabriel #84 was made to give some explanations and pointers about buying and selling horses on Equiverse. It is in no way a comprehensive guide and only shows my viewpoints and observations. There’s no right or wrong way to buy and sell horses and every person’s methods are different so take everything here with a grain of salt or two. The most important part of buying and selling is to find the price range YOU are comfortable with and how far up or down you’re willing to go to buy or sell a horse.

The Ways to Buy and Sell
There are many ways to buy and sell horses on EV, it’s all a matter of personal preference as to which is the best one for you, but different options will also draw different types of people.

Open Sale
Open Sale is done directly on the horse’s page under the “Update Horse” section just select “For Sale” in the For Sale dropdown and enter your price and wait for a sale. Horses will show up to any user using search criteria that will match your horse. You’ll get a notification when your horse sells along with the name of the player who bought it. This method works best for attracting impulse buyers with good deals.

Private Bid Only
Private bid works the same way as an Open Sale for setup but allows users to bid any amount above your set minimum bid and allows you to choose whichever bid you like best. It does not have to be the highest bid and you can look over the buyers before accepting. Some buyers will balk at Bid sales because you never know when or if you’ll get the horse.

Open Auction
An alternative to Bid only sales is the Auction House. The Auction House is only available to players above Level 10 so you are loosing a small portion of your buying audience if you use this method for sales. It also has a 24 hour time limit on the auction which does not allow for people to dither over buying. This avenue also allows for you to accept bids in EVC only. It costs $500 which you get back if the horse does not sell. You can set a reserve bid, but other members cannot see that reserve so be sure to set it for the lowest amount you will accept.

Marketplace Trades
Marketplace trades are useful if you are willing to accept items or a mix of EVD, EVC and/or items for your horse. You can list in your trade what items you will accept and any other information. Trades are available for 7 days before they expire and you will get notifications when people send trade requests. It costs $1000 EVD to create a trade which is returned to you once you complete the trade or if you cancel the trade.


Advertising Methods
As with any potential sale you’re more likely to sell if more people see it. Not everyone searches for horses the same way or at the same time so it’s important to let people know you have a sale going on when and where you can.

Horse Search
The primary way for any buyer to find what they want in a sale. Most people head to the search first if they’re looking to add to their herd.

Forum Post
Set up a forum post that highlights your horse’s information in Horse Classifieds. Make sure to include all the primary factors listed below in Pricing Factors and any of the additional factors if they help contribute to your price. Make and informative but eye catching title that includes some indication of the fact that you’re selling a horse. Bump your topic periodically throughout the week and try doing ti at different times of day to catch different people. Do NOT bump your topic more than once or twice a day, excessive bumping leads people to frustration.

Clubs
Clubs have a Sale Book where registered horses that are for sale are listed. Your horse has to be listed as For Sale in order to show up in the Sale book. There are a variety of clubs for different things so be sure to check out different breed, discipline and color registries your horse might fit into. Most clubs do have a fee to register but it can help you sell your horse.

Word of Mouth
Talk to people. Tell them you’re interested in selling. Set up a dialogue about their lines and yours and if it could be beneficial to trade a few foals here and there. Post it on your page and your riding school, make a little advertisement badge and build yourself a good reputation as a horse seller. Obviously this will be harder to do if you don’t sell a whole lot and don’t plan to, but if you’re going to be in the business spread the word! Same for buying, let people know what you’re looking for and ask around. You never know who might be interested.


Pricing Factors
There are a lot of things that can affect pricing of your horse. What sort of price do you use? This is the eternal question in any seller’s mind, and it’s becoming harder to adjust what is considered a fair price for your horse because of many factors. Essentially a buyer is paying for the horse and all the time and effort you’ve put into it, but they’re looking at a lot of factors that differ between buyers. For example some buyers only want the highest stats available to them, while others will prioritize a nifty color and still others will only take a certain breed and discipline.

Primary Pricing Factors
Breed - Breed affects price heavily. More popular breeds like QHs or GVs will fetch a higher price than Shetlands or Chincoteagues simply by way of being more popular. You can see statistics on the most popular breeds and the stat spreads on the Statistics Page.

Specialty - Specialty is usually influenced by breed and the common specialties in that breed go for more money. You can see discipline specific statistics on the bottom of the statistics page above.

Color - Color matters in some breeds more than others. Clicking on the breed in the statistics page gives you their full genotypic workup to tell you which colors are available in that breed, you can see all the phenotypes in the custom horse generator. There is a slight stigma against Grey and White as they cover all the rest of the genes in the genotype which means they generally sell for less. Modifiers like Cream and Dun are a bit more common than the specialty modifiers like Sooty, Silver, Flaxen and Panagre, but they also don’t have Tweaks available in the Credit Shop. Markings or lack of markings can also influence a price heavily. Solid Paints and Clydesdales might be worth a bit more, but patterned Dutch Warmbloods and Thoroughbreds can also be higher valued.

Stats - Probably the most sought after attribute as they influence so much of gameplay, stats are always the higher the better in a horse’s chosen specialty. High stats in general are good, but many people will turn away from an even spread of stats not attributed to a certain specialty, unless it’s a foundation horse that hasn’t had its specialty converted. Since their implementation stats have been the primary pricing factor for a majority of EV.

Conformation - Higher the better unless someone is going low for some reason higher conformation can get higher prices. Store horses generally run Between 45 and 65 in total conformation score, a bit higher for Customized horses. Any number over 60 is usually considered very good and could fetch a premium.

Age - Usually buyers are looking for either young horses to replenish their lines or old horses to breed. Comparing stats to age and pedigree is often a way people judge your horse. With Locking available to everyone all the time age is not as much of a factor for whether a horse will live/die before their intended breeder is ready.

Additional Pricing Factors
Pedigree - Foundations can fetch a higher price, but so can well lined horses with no breaks or repeats in their pedigree. Inbred horses (with a single horse repeating in their pedigree more than once) and Broken lined (horses with a deceased parent from before the recode when deleted records deleted the horse’s information) can detract from the value. If the inbred or broken lines are beyond the first page most people don’t care as much, but it can still affect pricing

Foals - Less Foals the better in most people’s eyes, less than 2 in mares and 5 in stallions if they plan to use the horse for their own breeding. This is more prevalent now with the Inbreeding block where siblings can’t breed within the first three generations.

Training - Fully Completed Foal Training(extra stat boost) and High training level(increase in luck factor) can increase price.

Show Points and Winnings - Shows a horse that shows well and can earn back money spent

Achievements - Indicate a successful Showing Horse, horses close to these achievements will give the new owner money if they continue to show

Condition - Is the horse cared for? People generally don’t want to buy horses that have empty hunger and happiness bars, or are overdue to the vet and farriet. If you’re selling something make them want it.

Other Additives - Displayed genotype, Comes Tacked, Has artwork or won awards Public Notes is a great place to display information about your horse.

Market Trends
It’s important for you to know market trends and what those breeders hold as important in their specific breeds. If Silver Quarter Horses are all the rage then you can probably sell for more if you have a horse that’s unrelated to the big lines. If there’s suddenly a huge contingent of players that want to do Racing Shetlands you might be able to convert a few of your foundations or second generation Driving Ponies and make a good profit off selling some.

Pricing for Your Audience
New members aren’t going to have 100k to spend on buying your top of the line TB, you’ll have to advertise towards established players. If you aim towards the younger player market(in time played not age) you can get away with slightly subpar animals at decent prices. But keep in mind that we are able to make an infinite amount of foundations form the Equine Center for just $1000, and RC horses only cost $200.


My horse still isn’t selling
Them’s the breaks. Sometimes people just don’t want to buy or the right person hasn’t seen your horse yet. Don’t get too discouraged. There are a number of factors that can affect people’s willingness to buy and those factors can change with time and effort on your part.

Priced too High/Market Down
Maybe you should take a second look at your pricing and the price of similar horses to yours and see if you’ve got the right price to sell. Try knocking back the price for a week or two to see if you can get any bites.

Undesirable Horse
It could literally just be that your horse isn’t worth selling. That’s okay not all horses will sell. If you really want to get rid of it you can always send it off to the rescue center or keep it until it dies. There’s a lot of factors that would make a horse undesirable check out the pricing factors above and see how many your horse has that could lower its potential price. Some of those factors can be changed or bettered, like using a Marking randomizer to get a pattern on a solid horse or training your horse a bit more so it’s bumped to the next stat level. Sometimes tough things can’t be changed and you’ll need to either drop your price or let it go.

EV Peculiarities
"My Own Lines"
EV members tend to have this rather irrational pride in having stock that was all produced by them starting with foundations. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to take pride in your work, but in reality it’s not good for the horse market if no one wants to buy outside their lines. You can’t expect people to buy from you if you don’t want to buy from anyone else after all.

Longer Lives and Late Breeding
The turnover rate for horses is very low because it takes 21 real life weeks for a horse to progress through to retirement, about 5 months. People want to squeeze the most stats possible out of their horses foals so they wait until the very last day to breed. I believe there was a boost to horses breed in their prime, but I’m not sure at what age it kicks on or off or if it was for sure implemented so I won’t discount this late breed time method. I do know there should be a boost for breeding pedigreed horses together based on how many generations they go back. So it’s a bit of a trade-off if you breed early vs. late.


The horse I want isn’t for sale
I run into this problem a lot myself, since I breed TBs in strictly Black or Smokey Black I’m constantly hunting for new lines to introduce; because it’s just not sustainable to continue only on store horses. You still have some options if it doesn’t come up in a Sale search. The best thing about EV is the locking system so if you have the perfect horse but no one to breed with it you can lock them away until you’re able to find what you need. But remember you’re losing the opportunity to keep improving if you’re holding out for too long.

Utilize Horse Search
There’s probably a horse out there that might be what you want. I never hurts to ask people with horses like what you want if they’re interested in selling or willing to offer a breeding. Just check their pages first for any notices about if they’re open to that or not, some players will say no, but sometimes people are just too lazy to sell off their stock and wouldn’t mind getting rid of one or two.

Find Breeders
Similar to the Above, use Horse Search, or browse your favorite breeders and see if you can get a foal from them, or breed to one of their horses to produce what you want. It might not be exactly what you were hoping for but it can help you progress.

Forum Post
Post in the Looking For... forum and see what kind of bites you get. Maybe someone has something similar to what you want that they haven’t had up for sale.


In Conclusion
The best advice is to be flexible and reasonable with your sales and buys. Remember your personal price points and be willing to discuss alternatives in order to satisfy both parties in the transaction. If you have Questions, Comments or Concerns please feel free to pm me at Account #84 and I’ll do my best to sort you out.

Last edited on 2018-08-18 at 17:23:29 by Sabriel

In addition to this guide I am including a link to the Horse Pricing Tool Google Spreadsheet. It offers simple math calculations based on user input data. It is experimental and only based on some general valuations but can give a good starting point for anyone unsure what they want to do. I highly recommend checking actual values of horses similar to your own via horse search to get more accurate values and remember to take your audience into account.