You can generally post on Craiglist and get offers within a day that beat a trade-in offer. People sit on car listings and offer low-ball prices that are still above how awful dealer trade-in offers are.
I don't think selling a car is really that difficult of a process, for me anyway. I don't know what California paperwork is like, but in Ohio, all you need to do is sign your title over in front of a notary. Besides that, it's just a matter of listing it on Craiglist and scheduling times to look at it.
In California it's even easier than getting a notary - you just need signatures on the title ("pink slip"), and then both parties can fill an online form for transfer or liability. The buyer then goes and hands over the title to the DMV at some point in the next (10) days, getting a new title in the mail.
For as well me I've had a decent experience on Craigslist - just some due diligence and research on best practices and you're good to go. But it does take some time and patience and dealing with flaky buyers. Just ignore the lowballers and the non-serious. However I'm sure a lot of people would love this type of service, especially in common scenarios where the actual seller is busy so they try to proxy it to a family member who really isn't interested in selling it. Or when they've moved out of state and buyers don't want to deal with that
I don't think selling a car is really that difficult of a process, for me anyway. I don't know what California paperwork is like, but in Ohio, all you need to do is sign your title over in front of a notary. Besides that, it's just a matter of listing it on Craiglist and scheduling times to look at it.