Lara,
I'm not gonna help much with this comment, but we got ours for ..... um ..... free. It's all Miriam's fault too. She saw a free machine on CL and emailed us about it. We went and picked it up. The giver said it didn't sew or didn't feed the fabric, but it did. The only ailment was the feed dog dropper was rusted up. Since getting that freed up and feeding it some Tri-Flow it runs beautifully.
Now, with what I've learned, I wouldn't hesitate to pay the money your guy is asking if I were going to use and keep the machine. Buying it for resale is a different thing.
Joe