Optimal method for buying used airplane

Sellers hide stuff and tell you what you want to hear but you can still get good info with the right questions.

1. NTSB record search to look for accident history

Go to aviationdb.com and punch in the N-number.

2. Call seller and ask few high level questions:

• Any offers on the table now (Good planes will have offers pending)
• Is it in annual
• Approx how many hours has flown each year for past 5 years
• Is it IFR certified
• Any damage history
• What known squawks

Assume you're getting only partial information from the seller. But you will eliminate 2/3 aircraft already at this stage. If it passes this test (> 100 hours each year) ask for logs.

3. Spreadsheet the logs

Make a spreadsheet and copy the TACH, HOBBS, DATE, COMPRESSION #s for each cylinder, for every annual, oil change and repair. Have the spreadsheet compute things like "days between oil changes" and "hours between oil changes" and "days between annuals". You get a nice high level pulse of how much the plane flew and how well it was maintained. You will find most planes have not flown at all, and were out of annual for 1-2 years before being listed for sale. Eliminate them, don't even bother calling seller back. You'll get really quick at copying from crappy old logs to a nice spreadsheet.

Buying process can be super time consuming, optimize for being able to eliminate lemons as quickly as possible. Since you're not a mechanic nor experience pilot yet I would eliminate any aircraft that has not been actively flying for past 2 years (100 hrs a year min). While there truly may be some good buys on hangar queens that have been sitting, 90% of them are bad, and you don't know how to find a good one nor have the time.
Eventually you will find a plane with clean maintenance record that has been flying consistently, and has been in annual, and the seller is cool and open and little reluctant to sell. This plane will have other serious buyers with offers. Don't get scared off, majority of "serious" buyers don't close. 

4. Write an offer

At this stage I assume the plane is in excellent condition with a clean prebuy and I write an AOPA offer based on that unvalidated assumption. It is very important to agree on a price before wasting any more time. You often won't agree, so walk away at this point.

5. Deep dive and prebuy

If you and seller agree on price, now you move to next step and do a serious deep dive on logs, check flightaware logs, order prebuy, order title search, etc. This part should be time consuming and expensive.
The key for me is to spend as little time as possible rejecting the bad planes. There are some good articles on how to buy used planes, read them all. But I find the articles assume you have infinite time to spend on each plane, which is not practical.