I would vote Honda if possible. I am on my second and my first was 20 years old when I sold it (got the same price I paid so in the 6 years I owned it only put in the cost of repairs and maintenance). My first I got from a family friend, previous owner was an older woman (garage kept), second owner wanted to trade in for an SUV so they sold to me. The second I got from my brother, he was going to trade in when they got their Subaru and the dealer was offering him only about half of KBBV. The first I bought and sold cash, so since it was worth so little ($1200-$300 depending on where you looked up the value). Selling it I had a lot of issues with people low balling me and making difficult requests. If you are searching on a site like Craigslist keep that in mind. People might expect you to negotiate a little (and should price accordingly) but some people genuinely can sit on the car for months until they get a decent price. I had at least 20-40 inquiries for a 20 year old car, although many tried to offer me 1/5 of what I listed it for lol. If you can't network to find a car from family try to found out a little about the history of the car and the person (pictures can sometimes tell you this). In my experience young people are often not the best at maintaining cars (for lack of experience) and older people, particularly the retired, can offer you a great car for a decent price as they use them less and are more likely to be garage kept. Reasonable people can provide service records or at least a history of what has been done recently to give you an idea of any work that might be around the corner. If you can get it inspected that is great, but depending on the price the person might not want to be bothered as they are selling it as is. I let people look under the hood of my car, they could see key parts I said were replaced were newer and the type of parts put in. For $1000 I was not driving all over town to mechanics, I had a take it or leave it attitude as what do people really want from a 20 year old car anyway?
On that note also some cars are easier to get repaired and others you end up at a dealer for parts every time something breaks. My mother bought a certified used Cadillac from a dealer and it was nothing but issues, even with a warranty and became time consuming as they had to keep resetting the electronic system so she could only go to the dealer. The more common a car is I think the easier it is for your local mechanic to get parts and fix it for you. I have heard VW can last a long time too but I think repairs/parts may cost a bit more. I would avoid a two door car. My family had a few of them both fairly used and new. They didn't hold their value as much and I think as a new driver its hard to drive in a long car low to the ground (the collection including an oldsmobile, thunderbird, and a monte carlo for reference). I learned to drive on the oldsmobile and my honda was ten times easier for me to handle.
One thing to be wary of is if someone has multiple used cars for sale but is not a mechanic or small used car dealer, then something may be off. My stepfather fell for a scam once. A woman called up and enquired about a car he was selling. She showed up to test drive with some kids and was talking about how she was a poor single mother and the car she was driving was just a loaner and she really needed a safe car for her kids but could only afford X amount. It was about 2/3 of what we listed the car for. He felt bad and said ok, miraculously she had the cash with her and was ready to take it on the spot. The car turned up in town in a lot next to someone's house a week later with a for sale sign asking MORE than we even listed it for to start. We called to see what had happened and a guy answered who gave us a fake story about the former history of the car. A relative of mine recently had a used mini-van to sell and they had similar calls, lots of people with sob stories wanting the mini-van for 2/3 to 1/2 of what it was listed for. People are basically flipping cars which is not good if they are not mechanics and have no intentions of giving the next person an honest history of the car.