Does anybody do any flipping?

[Prosperi-Tees]

Cars, houses, equipment etc. What do you do and what makes you successful?

[Prosperi-Tees]

I'm looking into investing in 2 or 3 cars in December and selling them in January with a mechanic friend of mine. Should be able to realize $1500-$2000 on each car in about a month.

Also I just purchased a $7000 piece of industrial equipment that only has 7 hours of use for $1400 that I can easily double my money on.

This has intrigued me to maybe be able to do houses in the future. So just curious if anyone else does this type of investing/flipping.

[Frog]

Back in the '70's, my  ex-wife and I worked  both with and for an old printer in Oakland. who had a fully working shop in which all of his equipment was also for sale. This was not screen printing, but rather offset and letterpress, and even Ludlow typesetters.

[sweetts]

I was friends with a fleet manager at one of the larger Chevy dealers in the area, I would purchase about 10 cars a year wholesale from him fix them up and make a few bucks, I tried to make 1-2 grand each I liked the cars that I could sell cheap, under 4 grand. It worked out nice but unfortunately he passed two years ago so now if I see a deal I will snag it and flip it. I also worked with a guy who would flip houses, we would do things to pretty them up then sell below market I would get a % of the sale. I found cars way easier than houses. I always tried to make sure I had a buyer lined up before investing too much


RT Screen Designs
www.rtscreendesigns.com

[Prosperi-Tees]

Cars are definitely less risk as the amount of investment is lower. And yes I would agree the 3-6k cars are probably the easiest to acquire and flip quickly. Not to mention Hondas and Toyotas would be a faster sell as well

[screenxpress]

Oh.

That's what this is all about.

I was mistaken, but I did flip off two people today.  Does that count?   

[Prosperi-Tees]

That does count, zero investment and big gratification! 

[screenxpress]

That does count, zero investment and big gratification! 

LOL.  Only downside is dodging the bullets.....

[ZooCity]

I've actually flipped my way through and into a lot of our equipment especially when I had spare time to completely rebuild stuff. Only trouble is the tax man likes to get you good for doing that when you sell a piece for more than it cost you and then put that money right back into equipment.  I think it's called phantom income.   

[blue moon]

I was in surplus/liquidation for about 10 years with my last company. It was all buy/sell/trade/flip, but it was a full time venture with 20+ employees.
 There are several key elements:
First, you absolutely have to know what you are looking at (when buying), otherwise it is a gamble and not a business purchase.
Second, you have to know where to look. Less you know, longer it takes to find a deal. If you don't have any sources, look in the wrong places. For example, anything listed on ebay in the wrong category does not sell for the full amount (Nikon lens in the Canon section or a suite on the clearance rack but in the wrong size section where it does not fit the ppl looking at it). There are several scenarios why the items are below real value. Usually it involves a distress of some sort or liquidation. The bigger the company selling it, easier it is to make money on it (we had IBM not charge us for $43k worth of goods once as they did not know how to sort out the paperwork! Small business will usually fight for every penny.) Auctions van be a good source, but you have to know the product as you will most likely be buying sight unseen.
 
And third, you must have a place to sell it. Not a potential sale, but a guaranteed sale and you have to know what you are going to be offered. It does not matter what the market value is for something if nobody is buying it. If the only buyer for your goods is a pawn shop, you have to be able to sell it to them at the price they will pay (very low) and still make money.

Finally, it does nt matter what you paid for the item, it should be sold at what the market will bear. We bought racks for $16 and sold them for $400. Then some bozos started selling the same product for $100 and screwed it up for everybody. If it's worth $400, charge it. Don't rip ppl off, but don't leave the money on the table either!

pierre

[Gilligan]

Ebay's search engine used to suck pretty bad and if someone would misspell something it wouldn't show up when you properly searched for it.

You could find some diamonds like that but it took work and luck.  Now their search engine is much better and finds the misspelled ones as well you it seems.

All good info Pierre!

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yes great stuff Pierre.

Since i was a teen i always wanted to buy and sell cars. I doubt i would want a full on dealership as i would not want the headaches and overhead that come along with it but if i could buy and sell a car a week on the side with an average profit of $2000 a car you are looking at some good coin. Although legally you can only sell 4 or 5 in California without having your dealers license there are ways around it.

I had a guy in the shop the other day and he was running 3 or 4 different businesses and since Gilligan has a few businesses im starting to think that diversity is the way to go.

[RICK STEFANICK]

i flip tees when i load

[alan802]

There is definitely some money to be made in cars, new and used.  I know some guys in the auto industry, and when you see that some General Managers of car dealerships make in excess of $20K per month, on a bad month, you want in on some of that.  That's ridiculous money for not even selling a car and some of those GMs don't even work a full work week.  One of my good friends manages a big dealership's used car department, they flip cars on a much bigger scale and when I see him spending thousands of dollars on night vision goggles for hog hunting, with 3 kids and a stay at home wife, it kind of makes me sick that I have to work as hard as I do.

[mk162]

With cars the values have been inflated in part due to Cash for Clunkers and a slow economy.  People are less likely to upgrade and a lot of cheap cars got crushed.  It should be a good time to flip some I would think.  The hard part is finding a deal.

A good thing to do is get in with a local Maco.  Most people only care about how a car looks.  Make them look pretty and they'll sell.