Buying and Selling cars for profit...

[Titanium]

My dad wants me to get into buying and selling cars for a profit for some reason. got any advice on how to get started?

[honduh440]

thats to easy go for the big money and buy ****ty 15k houses and turn em around for 30 after u lay new carpet and paint the walls

[Titanium]

well i'd consider it but i dont have 15k layin around... good idea tho

[miller821]

My auto teacher talked to us about this earlier today. Said one of his good buddies is in the used car sales and he is rich... Said he started out getting a loan for 100k and started off buying only about 5 cars at a time. He started to make big profits and ended up with a 400-500k house or condo down in Florida; driving an Escalade and his wife some other fancy car...

I know your not going to be able to duplicate that unless you get really serious into it, but its something to think about as a career as you get older.

[awsomeaussies]

My grandpa owns a towing company and a couple times a month we have an auction... all the auto wrecking companies come down there to bid on cars. Lets just say there all stinking rich, buying $50 cars and selling them to scrap yards for $150. But mainly they buy cars and sell off all the good parts on them. It's a good business to start, you just need the room to do it.

But if you just want to buy cars... you really got to know about cars first. Its' usually a surprise when you buy a car through a auction wither they run or not:ermm: So it makes it a little easier to know what your getting yourself into when you pop that hood;)

[Titanium]

i know quite a bit about cars and i deff have the room for it. we have an old semi truck ware house:p used to have 2 lifts in the ware house but we had them taken out because they were unsafe and we needed more room. i was also thinkin about buying chitty cars and partin them out. i'm actually parting out a car right now its a 93 honda del sol. if anybody needs some z-3 fenders or euro tail lights pm me. i also am pulling out the back window motor if any body needs one of those.

[Joe400ex]

Originally posted by honduh440
thats to easy go for the big money and buy ****ty 15k houses and turn em around for 30 after u lay new carpet and paint the walls

I dont know about u but i dont think there are any houses out there that sell for 15k. I think u can buy a decent trailer home for that much.:eek2:

[gotwarrior]

Old cars is where the moneys at. You have to look to find the good buys. And they may have to sit a little while. But there are always cheap cars on ebay, or someones hurting for money. But that is where the moneys at.;)

[PismoLocal]

I have a buddy that has made around $1500 buying repo cars and then selling them in our local Photo AD. He sold 3 cars for $500 more than he bought them for. He just goes to the repo lot with a local classified listing and sees what the cars are selling for and if they are a good deal he buys them and then lists them for $500 more.

yup we have done that and i have done that with a couple quads before...you just have to know what the market is for whatever you buy...

[parkers30]

I have a friend who did pretty well for himself doing something similiar. The key is making a name for yourself in the market and always having something.

He just worked off of what ever he got, he is a big people person, talks to everyone. He had alot of non running cars given to him and alot of cars he got for a little of nothing. Don't follow you heart and the cars you like, know what will make you money. If a car wasn't worth much as parts he would just sell it locally, he always had something in the paper and would often sell people something different than what thay had called about.

Know the market, bikes and atv's are worth alot in parts, they smallest part you can get them down to. He made $25k in profit off 5 nearly new crotch rockets by parting them out on ebay, and was to the point people were calling to put in orders, one guy wanted 12 'busa engines after buying one from him. Beware it is alot of work.

[Mxjunkie]

Back in the day you could make alot of money doing this but anymore people want car's to be absolutely perfect, carfax reports kinda hurt if the car was wrecked and reported in the past before you get the car because they will argue that

[bulkdriverlp]

its a good idea, youll need build shelves in a pole barn to put your good parts in. liability usually wont let customers wander around a junkyard and you will sell more if they are kept indoors and organized for the customer to shop rain or shine. you will probobly need a dealer licence youll need to check with your state. i know quite a few junkyards who have a well organized operation and are quite busy. youll need a shop for parting out cars inside also. i think you would be better off selling parts like a junkyard then taking a gamble on making money off junk cars, jmo

[gbcap]

as far as turning over cars. you need a license in maryland to sell more then 6 cars in a year. unless you have owned them for more then 6 months in your name. so check your state for the same sort of law. i am sure it is there.

there is a huge market for cars under 2k. as long as it is running and driving and passes inspection it will be bought in days maybe even hours. they don't have to be perfect they just have to be streetable.




as far as buying wrecked cars and selling them to junkyards for $150 bucks or so. technically you need to have a license to do that as well but it is very hard to track so you can prolly get away with that for a long time.

now buying the cars and selling the good parts off them is a bigtime crime without a automotive dismantlling and recycling license. they aren't cheap btw. that is what we do. my family owns a salvage yard. we have a 26k square feet warehouse, 26 employees, computerized inventory, barcoded warehouse inventory and over 2k car hulks on our lot. it is great money but ALOT of work and hassel and you cant just jump into it in most states. you have to go thru alot of processes.

[450RGNCC]

Just keep your eyes open, and look around for cars that private individuals want to sell. Follow up every lead that you get, a lot of times you can end up finding some really good deals on cars.

About 3 years ago my dad and my unlcle went in on a deal where they bought a '49 Ford, '50 Ford, '67 Pontiac Grand Prix convertible, '64 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible, 2 1985 Porches, and an 89 Chevy conversion van all for $500. Now, it took some work and the cars were not in the best condition, but we had instant turn around on the Porches and the '49 and '50 fords, selling the 2 porches for $500 (both had blown trannies and needed a lot of work) and the 2 fords for about $1500 (they were both completely rusted out parts cars). They ended up selling the grand prix for like $1000, even though it was so rusted out that the frame broke in 1/2 when we pulled it onto the rollback, and the Galaxie for about $1500. They gave the 89 van to the guy who they borrowed the rollback from, which payed him off. So, basically they each came out with about $2000 in their pockets after investing $250 each. Now, it was hard work to get the cars out and towed to where they needed to go, but there was no overhead, so it was all profit.

They almost went in on another deal that had about 15 Edsels from the 50's and 60's, a couple of mustangs, a 20's pickup, a 70's dune buggy, a couple of old VW's, a Firebird, a couple of other old pickup trucks, and a rare early 60's oldsmobile, and some other junk cars; almost all of which were field cars, some were so grown in that you had to use a hedge trimmer to cut through the weeds to even see them. They sat down and figured up the time involed to get the cars out, and that we would have to either rent a 4x4 rollback or pay someone to tow the cars, and it turned out to cost more that what the cars were worth in the long run.

Sorry for my rambling... but the moral of the story is keep your eyes and ears open for good deals and always sit down and figure out your expenses before you jump into buying something.