Flipping cars

[Strazzy]

Nearly 40 years of age and bored stiff with 9-5 type jobs.

I’ve always loved cars and it’s all I seem to been truly passionate about. I’ve wanted to get into selling cars forever but have never really had the guts.

I’ve got a sharp eye for detail, and roughly know what to look out for but no mechanical know how.

Has anyone on here sold cars as a side line and just how tricky is it?

Thanks

[bearman68]

Hard, very hard. Especially if you don't have a workshop, and some skill to fix things.

That's how I started nearly 20 years ago. I learnt a lot. Mainly that flipping cars for a living is precarious, time consuming and difficult.

Whereabouts are you based?

[BananaFama]

Strazzy said:

Nearly 40 years of age and bored stiff with 9-5 type jobs.

I’ve always loved cars and it’s all I seem to been truly passionate about. I’ve wanted to get into selling cars forever but have never really had the guts.

I’ve got a sharp eye for detail, and roughly know what to look out for but no mechanical know how.

Has anyone on here sold cars as a side line and just how tricky is it?

Thanks

"Driveway traders " , can of worms waiting to bite your rear .

Anyone buying and selling too many cars per annum ,semi private semi trader can get into hot water with HMRC and all sorts .
Will you offer a warranty ?
You are unlikely to be able to get trade plates or insurance unless you can prove you are an actual business .

[fat80b]

There'll be lots of advice saying it's hard which is how these threads usually go.

The one that always jumps out as the most important one when it comes to flipping cars to me though is: You need to have a source of below market value cars in order to make this a business.

i.e.Whether it's one a day/week/month that you plan to sell, where are you going to buy them at below market value?

[Strazzy]

Well I have another income from property, it pays a small salary so I do ok, but just ok.
I could do with another small income which is where the car flipping idea comes from.

I reckoned to start with I’d buy cars from gumtree and marketplace in need of a clean, better picture and hopefully a small amount of mechanical work needed.

I just really wish I could team up with someone with a mechanical know how!

[randlemarcus]

Could you start by working for a mildly successful car trader, and be paid while learning the business? I say mildly successful, as you don't want a bigger place with lots of employees, as you'll be hired as an X and stay doing X. Almost an apprentice, just not as badly paid

Six months of that, and you should have a really good idea of profitability, any pitfalls, and most importantly, whether its something you want to do longer term.

[ZedLeg]

Strazzy said:

Well I have another income from property, it pays a small salary so I do ok, but just ok.
I could do with another small income which is where the car flipping idea comes from.

I reckoned to start with I’d buy cars from gumtree and marketplace in need of a clean, better picture and hopefully a small amount of mechanical work needed.

I just really wish I could team up with someone with a mechanical know how!

The main problem will be that you have loads of other folk with the same idea, 20 years of Discovery car flipping shows have convinced loads of folk it's easy .

I know a guy who made a decent living importing stuff from Japan to sell, made the most profit on crash damaged stuff he repaired though so again, some mechanical 4know how would be useful.

If you're considering this as a hobby job, why not go do some mechanics courses at a college or something first?

[Upinflames]

Guy up the road buys all the st from the auction. Non runners had no bids, anything at all for peanuts. Sells them on ebay. He does well. Sells 10 / 12 a week.

[anonymous-user]

Having watched a few videos on eBay of someone buying cheap cars at auction I don't understand how anyone makes any money. The prices the cars are selling at auction for are crazy which means there is little margin for the buyer.

Seems a very difficult way to make a living to me.

[gotoPzero]

Volume is the issue.

To make any sort of money you need to be selling lots of cheap cars or a few expensive ones.

Either way, its tough.

[vulture1]

I remember back when scot adds was a thing buying a car or two with long tax and mot , wait until the v5 had come back then sell it on. Fun times and earned a little pocket money

[JackJarvis]

You may have a passion for cars OP, most of us do. You probably don't have a passion for the type of people who are involved at the lower end of car trading though. And that's ultimately what you'll spend most of your time doing. Having sold a few cars recently I think I'd sooner starve to death than attempt to make my living having to deal with the sort of time wasters, fraudsters and chancers it attracts.

[fat80b]

The other thing I'd think about is that in order to "flip" anything, you have to have one of 2 things :

1) The repeatable ability to buy in one market and sell in another at a "higher value"
2) The repeatable ability to add value to the product in the meantime by doing something to it. (probably more than a wash and a better picture)

As you admit not being mechanical, this makes it tricky:
i.e a plan could be to buy MOT failures and to get them MOT'd thereby adding value etc, Or buy them in North Scotland and sell them in London etc.

I think you need to write down your 5 step repeatable model to do the "adding value" bit.

Arguably, if you cant write it down in 5 steps, then it won't work.

[Jamescrs]

Strazzy said:

Well I have another income from property, it pays a small salary so I do ok, but just ok.
I could do with another small income which is where the car flipping idea comes from.

I reckoned to start with I’d buy cars from gumtree and marketplace in need of a clean, better picture and hopefully a small amount of mechanical work needed.

I just really wish I could team up with someone with a mechanical know how!

Gumtree and Facebook are full of people trying to do the same, constantly sending out low ball offers on every car advert that appears on the platforms trying to get cheap stock that they can resell.

It's a crowded market out there

[Frimley111R]

It's a doddle, I can say that having done it for a year (some yrs ago). I just went to an auction, bought a Fiat Cinquecento for £1200 and sold it for £1500. Not big profits but it got me going. I traded from home which was fine, had basic insurance and off I went. Few cars needed major work because I bought well/luckily. I had 2 spaces on my drive but parked other cars in random places to store them and also used the drives of people who didn't have cars (neighbours). You'll soon get a local garage to fix bits and it is handy if you are picking up cars to have someone who can go with you to drive the other one back.

Keep an eye on AT, eBay, FB Marketplace for new stock and go to auctions if you can. It's competitive out there but no more than any other market.

Negatives? You work when everyone else isn't so evenings and weekends, its cold work in winter but that's about it.

[SpeedBash]

Would suggest the OP check the following YT channel and watch the early videos - this chap started off by buying and selling cheap cars and made videos of his journey

He has now changed his business model to sell those same cars directly to the trade as he got tired of all the headaches associated with dealing with the public at the cheap end of the market.

[POORCARDEALER]

“Everyone is a motor trader these days”

It’s all in the buying.

You’ll need trade insurance.

You’ll make a money here and there.

You’ll have cars with faults that you can’t fix sat around.

You’ll piss your neighbours off.

You’ll be dealing with “ I know my rights merchants”

As said if you haven’t got a decent reliable source of cars, I wouldn’t bother.

[Jon39]

A little tale about a man, who started a car business.

There is a story told by Warren Buffett [the wealthiest self-made investor in the world] about a man who got involved with cars.
It does show that success is possible, following a false-start.

The man began leasing cars. It 'ticked over', but seemed unlikely to scale up very rapidly.
That venture was abandoned and he then bought a small number of cars, making them available to rent.

The emphasis was on really good customer service and that proved to be the key to whole success of the business.
After a number of years, Mr Buffett made an sizeable offer for the business. He says now, that it was quite right that he was turned down, because the rental company then still had further growth potential.

You might know the name of that business - Enterprise.

[cholo]

When i read posts like this i always wonder why the OP just doesn't gve it a go to find out (if that's what they really want)

Surely it can't be that hard....

Buy a car you think is cheap, take it home, do whatever you think to it that will increase it's value and then try and sell. This test will then determine whether it is viable. IF you do make a profit (obviously big if), you can use this to make all sorts of calculations to check the validity of the business...

E.g., how many hours did i spend vs how much profit did i make (earning per hour).. How many am i likely top sell per year etc.

All being pretty risk free (chances are you will probably end up even or thereabouts), so what have you got to lose?

[roca1976]

I used to buy and sell motorbikes as a side hustle, you definitely need to be mechanically minded most of the good deals need some fettling. If you can keep as a hobby, register it in your name and smoke about in it for a few months you should avoid becoming a trader.

I haven't done anything for ten years, I tried recently but a lot more hassle and everyone is on Facebook marketplace or eBay. The old back water forums are long gone and that was where I got the best earners.