I'm a little surprised at some of the responses in this thread, I do understand some frustration with overpriced bikes due to the habits of some flippers but not all flippers contribute to the problem.

Here's a typical bike that I did, I won't go into what I paid for it but here's one as found.



And here it is when I finished it, all freshly cleaned and greased, new cables and housings, trued wheels, new tires, tubes and bar wrap.



After all that I sold it for $150.00, did I make a profit? Yes.

Did I make a killing? Heck no but like I said in my first post in this thread, I build them for fun and to pass them along to people that will enjoy them and in speaking to most of the people I sell bikes to it's obvious that most could not perform the work needed on a bike like this and taking it to a bike shop for the same repairs would cost a LOT more than what I sold the bike for.

So am I driving up the market or providing a service?