Originally Posted by
wrk101
+1 I do it for fun.
However, I also occasionally find a "sweet" deal, where I either end up keeping the bike (and then bumping one out of the fleet and making money on that one), or fixing it up and doing pretty well.
A couple of examples:
1. I replaced the Iron Horse Outlaw (high ten steel frame) that I picked up for $11 (and which only required a cleaning) with the $30 Trek 950 frame (True Temper Cromoly) and q $5 donor bike that supplied the missing components. The sweet deal here was the $5 donor, not the Iron Horse or even the Trek frame, but it was kind of a sweet deal too. I sold the Outlaw for $110. So I am up a "net" $64 and I have a nice Trek 950 and a lot of parts from the $5 donor left.
2. I replaced a really nice U08 that I sold for $250 with the $16 Lotus. And the Lotus fits (the UO8 didn't), and the Lotus has 700cm wheels, Tange 1 frame, and nice components.
Its kind of nice having a decent selection of bikes, that were paid for by other flips.
But I have put many, many hours into scouring thrift stores, etc., and coming up dry 99% of the time. So if I looked for a wage for all of my cleanup/repair time, PLUS my search time (trolling thrift stores, garage sales and so on), I am probably down to $2/hour or less. Probably a lot less....
So I guess I am right back to doing it because you enjoy it!! Which is a pretty decent reason too!
right on! you almost can't think about the "labor" because it's fun to work on bikes--it's not really work per se. on the other hand, i did figure in the labor when pricing the Shogun for sale. there's got to be a minimum you'd settle for. there's a limit to what folks will pay too, so that sets the upper limit. my thing is that i hope i can make enough money off of flipping to pay for the bikes and the tools, not to nec. make a ton of money overall.
btw, interestingly--the person who bought this wanted to replace her boyfriend's fixie, which got stolen, but when she got here she told me the fixie had been found, and yet they wanted the Shogun anyway! go figure. i didn't really press her to tell me why. she's a college student in Troy NY, about 1 1/2 hours from here, so i feel like she must have had some parental money burning a hole in her pocket! i'm just glad i didn't have to wait till spring to sell it!