Part time car sales business
Discussion
Looking for some advice please.
I am considering starting up a little side line buying quality, low cost cars for around £800-1000 spending time on servicing and detailing then reselling for £1000-1200.
The car types i'm considering are either 'practical performance' cars like MK2 golfs, Pug 205 etc or supplying young drivers, students with small engined clio's, fiesta's, etc.
Has anyone dabbled whom can offer some nuggets of wisdom?
I am considering starting up a little side line buying quality, low cost cars for around £800-1000 spending time on servicing and detailing then reselling for £1000-1200.
The car types i'm considering are either 'practical performance' cars like MK2 golfs, Pug 205 etc or supplying young drivers, students with small engined clio's, fiesta's, etc.
Has anyone dabbled whom can offer some nuggets of wisdom?
Considering you might need to show the cars to 3-4 people before you get a sale which will take up lots of your time and impact your overall schedule / perhaps social life (some will cancel, some people will mess you around/be late etc) , are you sure you only want to be aiming for a £200 margin?
Personally I would want an absolute minimum of a £1000 margin to be playing with even on the cheapest car. As Unfortunately you will get hit by at least one of the following on each sale - the buyer will:
1)ask for extension to tax/Mot (£50-300)
2)ask for a solid 3 mth warranty (££) which you legally need to give anyway.
3)ask for a full tank of petrol on sale (£50+)
4)spot something broken and want it fixed (££)
5)haggle you down further than you were expecting.
Then also, where are you going to source the cars from and how much effort is it going to take? Auctions are time consuming and prices always seem higher than you would ideally like, plus you are buying something without knowing the history. Buying on eBay is OK, but again it is time consuming and a little risky. Also how many 205 Gti actually come up at the price you want - they are reasonably rare.
If I were you , I would not be specific on the type/model of car, I would just look for a bargain practical car around £3000 which I was confident I could sell to a non-haggling-respectable-family-man for about £4000.
Good luck
Personally I would want an absolute minimum of a £1000 margin to be playing with even on the cheapest car. As Unfortunately you will get hit by at least one of the following on each sale - the buyer will:
1)ask for extension to tax/Mot (£50-300)
2)ask for a solid 3 mth warranty (££) which you legally need to give anyway.
3)ask for a full tank of petrol on sale (£50+)
4)spot something broken and want it fixed (££)
5)haggle you down further than you were expecting.
Then also, where are you going to source the cars from and how much effort is it going to take? Auctions are time consuming and prices always seem higher than you would ideally like, plus you are buying something without knowing the history. Buying on eBay is OK, but again it is time consuming and a little risky. Also how many 205 Gti actually come up at the price you want - they are reasonably rare.
If I were you , I would not be specific on the type/model of car, I would just look for a bargain practical car around £3000 which I was confident I could sell to a non-haggling-respectable-family-man for about £4000.
Good luck
Edited by Ade355 on Friday 27th June 10:40
if you just want to cover your own time, and get paid for it, it will work out fine. If you want to make a lot of money then obviously it wont 
I had a friend who used to do this, and if you want to clear maybe 200-300 per car, spending quite a few hours per car servicing and selling it, then it works out you are basically getting paid £30-40 an hour for being busy in the evening and weekend. For some this is great, for others, not so great.
Depends what you want really...as you probably already know, theres a market limit to what you can sell at, so a fully serviced £1300 car, will still only be a £800-1000 job if its not. Then as a trader, by law you have to do a 3 months warranty....if one car in 5 goes wrong and needs a couple of hundred quid part + 5 hours on it, thats a lot of your profit gone.
Thats what happened to a mate, during one 6 month spell, if he worked out his time per hour earnings etc, hed basically earnt nothing...so he knocked it on the head.
I had a friend who used to do this, and if you want to clear maybe 200-300 per car, spending quite a few hours per car servicing and selling it, then it works out you are basically getting paid £30-40 an hour for being busy in the evening and weekend. For some this is great, for others, not so great.
Depends what you want really...as you probably already know, theres a market limit to what you can sell at, so a fully serviced £1300 car, will still only be a £800-1000 job if its not. Then as a trader, by law you have to do a 3 months warranty....if one car in 5 goes wrong and needs a couple of hundred quid part + 5 hours on it, thats a lot of your profit gone.
Thats what happened to a mate, during one 6 month spell, if he worked out his time per hour earnings etc, hed basically earnt nothing...so he knocked it on the head.
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