Best used sector and place to buy/sell for hobby trader?

[Jaroon]

I like browsing and buying cars (less so selling them ).

I am considering investing 1-2k in a 1 year trading project to try and get into a 2-4k car, I think I can buy/sell 5 times a year before I need to tell HMRC about my antics, is this true?

I'm no mathematician but with the power of compouding, I think I'll need about 15% profit per trade to get near my goal.

I'm not great mechanically (dodgy knees) but I think I can recognise a genuine car and I have plenty of interweb browsing time to invest and a half decent local auction in Derby.

With my buget what sector of vechical do you think I should be looking at and where to buy and sell?

I have been following slightly quick estates like Volvo T5s and saab Aeros on ebay, with the thinking that if I can't sell I'd be happy enough to run the car myself, any thoughts and general abuse welcome.

[falkster]

I have been doing the same over the past 3-4 years but mainly to pay for my bargain barge I had 2 years ago. The idea was to have a comfortable car for my commute that didn't owe me anything and I could just dispose of it in a couple of years.
I got bored, sold that making a few hundred quid which was enough to buy my bargain Allroad and in turn sold that to buy my bargain ML55. So essentially in 4 years I've made enough on my previous cars to have my current Merc that owes me nothing!
I always trawl Ebay, looking for the ads with the worst pictures of write ups, for instance I bought my FQ300 with one owner and 16k on the clock the week before Xmas for £4k less than usual value, kept it 6 months and took many detailed pictures plus with a decent write up I sold it in summer for the going rate.
Don't be greedy or the cars won't sell, sell too many and you become a trader and become accountable for soga.

[Jaroon]

Great tip thanks falkster. I must say I normally don't bother with cars when the owner can't be bothered to take decent photos or do a decent right up as an indictation of how they cared for their cars but I can see how bargins may be had.

[sim16v]

I'd keep away from auctions, too many wanna be traders bumping up the prices of cars.

I just keep an eye out on the usual web sites, plus any specialist ones, usually where people just want rid of something as soon as possible.

I've also bought perfectly good cars that were literally minutes away from being scrapped!

Have a word with some of the larger dealerships near you, they get loads of cheap stuff that will go to auction.

Try buying a couple from them at sub £500 each as a trade sale.- buying more than one shows you are serious about it and it saves them the hassle of shipping to the auction.

I would also suggest keeping away from cars you like, i've got loads that I don't want to sell!

Plus sub £500 trade ins are usually worth £900-1000, so offer a good return.