Buying Salvage and reselling

And that is why its not practical to try and make money doing it, especially in the USA. The market is glutted with old boats and pieces of old boats.

 

How many bids where placed on those winches you bought, how long did it take the seller to finally sell them and how close to getting what he wanted did he get?

Maybe the OP has a staff who can post and monitor, all his dozens of eBay auctions, permitting him to labor in the yard on some derelict, before his HOA has a cow about the three partly cut up wrecks alongside his house.

I'm not saying it can't be done, though I am saying you need a lot of experience to make a profit, plus lots of space to store boats (I have several rural acres), plus the marketing savoy to move the junk or rehabbed boats. This isn't a very common set of skills for most folks.

 

I don't know the answers - I do know I paid a LOT less than local prices and less than the asking price on fleabay - they were 'or offer' sales.

Good deal for me and acceptable deal at least for the sellers.

Not saying dealing in old boats is a viable business model, just that there are some opportunities in arbitrage if you know what you're doing. I may resell some of my excess winches locally.

PDW

 

I may resell some of my excess winches locally.

An under served market is cruising power boats that can mount a pair aft to aid in docking.

Head down to the waterfront with the winches , handles, spacers, backing plates, bolts and goop and get lots more for installing them!

 

I hear there are some big location price differentials.

Boats worth more in Hawaii?

Find a slipping out of fashion region with lots of dumb going broke boat owners as "the party" turns into a hangover and convoy them to a high boat price region.

Boats from SD, LA, SF or Seattle to Hawaii?

 

When I bought the yacht in my thread last week. The broker told me the market has almost completely died for larger boats especially petrol powered cruisers. Small cheap trailer boats are whats selling here now. If you can keep the price down enough it will sell . I bought my boat as a long term keeper. If I tried to sell I would not have a hope unless it was a giveaway price . Down where pdw lives the boat prices are over the top. I don't know how they sell at all.

 

A few years ago Australians where coming up and buying boats in San Francisco and then sailing them home to sell for quite a bit more. It wasn't enough to make a profit as a buisness, but done right you could have a six month cruise through the south pacific for almost no money.

 

Absolutely right. I don't know how they sell either. They seem to think there's some form of scarcity factor at play so they can ask a premium. Duh. Boats (well, sailboats anyway) can be moved long distances pretty cheaply.

I have no illusions about the eventual selling price of the one I'm building, but I don't care. I regard the money I spend on it in the same light as I do the money I spent on the last slab of beer. Gone forever.

As I have a place in Sydney I'd probably relocate the boat to there before trying to sell it but that's a long way in the future.

Anyway, point is that there are quite a lot of boat parts for sale very cheaply in the USA compared to Aussie prices. Stripping boats you got cheaply or for free and selling stuff on fleabay probably won't make anyone wealthy but there is some money in it. The problem with a lot of sellers in the USA is, they're so USA-centric that they don't want to do international sales. In the case of boat bits, this isn't smart as locally you're selling into a market awash with cheap stuff. Overseas, not so much so.

The local distributor for Edson stuff tried to charge me a modest 100% markup on the USA retail price of a steering gear setup and told me it'd be 3 months delivery. Unfortunately for them I have a machine shop so I just reverse engineered it and made my own.

A fair bit of thread drift from the OP though....

PDW

 

There were a lot boats being imported from the u s because you get so much more for your money compared to our over priced marine industry. But everything is slowing down here since the mining boom peaked. Plus we have a government that wants us to work for asian wages which means in a few years any sort of hobby will only be for the wealthy anyway.

 

I paid for most of my collage by buying and flipping cars, after I clean them up and got them running good. I started with more costly sports cars, but there was no profit in those, buyers too picky. I could sell 3 or 4 cheap, but good running, transportation cars and make more money, for every sports car I could resell. They would sell fast for cash, no drama, people wanted a reliable car to get to work and did not care that is was not perfect. I always picked popular reliable cars, Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, usually got them for little more than scrap value, not running, and would use wrecking yard parts to get them running, and clean them up. No body work, no inteior other than seat covers and a good cleaning if it needed it. Most customers were very greatful to get a good running beater for under $1000, it means they could get to work.

I have build and owned a number of small boats, all I have sold for more than I had into them, but they were always way more work to make sellable, and much slower to sell. but I built or bought them for myself, not to make money. I have also made money with the various houses we have bought, though those were long term projects that we lived in, so I would not want to move too often.

If you are going to try and do it with boats, I like philsweets idea the best (I have actually read about this before too), take your time and look for good boats that need no work, usually a distress sale (divorce, job relocation, hardship, etc), well below market value. no more than clean them up, and put them on the market. all your profit is built into your purchase price, take your time and buy carefully, only stay with popular good sellers, and brands with good reputations.

Do it with cash, stay within your means (do not get over extend and desperate to sell), do one at a time as a part time business until you have some experance. Stay away from fixers! Also, consider that almost all sales are emotional in nature, so you have to make the boat (or car or house, or whatever you are selling), attractive, clean and smell good. First impressions will get it sold. Consider the guy that is has been looking at certain models of boats for levers weeks: most were dusty and damp, slight mildew smell or worse, usually faded and neglected looking (not been used, the reason they were for sale), very disappointing. than they come at look at yours: everything is shiny and clean, inside smells fresh, even at a bit more money, THAT is the one he will buy. If you buy right, than you can sell it at or even below market value fast.

Good luck.