This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
In today's episode of Side Hustle School, we're shifting gears and taking a ride into the world of car flipping. Car flipping, automobile reselling. Our listener, John from Phoenix, stumbled upon the lucrative potential of buying and selling cars after a personal experience. You'll hear about that in his question. He's now revved up to turn this into a side hustle, but needs some navigational advice on how to steer this venture successfully.
So if you out there have ever thought about flipping items for profit, reselling something, anything, or if you're just looking for your next side hustle, you might find that cars can drive your profits further. Or you might just enjoy this episode and enjoy thinking about your own ideas, whatever they may be. I wanna help you make extra money without quitting your job. That's what we're all about every single day. Let's buckle up as we explore how to buy and sell cars for profit.
John's question coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is John from Phoenix, Arizona. Your podcast was a recommendation from a colleague and I have been brainstorming side hustles ever since. So I'm interested in flipping cars for profit. I fell onto this one time accidentally when I bought a car I ended up not loving and discovered I could get a better deal if I resold it myself.
So now I wanna get in deeper. Can you offer some guidance on the smartest way to buy and sell cars as a side hustle? - Hey John, I love the old school side hustle. People have been buying and reselling cars for a long time. And often we hear from people who are getting into it and they wanna do like a whole bunch of cars and they like wanna become a mini dealer and that's fine.
But I always recommend people like start with one, okay? You had this one experience in John's case. Let's do it one more time and see how it feels, okay? So for your next one off experience, you want to make a couple of key decisions going in. I think one key decision is how can you not just profit the most?
I mean, it's good to have like a baseline of profit. Whatever that looks like to you, could be a few hundred dollars, could be a few thousand dollars depending on the make model and situation and so on. But I think one risk factor with reselling cars is you want to hold onto the inventory for the lowest amount of time possible. Like you don't wanna be stuck trying to sell a car for three months, right? Because then the value could change further and your capital is tied up and so on.
So I think that probably 50% of the work is in selecting how do I narrow this down? What is the make and model that I'm going to focus on? And it could be even more specific than that certain year, even certain color, or it could be some geographic arbitrage where I'm gonna get a car from one part of the country, from one area and sell it again in another. And it's possible to buy cars online and have them shipped. You factor in the cost for all of that and see is this going to work?
Or at least is there a good chance it's going to work? So you want to lower your risk factor as much as possible. Again, I think 50% of the work is making those decisions upfront. And then just kind of saying no to lots of options. Like really looking for that specific vehicle you're gonna purchase and have an idea of what you're gonna resell it for.
You gotta factor in inspection. You have to factor in registration, licensing, the proper transfer of title and all of that. You wanna spend some time on the platform where you're likely to sell it. So this could be Facebook marketplace for a lot of people. eBay Motors is another option.
I'm sure there's others too. So spend some time on that platform. Make sure you understand like what are the attractive listings look like? What do they look like? What information do they contain?
How can I create a compelling listing for this vehicle? So, I mean, that's basically what you do. You select the right vehicle. You try to tie up your capital for the lowest amount of time possible and go slow with this. And if anything seems wrong with a particular car you wanna purchase for reselling, just walk away.
Don't take the chance. Find something else because there are plenty of other options out there. And then from there, learn as you go. Like learn from each time you do this. Figure out what works, what doesn't and don't go too fast, right?
Because again, you want to keep that risk factor low. I keep saying that, but it's really important when you're spending some real money on assets you hope to resell. All right, that's what I think about that. Hope that's helpful. Listeners, if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Let me know if you're reselling cars or anything else. I got a fun story tomorrow about someone who is selling Santa letters, personal personalized Santa letters. So stay tuned for that coming up tomorrow. And of course, a new episode every day all through the holidays and beyond. Take care of yourself out there.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
