Bike Flippers

[jerrykr]

I know there a bunch of guys out there like me who like to work on bikes, and buy and sell bikes to support the habit of the ones you want to keep

I have pretty much given up trying to buy off Craigslist to re-sell. Everybody around here has watched Pickers and wants full price +.

I have turned to garage sales. I am lucky enough to live in a relatively good area for garage sale-ing.
The large housing developments that have HOAs all allow yard sales twice a year.
You have to be ready to hit them hard when they are scheduled, and hope that they don't all happen at once.
The flea market sellers all know this and are out in force at the same time.

I have noticed that many of the home-owners have young families that are slowly growing up.
For awhile about all I saw were 20 inch and smaller kids bikes.
There is no profit in them, they are sold at give-away prices on Craigs.
Last year, I found a bunch of 24 inch bikes and did OK with them.

This year, I'm finding more 26 inch bikes and more of them are TREK or lesser, but above box store bikes.
They sure are easier to work on and make them stop and shift than the low level Nexts and Magnas.

Any comments or observations about what is going on in your area of the country?

Any hints and tips to pass along?
.

 

[Sinner4]

I think there are about 30 flippers here in town, its like we are all fighting for the same bikes that are a great deal. I have a few scrappers that find the bikes for me. I trade or just buy them. The scrap yards, C/L, yard sales work as well. I work for a utility company and I get into a lot of back yards, sometimes I find them that way as well.

And as for me flipping, I sold 35 bikes less this year than last. 70 bikes flipped total this year and about 6 rebuilt and given away to people who needed one. Last year I traded 30 bmx bikes for 1 Mountain bike worth $1,600. donated 15 to the Boise Bike Project and sold 105. I even took 6 junk huffys to the auction. They went for $2 to $10 each. They bombed there for sure.

 

[Toeslider]

I get the majority of my bikes from thrift stores. Most thrift stores don't know how to distinguish good from bad, and the best deals are bikes with flat tires or missing simple items like chains or seats. The sweet spot seems to be old Trek, Specialized, or Giant bikes that can be had for $25-$50 and sold for $125-$150. I'll spend a little more on bikes in a thrift store than most people because I have the parts and can do repairs. Basically I'm making the money I would make doing a tune up on a bike. Occasionally I'll get lucky and find a real high end bike in good shape and make a little more money doing less work. Not too long ago I picked up a Rocky Mountain Elevation bike in excellent shape for $100 at a Goodwill auction. More money than most would pay at Goodwill, but a bike that was $900 new, and I sold for $300 with very little work and no parts.

The other thing to look out for is Craigslist ads with blurry/no pictures, few details, but a brand and model you know is good. Sometimes its a crapshoot, but sometimes it pays off. While other people are trying to figure out the details on a $50 Schwinn Moab, I'm there buying it. Know your market and the different models and brands of bikes. Some bikes you can't really go wrong with, Trek and Specialized really don't make anything bad, so if you get them for the right price you can't go wrong. My golden rule is "It takes very little to make a bike unrideable, it takes a lot to make them unfixable". People don't want to deal with bikes they can't just hop on and ride, so its easy to swoop in and take them off their hands for nothing.

 

[jerrykr]

Thanks for the comments and insights guys.

"My golden rule is "It takes very little to make a bike unrideable, it takes a lot to make them unfixable". People don't want to deal with bikes they can't just hop on and ride, so its easy to swoop in and take them off their hands for nothing." So True!

This is especially true at garage sales around here.
Once they push a bike out of the garage for the sale, they are ready to dump it at almost any cost.

I never find a bike with air in the tires.
The first thing I do is air them up to see which ones need to be patched, etc.
Cables are always stretched, or messed up in some way or another.
99% of the time brakes are totally out of adjustment, easy to fix, and that is one thing I make sure is working right.
On the better bikes, most everything can be adjusted without needing any parts.

On the Box Store bikes, I can get most stuff to work, but shifting adjustment is close to impossible to get right.
They always seem to jump a cog or two, no matter what I do.
Luckily, if most gears shift, the low end buyers don't care, they probably stay in one gear all the time anyway.

Bikes that are total junk, and were free or next to it, go to my junk pile to provide small part, tires, etc.
.

 

[kingfish254]

I never buy Next or Magna bikes unless they have 3 speed wheelsets or if they are $5 and have other parts that I might be able to use.
For the most part, if I don't think I can make over $100 profit on a flip bike, I won't buy it.
I still find deals on CL now and then, you just have to be ready to act fast.
My biggest problem right now is finding the time to work on my flips. I doubt that I will turn a wrench on one until after Christmas.
Luckily I have a good (free) area to store my finds across town (otherwise my wife would kill me). I think of my bike stash as my bank holding on to my investments until I decide to cash them in.

 

[Sinner4]

Luckily I have a good (free) area to store my finds across town (otherwise my wife would kill me). I think of my bike stash as my bank holding on to my investments until I decide to cash them in.

I think my stash can be seen from space. I know Google Maps shows it. I have a hand full of real vintage bikes in my stash, a bunch of good to high end mountain bikes as well. Then the fraken bike collection all over the place.

 

[user 135]

[quote="Sinner4"I think my stash can be seen from space. I know Google Maps shows it. [/quote]
I think it is published all over the internets. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[Sinner4]

HAHAH, mine is a little less than that, plus I have tarps over them. A few in the shed, a few in the house and garage. I have a garden area with about 100 bikes under cover there. 48 on the RV Pad, 15 in the shed, 10 on the patio and the list goes on. And BTW Im single and have a roomy thats into bikes as well.

 

[jamesdart]

it sucks when you are trying to find an affordable bike to do something with and everything on craigslist is 80% the cost of new. I don't know if its because the flippers or people just think everything is worth money. im not even looing to make any money.

 

[jerrykr]

[quote="Sinner4"I think my stash can be seen from space. I know Google Maps shows it.

I think it is published all over the internets. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[/quote]

so what's wrong with 2 swimming pools anyway? :shock:

 

[The Renaissance Man]

I've never done much flipping of any kind.
I'm wondering where do you guys sell them after you find and repair them? Anything with shipping would be a huge hassle and unless you live in a college town or something it seems like you would be kinda limited by your location. :?:

 

[Rat Rod]

Anything with shipping would be a huge hassle

It all depends on how much profit you're making.

Buy a vintage BMX bike for $50 on the CL or a garage sale and then turn around and sell it on Ebay for $1200 and spending an hour boxing a bike up doesn't seem so bad. :lol:

The biggest issue we have in the DFW area with the flippers is them all trying to annoy each other by posting fake ads. You'd think it was a bunch of 12 year olds out there doing this, but these idiots are middle aged men upset over bicycles.

 

[Toeslider]

Craigslist, mostly, unless it is something rare that people will pay shipping for. I've sold a couple BMX bikes on eBay, everything else on Craigslist.

The reason it works is because most people on Craigslist are selling bikes they want to get rid of because they are broken, or because they are upgrading (meaning their bikes aren't gonna be cheap). People look at enough bad bikes for high prices and they're happy to pay my price for a bike that's ready to ride. I'm very selective on the bikes I flip, and I don't flip bikes that I think are going to be a problem down the road. Because of that, I'll often tell people if they have a problem with it right away to bring it back to me, or call me and I'll come out and take care of it. That seems to go a long way with people, and I've had several repeat customers buy multiple bikes for their family.

 

[jerrykr]

I've never done much flipping of any kind.
I'm wondering where do you guys sell them after you find and repair them? Anything with shipping would be a huge hassle and unless you live in a college town or something it seems like you would be kinda limited by your location. :?:

DFW is a big place with a lot of people. So for me, it's CL, local pick up only.

"The biggest issue we have in the DFW area with the flippers is them all trying to annoy each other by posting fake ads. You'd think it was a bunch of 12 year olds out there doing this, but these idiots are middle aged men upset over bicycles."

I guess I need to watch CL more often, sounds like good entertainment value!

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I still watch Craigslist just in case there is a good deal. One tip is to look in smaller towns Craigslist like for me there is Kokomo, Lafayette / Tippecanoe, Indianapolis, and so on. I always look in the smaller towns because most the traffic is on Indy so I always list my stuff on all 3 and buy from the smaller ones due to reduced traffic on those.

As far as what to look for I have done well with almost everything even Huffy if it is priced right. Condition is key, if it looks like new and is ride-able $40 all day long. Then there's classics though hard to part with a classic Schwinn always sells good. as far as 20" goes I stay away from them unless they are higher end BMX, low-rider bikes, or the chopper style bikes. Same with 24" bikes I try to stay away unless they are Trek or better and look new and are cheap.

As always any bike that is FREE I will take, you really can't go wrong with free, strip it of parts and scrap it if nothing else.

 

[Toeslider]

I keep thinking about posting a thread with flip tips, but I need to write them all down first so I don't forget them.

One other thing to look out for on CL is bikes with a name you're not familiar with. If you're into bikes and have never heard the name before, chances are it is something upscale and of better quality. I had never heard of Caloi bikes before, but I saw one on CL that looked to be a decent bike for $100. Looked it up and it turned out to be a bike that retailed for $1200 new, and it probably had less than 50 miles on it. It's a Brazilian company that makes some very high quality bikes, but someone who isn't into bikes wouldn't know what they are looking at without more details (of which there were none in the ad).

Also, know your models well. Big difference between a Specialized RockHopper and Stumpjumper, but on CL they look almost the same in pictures. Know which ones to jump on first.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Anything with shipping would be a huge hassle

It all depends on how much profit you're making.

Buy a vintage BMX bike for $50 on the CL or a garage sale and then turn around and sell it on Ebay for $1200 and spending an hour boxing a bike up doesn't seem so bad. :lol:

I really need to get educated on BMX bikes. :shock:

 

[dragnusa]

Finding high end bikes in my area is almost impossible to find so I mainly flip box store bikes but I get so many in that I can repair the nice ones for almost nothing, I dont generally deal with anything smaller then 20 inch bikes. and sale most bikes for between 30 to 100 each

 

[CCR]

I've gotten lucky a few times at garage sales, stop and ask them if they have anything nicer they didn't put out at "garage sale" prices.

 

[mikeeebikey]

I have been very fortunate with CL, and as was said, "KNOW YOUR BIKES!" I just scored a Dyno glide for $25.00 (no it is not for sale, you wouldn't like my price) because the adds title read; "Old Dyno beach bike." The bike was filthy, pictures dark, and nobody recognizes Dyno.
I will pay a little more for 3 speed bikes than Kingfisher, I will go $40.00 for a shimano nexus c.b. equipped bicycle, but, it has to bein good enough shape to list at $40.00 and sell for $25.00 with a coaster brake hub.
Price stuff nearing 2 times what you want, people love to haggle since they cannot at Wally land.