Boat "Flipping"

[punjabi]

I've been thinking of buying a boat, but was a little leery about depreciation. But then I found this:

http://www.ibuysailboats.com/index.html

If I can just buy a boat and sell it for double what I paid twice a year, in five years, I'll have a million dollar boat while you suckers are still fartin around in your little dinghies.

Its on the internet. It must be true

[jrd22]

Geez, that sounds so easy even I could do it. Guess I've been going about it wrong all these years. Let's see now, 1 million in 5 years and I've been boating for over 30... I could have a pretty nice boat by now! Thanks for the info., I'm going to sign up now before the word get's out and everybody's doing it.

[denby]

Sure and btw I have a bridge for sale, real cheep

Dennis

[arbarnhart]

I think it's very doable, but you have to be a bit shrewd and in some ways not very nice to pull it off successfully. I would think the further up the $ scale you went the harder it would be though. In the sub $5000 market, which I was shopping in and watching closely recently, variances of over 100% are not at all unusual. There isn't always an explanation due to quality either. Anyway, I suspect the "course" teaches you to figure out which buyers and sellers are weak willed, how to make minor issues seem significant when buying and major issues seem insignificant when selling. You would have to low ball people and walk away a lot. A lot of these GRQ schemes do work, but I would not want to be the kind of person you have to become to make them work; they teach how to prey on people.

[cardiacpaul]

I know a fella that bought a 26ft s2 at auction for 450.00.
Cleaned it up, put on new running rigging, listed it for 8500.00.

sold it 3 yrs later for 1500.00

another guy, a good friend, same auction, 28ft morgan, 575.00. cleaned, spackled, pointed, tucked, trimmed, painted, sailed it for 4 yrs grinned like a cheshire cat every time he took it out.

Sold it last month for 3000.00

I bought a 198? wellcraft 19ft elite (gasp, a stinkpot) at a church run resale shop for less than 700. Put in a 200.00 heat exchnger, new 70.00 impeller, poliglowed the pajeebers out of the hull and sold it last week for 2200.00 I was lucky.

[uspirate]

bought a sunfish in 1992 for $300 sold it two years later for $500, bought it back a year later for $300, sold it last year for $1k..hows that for boat flipping? i noticed the flipping kit comes with a "legal forms" pack... is that for bailing yourself outta jail?

[saurav16]

USPirate I love your avatar...

Flipping boats is def doable. I got my boat for half the surveyed fair value. I plan to work on it this winter sail it 2 more years and sell it for surveyed price or hoping a few thousand more... I think its doable if you are at all handy.

[rewell6]

We recently purchased a 93 four winns stink pot for $4k with a bad engine. Nada is/was over 10k. I have considered flipping it to get a nice sailboat, but the wife almost flipped when I mentioned it.

Here is the flipping I'm doing. $1800 engine, 400 distributor, 200 alt, 115 water pump, 135 fuel pump which I broke today , 100 impellor and parts, still need exhaust manifolds and risers 650 and going up (a foundry that made them burned to the ground). I even had to empty the gas tank to remove it and clean under it. Have you ever tried to deal with 65 gallons of fuel. And if I get it back together tomorrow I still have to fill it back up $175+ and at 13-18 gph that's only 5 hours run time max

Ok I'm ready to flip it and get a sailboat. Anybody interested? Only $15k

oh yea, I'm doing all the labor.

[danjarch]

My best friend's dad used to do it with cars. You don't have to be a jerk to make money at it. You do have to be very thorough by nature though. His dad would be driving along and see a car. when he would test drive it, he check every thing. Even in the middle of the summer he'd crank the heat on, then the defroster. Same thing right, nope often the vent controls would hang up on the defroster. If you need to take that coarse to figure out how to make money flipping boats, your going to loose a lot of money. You've got to have a knack for knowing whats most likely going to stay a $200 dollars fix, not snow ball into a $2000 dollar refit. That means wedging your self into the engine compartment until you can see that the motor mounts aren't rusted in two, and a thousand other things that the average guy doesn't think to check. That's how you spot the diamond from the rough.

Oh, one last thing. You've also got to be able to go a while with out buying anything, just because you haven't found something worth dealing with. That's what gets most people in the end. They make a buck or two off their first couple of finds. Then even when they don't feel that good about the deal. They go ahead anyway. Thinking they can get what they want for it "if they just". It's that "if they just" that usually cost more then the profit that you can make.

I've had a couple of friends try it with boats and cars. They kept their day jobs.

[cardiacpaul]

you have to be willing to WAIT. Wait for the right boat to buy (very subjective) Wait for the rigt time to buy it, wait for the parts to repair it at a decent price, wait for the right seller to come along... not good for someone with ADHD.