Buying / selling bikes to make money

[Asian Boss]

The SV650 thread got me thinking, Years ago I often bought a bike with the intention of trying to make a few quid. I never did lots, maybe two or three a year. And rode them a bit for fun.

I never made much, it probably averaged at two or three hundred quid per bike at the most if I'm honest.

The two I did well on were a mint Honda XR250 and an equally tidy BMW R100R. I got the Honda for about 1300 quid from a friend who I knew was selling it, had had it from new and wasn't advertising it anywhere. The BMW I got from eBay and it was covered with a nasty screen, leg shields, crap lights, nasty panniers etc. I took all of those off and it looked decent. I think I made the best part of a grand on each of them. I think there were others where I barely broke even.

If you factor in travel costs to view and collect, insurance, tax, advertising costs as well as anything bike related it does all add up.

Also I guess there's the risk you buy a bike with a serious problem and lose a load on it.

If I had the garage space I might do it again, just for fun. Thinking back, the main thing was to get the right bike for the right price and make it look good for sale. Also you could buy in the depths of winter and values went up nicely by around May time.

Anyone ever tried this and what were your experiences?

[Potter]

I managed to bring some bikes from Japan and break even on them, but I reckon to make money selling motorcycles, in any way at all, you probably need scale.

If you can be bothered to spend your time on them for free then you might break even, or make a small profit here and there, as well as getting a lot of variety in the amount of bikes you got to ride all year.

I think there would eventually be tax implications as well if you go strictly by the book. I don't know how it works really, some people seem to buy and sell a lot and not get any interest from HMRC.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Motorcycle dealers don't exactly appear to be popping up all over the place do they?

[Skub]

I did this with a mate for a good few years in the 1990s. What we discovered was,the decent money was to be made in the cheaper bikes. Those we sold for around £300 and under would sell all day long,but as the value of the bike increased,then you were holding on to it longer,plus there was the risk of buying one that was trouble. Better making £50 each on ten cheap bikes,than a couple of hundred on one more expensive. Less risky too.

We bought a lot of crashers and stuff people never got around to fixing,spannered them up to MOT and moved them on. It's amazing what a bit of paint,a recovered seat and a clean will do for visuals.

I don't think there are anywhere like the same opportunities now,because everyone out there knows old bikes are worth money. Anyone tried buying a C90 recently? We must have sold hundreds! We didn't spend any money we weren't prepared to lose,so walking away from some stuff usually kept us right.

It was never income for us,but it was good pocket money and when you have your ear to the ground,sometimes surprising opportunities present themselves. Some insurance write-offs were so good I kept them for my own use!

Then matey was killed on his bike,just after his 30th birthday and I foutered on for a while before losing interest. Sometimes I see a bike which sparks interest,but I'm lazy now and haven't bit for one in years.

The last bike I bought as a non runner was in 2004. I bought this K3 for very little money. I don't have pics from before,but it was pretty sad and rough looking,even at less than a year old. The chain was rusted,the fairing on one side was scuffed,tyres and battery flat. Everything about it screamed 'walk away' to most buyers,but I didn't see anything not fixable,so because it was so cheap I took a chance the engine wasn't scrap and got lucky. I figured I could have still made a few quid if I'd parted it out. I kept this one for myself!

[weeksy]

Not deliberately i've not, but indirectly over the years i've done pretty well on many. I'd go as far as to say i'm up, but most of that has been eaten by recently buying new/nearly new bikes and using dealers, so my last 3-4 deals have cost me money for sure. But plenty of others i've done well on, the best being £1200 profit.

[v8-powered]

The money used to be in buying a crash damaged road bike and converting to track but think that's died a death now, average inters TD'er wants a full-on 2 year-old BSB bike now!

[DEADPOOL]

You need to be lucky to make it into a business. That luck is in regularly finding reasonable machines at an unreasonably low price. You need a fair bit of margin, most of which will be eaten into if you were to lit. account for the time you spend tarting it up.

If you were to pay yourself £20/hour, it doesn't take too long to whittle away your profit margin into nothing. Then you end up doing it for the love of it. That in itself is not a bad thing, just so long as you are being honest with yourself.

[Mussels]

Another thing that will make this unworkable for many is the risk of getting trading standards on your back for being a trader posing as a private seller, I have no idea how many you need to sell before they decide it's too many. It may come down to the type or lack of insurance on the bikes being sold.

[Asian Boss]

You need to be lucky to make it into a business. That luck is in regularly finding reasonable machines at an unreasonably low price. You need a fair bit of margin, most of which will be eaten into if you were to lit. account for the time you spend tarting it up.

If you were to pay yourself £20/hour, it doesn't take too long to whittle away your profit margin into nothing. Then you end up doing it for the love of it. That in itself is not a bad thing, just so long as you are being honest with yourself.

I suspect if you want to do it full time / as a business you need to be prepared to fuck everyone in the arse in one way or another. That's the motor trade.

[DEADPOOL]

I suspect if you want to do it full time / as a business you need to be prepared to fuck everyone in the arse in one way or another. That's the motor trade.

It's a grey area. Like I say, you need to be honest with yourself and either you're doing it for the money (i.e. it's a business) from which you might scratch a living or you're doing it for the fun of it.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I've never made money on a bike, and I don't care about that, bikes are a hobby, if I wanted to make money I'd do more of the work people pay me for, I can easily get £30 an hour for doing that, probably more if I could be arsed to work in London

[cheb]

Not bikes, but random broken things and stuff blagged from skips. It wouldn't be a living but it gets me out to the shed and buys shed stuff.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've never made money on a bike, and I don't care about that, bikes are a hobby, if I wanted to make money I'd do more of the work people pay me for, I can easily get £30 an hour for doing that, probably more if I could be arsed to work in London

I often think along similar sort of lines, but then I remember I don't get paid by the hour or overtime.

If you wanted to pay me to do my 'real job' I'd be asking sorta £75-150/hour depending on who you are (that figure is based simply on what I've paid contractors do what is essentially my job, I've never actually fancied going independent)....I am of course gonna get nowhere near that working on bikes.

But then...like is said, I don't get paid by the hour of overtime, so how much is my time actually worth?

The real reason I would not attempt to flip bikes is cause itd be a massive pain in the arse. I like fixing bikes but I also like being able to not fix them when I'm not in the mood.

[Scotsrich]

I’m the guy that sells the bargains that other people make money on

When I sell a bike it’s usually because I’ve got bored with it and want a change. In which case I’m happy to fire it off at a cheap price.

I can’t be arsed with advertising it for weeks and dealing with people looking at it, sucking through their teeth and trying to knock the price down by picking faults with it. I know what’s wrong with it mate I’ve had it for years.

So the chances of me selling a bike to make money are pretty slim.

[weeksy]

I’m the guy that sells the bargains that other people make money on

When I sell a bike it’s usually because I’ve got bored with it and want a change. In which case I’m happy to fire it off at a cheap price.

I can’t be arsed with advertising it for weeks and dealing with people looking at it, sucking through their teeth and trying to knock the price down by picking faults with it. I know what’s wrong with it mate I’ve had it for years.

So the chances of me selling a bike to make money are pretty slim.

Ace, what's next up on the selling list ?

[Scotsrich]

I’m the guy that sells the bargains that other people make money on

When I sell a bike it’s usually because I’ve got bored with it and want a change. In which case I’m happy to fire it off at a cheap price.

I can’t be arsed with advertising it for weeks and dealing with people looking at it, sucking through their teeth and trying to knock the price down by picking faults with it. I know what’s wrong with it mate I’ve had it for years.

So the chances of me selling a bike to make money are pretty slim.

Ace, what's next up on the selling list ?

Triumph Sprint GT but not for a few years, I’m not bored with it yet.

Anyway I can’t see you buying that no matter how cheap

[Potter]

If you were to pay yourself £20/hour, it doesn't take too long to whittle away your profit margin into nothing. Then you end up doing it for the love of it. That in itself is not a bad thing, just so long as you are being honest with yourself.

I reckon if you paid yourself minimum wage it wouldn't take long to whittle your margin to nothing.

I've occasionally used bike shops to do stuff I didn't fancy doing myself, I've used ones that I trust but even then they don't take the same care I do, they work at speed and they're not perfectionists - I know a perfectionist, he did my LC, but it cost me so much that I could never hope to recover it.

If you went at it really seriously then you can make a living, but I don't know any rich motorbike traders unless they were rich to start off with, or it's a hobby and they make their real money somewhere else.

[David]

It's easy to make a small fortune buying/ selling stuff like bikes, boats, classuc cars etc.


Just start with a large fortune.

[DefTrap]

A neighbour did it slightly differently, with cars.

Buy something respectable in that golden 3-4k area that you can sell all day. Nothing too stupid. The key is not to overpay natch', so most of the work is going into doing your research. Obvs' it helps if you're a bit of a grifter and have mates who 'keep an ear out' (my b-i-l builder comes across all sorts of ridiculous deals because well off folk are lazy and just want rid of things). A decent long MOT is a given for this scenario to work, you're not buying real-doer-uppers.

Then all he did was drive it about for 3-4 months, polish it to within an inch of it's life and sell it on. Almost always made at least 500 quid out of it and spent almost nothing. He enjoyed it, he always had fairly decent cars, and the risk was fairly low.