General Business: Automotive Sales

my next door neighbor has a monopoly on car dealerships in our area, and I've picked up alot from him over the years... if you have any questions about certain brands, true costs to own, etc. shoot me a PM and if I can't answer it, I'll forward it over to him...

[quote="ewindsor"]Actually I would be really interested to know which used cars are bringing the most money right now. If you could get him to bend his ear on that, that'd be great![/quote]

Well, I talked to him this afternoon, and after some intense manual labor (I mowed his lawn) he revealed that the best values for dealers (assuming you have access to auctions) are jeeps (wranglers, gr. cherokees; people will pay big premiums for these cars) and of course, most late model japanese cars and trucks (again, can be had for little at auction but sell big on the lots; mainly because of people's misconceptions about them (honda, toyota) being 'silver bullets') So, I guess it would be good to try lexus, like you were suggesting.... if you need anything else, I'm sure he'll let me vacuum out his pool for the answer :lol:

nice it's good to see someone else who likes those... just because it looks kinda like a grand am and comes from australia of all places (ugh...) doesn't mean it's not a GTO.

[url]http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=102907[/url]
hey GTO fans, check out the next-gen version here...

I'll probably catch grief here, but I'm a Cadillac Man. I love the Northstar engine and there's just something about 'em that gives me a...umm...goosebump.

No grief from me Eric - Cadillac is one of my favorites. Hell, I was even thinking of moving to Cadillac Michigan :lol:

I have a 1998 STS - White Diamond color...god I love that damn thing.

But caddies don't hold their value at all. How do they make good for resale cars?

Karen

true... it is dumb for people to buy brand new cars...

ooo, i hate hearing stories about crooked dealers...

Personally, I don't like them, but LEXUS has the best resale on the market. They are expensive to buy, but should make money on the sale.

I don't like LEXUS... Sorry for the confusion, I love Caddy's....DUH :lol:

Congrats!!!!!!

Tan I believe :roll:

Automotive business is good. Hard to believe you can buy like 12x$5000 in cars and then be able to reseller them for almost $20,000. That's a $15,000 profit.

cheng - BabyBoy didn't know what he was talking about with the automotive business - I've deleted his posts and I'm sorry for the confusion.

true... if you could buy a new car for $5k and sell it for $20k, there'd be more used car dealerships than mcdonalds out there...

First of all, Hi. I'm new here, and this is my first post. I just found this and "Young Entrepeneur" today.

Anyway, I've been buying/selling a few cars lately in a very "part-time" fashion, and I've found it to be quite profitable. I've also found its profitability to be inseperably linked to the participant's knowledge of cars. I'm a car guy, I've always been one, and I've found that this and this alone is what allows me to operate profitably. It is also what has allowed me to be successful in my 9-to-5, wherein I analyze the financial statements of dealer operations for purposes of acquiring them and their real estate.

I am currently in the process of investigating the particulars of getting my dealer's license, possibly under the umbrella of an SPE that I might form with others to share the licensing costs.

I hesitate to go into specific strategies, car types, inventory sources, and selling techniques for fear of giving rise to some unwanted local competition, but I will share a few generalities.

I will first say that what I engage in is not "fixing and selling". My aim is to do absolutely nothing with the car other than buy and resell. I am never intentionally in the business of performing repairs to my inventory. I like to call it "vehicular arbitrage". It is just like bond trading, only with cars. I spot a mispricing, buy, and then re-sell at the market price for what is ideally a riskless profit. The idea is that I only have to do ONE thing right, and that is buy at the right price. Once I've done that, the rest is assured. And so, it stands to reason, the one singularly important skill to succeed in this venture is the ability to recognize what the right price is. The Kelley Blue Book and NADA Black Book are NOT substitutes for this skill. Particularly when you are dealing with car models that are popular among enthusiasts, commonly listed prices are of close to no value, you just have to know what people are willing to pay.

So in short, what I'm trying to say is that if this is something you're thinking about doing, it would be something that comes naturally from a long period of exposure to this sort of thing. If you attempt to "start from scratch" knowledge-wise, when playing with real money, you're in for hard times. I don't intentionally mean to discourage anyone though, I find it to be great fun.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.

It's VERY possible to make money without any mechanical knowledge.

Do you have access to that car auction? Most of the time it's for dealers only, but hey, that's the US, i don't know about your neck of the woods.

I'd say you have to be 18 (again, here in the US) because a lot of paper signing goes on and your signature means jack in the US unless you're 18.