Making money out of a passion is a dream that many people have. It’s often said that when you love what you do then you’ll never work a day in your life. This means that if you have a hobby that you love, you can end up making a living at it.
For instance, if you are not only a car enthusiast but know how to restore classic cars then you can make quite a bit of money flipping them. It works the same as house flipping which people do for a living. They buy old houses that need work, fix them up themselves and then sell them at a profit. You’ll do the same except you will be flipping cars that you’ve restored to their original glory.
There are a few things to understand about the process and how to actually make money at it, however. In this article, we will go over several tips when it comes to flipping classic cars that you’ve restored yourself.
Buy low, sell high
The biggest factor as to whether you can make it worth restoring a car and making enough money is how much you will pay for the car as-is. The trick is to know where to look so you can find those diamonds in the rough and be able to pay pennies on the dollar for them.
For instance, if you look online to find somebody selling an old car that has been sitting in their grandfather’s garage for a while then you aren’t likely to get a great deal and might pay too much to make much of a profit.
When you are the one that finds the car in somebody’s garage because you heard it through the grapevine that somebody has one sitting around then you may be able to get a much better deal since they weren’t looking to sell. These are basically called barn finds and are going to be much cheaper than buying a car off of an internet marketplace, for instance.
When you find a bargain like this then it will give you more to work with when it comes to buying the parts that you need. For instance, if you need to buy Model A Ford parts, then you’ll get the right ones because you can afford to spend more on them if you find an old Model A somewhere rather than buying one at an auction.
Do your research
Suppose you find a beautiful car in a barn that you know you can restore to its original splendor. You take a year to fix it up and then put it up for sale. And nobody buys it. It turns out there just wasn’t enough interest in that make and model from that year. This all could have been avoided if you had done some research before you set out to find the car to restore.
There is research that needs to be done ahead of time to understand what cars are going to be worth the time and money investments. It is the same with house flipping. House flippers know exactly what they are looking for so when they see it they know how much to pay and what they can expect to make from the sale. You need to do the same thing when it comes to what to buy.
You should also have an idea of what it will cost to repair the car. There are going to be various states of decay with the car. Even when you find the make and model of a sought-after car, it is important to know what it is going to take to get it restored. If it is in really bad shape then you may need to pass based on what you think you can sell the car for.
Get the word out
To have a steady enough stream of buyers for your cars that will allow you to make a living at this, it is important to have a good marketing strategy. For instance, if you have a following on social media then you will always have people interested in your cars.
The key is to cultivate a community of classic car lovers so people follow along with you. If you have a Youtube channel in which you show the process of finding the car and then the restoration process, you will have an audience that is very motivated to buy your creations.
