Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about an item they found on Facebook Marketplace that is worth $7,000.
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What We Found On Facebook Marketplace Worth $7,000
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are recapping what we actually found last week while we were traveling and on vacation.
Rob: Right, so today we are recapping a really cool high profit flip that we found while traveling with our kids last week.
Melissa: Yeah. So we were camping at last week with our kids.
We went to south Florida on the west coast. Well, not really south, I guess. Yeah. Venice area to the beach. And then, we ended up back at Disney on one of our favorite campgrounds. We were there for, we kind of split up, spring break and went camping with the kids, but Rob did what he always does on vacation and we actually bought our toy hauler camper for this reason.
So that we could pick up stuff while we're going camping with the kids. So we bought it last year, so that we can go and grab some stuff while we're there and pay for more than pay for the trip.
Rob: Absolutely. So we did find a couple things while we were down there on vacation, but I was only able to negotiate and pick up one the other one with the timeframe that we are down, I think we're down there for like six days, five days.
Melissa: Four, four nights. The first one, five nights, the second. So.
Rob: So yeah, four nights, five days down there. I could only get the one arranged and picked up. And what it was was a deep fryer. We found a commercial, deep fryer, found a really good deal on it.
They were asking $300. I offered them $250 for it, before I got there. When I got there, it was definitely kind of crazy. And the center, and I'll give you my whole reasoning on this whole thing, but the center, so it was a three bay, deep fryer.
Melissa: But before you dive into all that,
Rob: sorry, go ahead.
Melissa: That. Okay. So, this is, there's a couple lessons and we love to share them with you as we're going through them. So we get there, we arrive at this, this house, and there is stuff like, this is like, this guy obviously does this, like he's a scrapper. He has stuff everywhere. So we get there and then there's this fryer in the middle of the yard right there.
And. It was a lot dirtier than you expected.
Rob: Yeah. A lot of grease. A lot of grease.
Melissa: A lot, a lot of grease. So he comes up to it, the guy wasn't there yet, and we looked at it and we're like, did we, you're kind of like, do I take this on? So.
Rob: Yeah. So that is where we were when we got up to it. Now I had a couple options.
I hate going negotiating before I get there. So they're asking $300 for it. No.
Melissa: You mean double negotiating?
Yeah. So you're negotiating.
Rob: I negotiate before I get there, but when I get there, I don't typically negotiate again because I already got them to a good deal.
Melissa: You just feel like it's kind of rude.
It is. And so in this case, I'm looking at it a lot more work, a lot of grease, plus I plug it in and the middle fryer does not power on. The two outside ones do. They look like they're working fine, but the middle fryer does not. So right off the bat, there's room for negotiation because of it not working like the, the seller said that it did work.
So right off the bat. We have room for negotiation. I didn't know if I was gonna do it or if I was gonna walk away because it is a lot of grease. I'm hoping, and I haven't done it yet. I'm hoping that I can get a chemical to spray the whole thing down, get rid of all the grease. But so the seller was not there, but his, I think his wife or his girlfriend was there.
She said, make me an offer. So we made her an offer. I said, listen to me a hundred bucks. I already had them at $250. I said, a hundred bucks, it's gonna need a lot of work. The center fryer does not work. It's not coming on. So it's a little less than what I expected. And she goes, take it. So we paid them a hundred bucks.
We got it loaded up in the back of the truck. Thank goodness they had it up in the air.
So it wasn't actually hard to load in.
Rob: No, it's heavy, but it's not heavy where you couldn't pick it up, but it was up in the air. So we had to pick it up about two inches and back the truck up, slide it into the back of the truck and that's how we got it.
So, all that being said is we got a good deal. I don't like to double negotiate. I like to negotiate before I get there, but in some cases if it's not what you expect it is, make sure that you're ready to either turn around and walk away or if there is room for negotiation, like this seller said, what will you give me for it?
She didn't want us to leave and not take it. So she was willing to negotiate and that's where we came down and I knew I could spend that extra $150 on degreasing it or paying somebody to degrease it and get it cleaned up. So I knew I had a little bit more room inside of it to be able to do that.
Melissa: That's kind of where you're at now in the business and like we're, you're trying to hire more of those things out so you're not, and there's enough room for profit so that you can do it. So you're not the one that kind of went through your mind as you were thinking, do we walk away or do we pick this up and take it home?
I mean, it's a good it, it will sell for $7,000-$10,000, right?
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: And even though you said the center bay's not working, somebody can fix that. Or even if you had to sell it for parts, why do you think it would get, go for parts?
Rob: At least with the two outsides working, I'd say it shouldn't have any problems selling for $5,000 once it's cleaned up.
But I'll give you my also thought process on the center one not working. The two outside ones are working, so I can actually move a control board. I can move this, I can move that to the center one and see what the problem is because I have two outside ones that are working. So I can do that, or I can pay somebody to do that as well to figure out what piece is bad.
If it's the control board, I can take one off the other one, switch it over to the middle, and then I know. Is it gonna be worth me to spend? If it's another $200 on a control board to get it up and working to make an extra $3,000 to $5,000 on the deal, then yes, it totally is worth that extra $200 investment or whatever the control board is.
I just have to weigh all the options with it. But that was my thought process. And you can't do this all the time if you come to something that's not working. But in this, two outside ones did, the center one didn't. I can easily figure out what the problem is just by troubleshooting, plugging, and play a couple of different, scenarios with the other ones that are working to get the other one, the middle one working, and then know what I have to order.
Melissa: Yeah. So you almost walked away, but you didn't, you're gonna take on the project.
Rob: And I'm glad I didn't walk away.
Melissa: Yeah. Are you?
Rob: I am because
Melissa: I, it is a project, so you just have to hire out the cleaning part and then, and do that. It is fix the middle bay and then you should be good.
Rob: A hundred dollars is out of pocket.
Now I might spend a little bit more, if I have to get the control panel, whatever it is, say I spend another $300 on it. So I got $400 all into it. $400 investment to make $7,000. And there were comps on eBay for I think $9,000.
Melissa: Yeah,
Rob: $7,000 to $10,000 on this. Depending on how much I can clean it up and how well I can, how well I can position it and take great pictures and videos of it.
Seven to $10,000 off of a $400 investment. That's killer. That's amazing. That is what we look for. That's really, really what I try and hone in on these high profit flips. And this is all the way out how I weighed everything out in my head while we were actually negotiating this, picking this up. So hopefully it'll help you while you're out there looking for items, way it out the same way.
Should I walk away from this? Should I keep it? I mean, should I get it? Should I try and get somebody to fix it? You have a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different things that you can weigh out when you're actually going out to, to source something or to buy something.
Melissa: And I do want, I know we've mentioned this on the podcast before, but if anybody new is tuning in, we did have a flip a little while ago that we should have walked away from, what was that?
That was the, what's it called? Pin? No bowling machine.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: That we should have walked away from.
Rob: Bowling arcade.
Melissa: Bowling arcade. 'cause you couldn't get it fixed. And so it ended up only selling for $500. Right. $500.
Rob: $500. We only paid
Melissa: $575. We only paid. What did we pay for it?
Rob: I think it was a hundred something.
Melissa: Yeah, it was a hundred, but it sold for $575 and you were hoping to get at least two grand for it. Yeah. And so after shipping and everything we, I think we lost $10 after the whole thing. So it wasn't like a huge loss but your time. So it wasn't worth it. It was, we should have walked away. 'cause it was in worse condition than you thought.
Yeah. And it didn't power on and all these things, but you love those things.
Rob: But I'm a sucker for cool arcade.
Melissa: I know you're sucked in.
Rob: Yeah. Cool. Arcade bar games, stuff like that. I love that kind of stuff. So, and it wasn't a huge investment. A hundred bucks, but yes. Hindsight, 2020. We should have walked away from it because it was, we actually brought it back.
It was on a road trip. We brought it back. It took some time, took some storage out of our, out of our warehouse. And, yeah, that's one of those things. So, so you have, so learn from us. Absolutely. If you need to walk away, walk away from it, but also way out, everything that you're dealing with on this, the upswing of this, even if I only paid a hundred dollars for it, I cleaned it up and I sold it with the two outsides ones working in the center, one not, I still think I could get around $5,000 for it.
So a hundred dollars to $5,000. Yes. I think that's a great, a great, great upswing for anybody to invest a hundred dollars to make $5,000 on it. So.
Melissa: Yes, I'm thinking like what people would be thinking of. Okay. That seems like a lot of work, but. At the same time, if you weigh in, like you do this because it's less time, it takes less time overall for that big chunk of, of a payout.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's kind of why we've done this business model. So anyways, I just was thinking like.
Rob: No. Even if we broke it down to, hey, this is, it took us, I think it was actually a 40 minute drive from where we were.
Melissa: So it took us two hours probably.
Rob: So call it two hours. We drove down, we picked it up, we got two hours into it.
Say it's gonna take me, I mean this one's gonna has a lot of grease. If I do all this myself, I would venture to say five hours of cleaning if I do it myself or if I pay somebody anything into that. So call it seven hours into it and then shipping it out, it's gonna take me another, probably, this is at very easy to ship.
Throw it on a pallet, throw straps on it, ready to go. Not that difficult, maybe another hour.
Melissa: What about fixing the bay or fixing the that?
Rob: Oh yeah. Doing the troubleshooting on that. If I do that as well, I, let's call it a total of 12 hours into it, and that's me troubleshooting. That's me doing everything 12 hours of time invested into this whole flip and even call it on the lower end, maybe I put another $400 bucks into it, maybe I sell it on the lower end for $7,000.
So let's call it $500 in. Easy number $7,000. Sell it for $6,500 minus eBay fees. Let's call it even $5,500. Let's do it. So I'm just giving you rough numbers, but $5,500 for 12 hours of your time is, I mean, if you're listening to this and you're making more than $5,500 for a 12 hour investment, I, hey, props to you.
That's awesome. This is what I love to do. I enjoy every. Part of this hunting, getting it, cleaning it up. I, I just enjoy it. So it's really, really fun.
What do you say, how much was a profit?
Melissa: $5,000?
Rob: Say $5,500. And that's after eBay fees. After shipping. That's a thousand dollars.
Melissa: $450 for
Rob: $450. An hour. An hour.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: So still almost 500 bucks an hour.
Melissa: Even if you doubled that time, it's still a lot.
Rob: Yeah, exactly.
Melissa: Even if it took you 24 hours of actually.
Rob: Exactly. But it's only one item, but it's one item that you're working on.
Melissa: You're also to the point that you are trying to hire out some of these tasks. So we're trying to build up.
For this whole time you've basically been a one man show. Yeah. You've had every, you've had some people come and help you, you know, one off little task like cleaning and stuff. And you are looking to hire somebody that's more consistent in that, so that for sure you are not doing that 'cause that's where we are right now in the business.
So, but for this whole time you've been. It's just been you really? Yeah.
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: So you haven't wanted to grow it to something where you have a lot of employees. No. But to now have like one person that you can count on to help you would be good for our business.
Rob: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Melissa: So that's what we're working on now.
Rob: Hopefully this helps you out. Hopefully if you're dabbling in this or you're already flipping, you can see the potential of going high profit flipping. And
Melissa: I'm not saying start out with something this big. We definitely did not start out with something this big, but this is where we're at now, so we're trying to, yeah.
Get some more of those bigger flips without getting into like flipping houses 'cause you used to do that and you're like, that is so much red tape.
Rob: It is.
Melissa: And by the end of the day, your profit margins are almost the same as a big old stove. So.
Rob: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes, exactly. So one other thing that you might have a question about this is, hey, do I need a forklift to be able to do this 'cause it's gonna get shipped on a pallet? And the cool thing is you don't need a forklift even doing this one. We used a forklift because I put it in the back of my truck, but normally I would've taken my little four by eight trailer. If I was at home, I would've taken the four by eight trailer and I would've rolled it up on the trailer 'cause it's on wheels. It will absolutely roll, roll it up onto the trailer and then I would roll it down, take pictures of it inside the garage. Same thing when I'm ready to go. I would roll it up into the trailer onto a pallet or roll it into the garage onto a pallet and be able to move it with a dolly.
So there are ways to do this without having crazy, crazy equipment. This one absolutely could be done without having a forklift.
Melissa: You've done so much with that little trailer. Absolutely. It's, it's nice because it's low to the ground. So it just has a little ramp or it just goes No, it just goes tilts. It tilts.
So you just go up on the ramp. And that trailer you've had, we talked about that the other day. Yeah. You've had that since you were 16.
Rob: 16. Wow. So that's almost 30 years. I've had that. Woo. And it's made me a lot of money. So that's just, but I know a lot of people have questions about that. Can I do this without having crazy forklifts and huge trailers and all that kind of stuff?
And no, you don't need that stuff. You can start wherever you're at. You can rent a trailer to get something like this, you can roll it up on it. So you can totally be able to do this wherever you're at.
Melissa: Yep. So that was our find for the vacation this week or last week, and we are excited to get it listed and get some stuff.
Sold. So.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: And if you wanna learn more about our higher, value, lower volume, business model, you can check out our workshop. We'll link it in the show notes below. And thanks for listening, guys.
Rob: You're awesome. Have an amazing day, and we'll see you on the next episode.