Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, talk about one flea market find that paid their mortgage.
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How A $25 Flea Market Find Paid Our Mortgage
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode we are talking about how a $25 flea market find paid our mortgage last month. All right guys, this is gonna be a fun episode. We love sharing with you guys what we're able to flip so you guys can get some ideas while you're out there sourcing To find some of these similar items.
This one is one that I have sold a couple times now. Not the exact one, but the the type.
Melissa: It's kind of an odd one. It is an odd one This is one when we get the question. What is some of the like the most interesting things that you've sold? This one usually makes that list. So we have sold it. This is actually the first one.
I remember this because I posted about it on my Facebook page years ago before we even had Flea Market Flipper, before, before kids I was like, he just bought this and sold this. It was so random. So anyways.
Rob: And so we've sold three of them now and this one was the third one that we've actually sold. I have one more in the, in the storage to be able to sell, which is cool. But this one we had a $25 find. So it was $25 for this and then we sold it for a thousand dollars to pay our mortgage last month.
So.
Melissa: What was it?
Rob: $25 to a thousand dollars. Or you guys do did we build up enough around it? Are you guys wondering? What is it that you bought? This did not go on a pallet. My daughter could carry the box to the post office. It was shipped at the postal, US Postal Service so it was something that was not super big.
So what what is it? What is it? We're trying to get you guys' curiosity. What do you guys think it is? So what it was was a prosthetic leg is what we bought and sold. Cool thing about this is like mosa said we sold one years and years ago This is probably over 10 years ago, was the first one. No, it was like 15 years ago. Was it? Was the first one that we actually did I was at the flea market. I didn't even know what it was.
It had a name on it Otterbock. And I looked it up because the first one that we did did not look like a leg.
Melissa: It was just the joint.
Rob: It was just the knee joint and I had no idea what it was. I looked up that brand and saw it was very expensive. We bought it. I think we paid $35 for that one.
Melissa: That one sold within 24 hours too.
It did super quick. It sold super fast. I remember that because you're like man, I wish I would have listed it for more.
Rob: Yes, so that was the one that we sold years and years ago for $1,000 since then. Yeah. Since then, I think we paid more for that one. I think I paid $35 for it. But since then, we've sold two other ones, no one other one beside that.
And then this one, and then we still have one, one other one to sell. So, we listed this and we sold it. I bought two of these together in a box from a guy at the flea market. And he had a couple of little, attachments and like a bag and some other stuff with it. He was really kind of disgusted by it and he just wanted to get rid of it.
So he gave me a good deal. I think we paid 50 bucks for both of them, or for, for the package deal, inside the box, everything with them. So we averaged amount to be $25 a piece. Got a thousand dollars for this one killer, killer deal on that. Super, super excited to be able to do that. Yeah.
Anything to add to that?
Melissa: One thing that I wanted to note too is that you have to be a little bit careful when selling medical equipment on eBay. So we have sold it over the past in the past and we do we've sold a lot of things actually, but if you get flagged for something make sure that you don't keep Listing it again if they flag you for one thing. Pull it down.
It's not worth relisting. They will flag your account. So just make sure that you do that. But some medical equipment that doesn't is not a prescription
Rob: Yeah
Melissa: can usually be sold and it's fine.
Rob: That's the rule of thumb if it requires a prescription if a doctor has to prescribe it to somebody, whether it's like an oxygen, what do they call it oxygen concentrator?
Melissa: We sold a lot of those.
Rob: We have, but if it's something like that, that you're not supposed to be able to buy just over the counter, I mean, you can buy them on marketplace and stuff like that, but you're not supposed to be able to buy it over the counter. Then eBay will flag it. They will end the listing. So this is not like that.
Anybody can go out and get a prosthetic leg. You can get a fitted, which the cool thing about this is, yeah, that these items, they do have to be fitted, but there are pieces on them, that have different things, that you can adjust or you can make them different. But the big thing that I believe this one was bought for was, the knee joint itself.
That's what the buyer wanted, the knee joint. As for the little piece below the knee joint, which is, would be like the calf muscle or the, the shin. They can make those different sizes and make these fit for other people. So the the moneymaker was definitely the knee joint on this one.
Melissa: Another one that we did really well with for a long time was knee braces. We did a lot of knee braces like don joys and
Rob: and those are hit and miss too. Because I feel like those are designed specifically for people.
We haven't sold them in a long time.
Melissa: We haven't tried to sell them.
Rob: No, yeah, and they did I got and some of those might be prescription SoI'mm not 100 sure so don't quote us on that one, if you're able to still sell them. But don don joy was an expensive one and we sold them for three three to five hundred dollars and we can get them for next to nothing at the flea market.
Melissa: One thing I do like about that kind of stuff, like that guy with the, both of the times I remember you buying the prosthetics, they, people didn't want them, like they were going to go throw them away, but now somebody else can use it and get it at a discount.
Cause the, like the going through, you know, if you have to buy one. They're a lot of money. Like it costs a lot of money. So it's nice when you can bring that kinda stuff. 'cause a lot of times even thrift stores won't take them. So a lot of times you can't, they can't get back into circulation. So I like when you can bring them back into circulation and sell them again.
I think that it's helpful for everybody so that they're not just thrown away and discarded. 'cause there's costs so much money initially. And then they just get thrown away. Cause you can't, like you said, you can get that top part fitted. Like somebody can buy that part or get that part right, but they could still have the expensive knee joint that they need or whatever joint it is that they need.
So I think that's part three. Cool. Another medical thing we did, which is not really medical. I mean, it's not prescription was the stretchers. Yes. So we sold 12 stretchers last year and those could be considered, but they're a piece of equipment and we sold them for half the price that they were new. We still make good money on, or more than half. Well, some of them we sold really cheap.
Rob: We did way, way cheaper than what
Melissa: like a quarter of what they were really worth new. But we sold all of them on eBay without a problem.
Rob: Yeah, fairly quickly. I did another medical that we did get in trouble for.
Well, not got in trouble for, but flagged, flagged for was a, it was called the vest. And it was a compression thing that you wear on and it like beat with air. And which is just kind of crazy, but at the same time We sold one of them. We listed it. It sold really, really quickly. I bought another one from the flea market for like $25.
I think that one is still sitting in my storage. Because eBay flagged me the second time I listed it and said, hey, you're not allowed to sell these because of the prescription. So be careful when you're out there. Make sure you're doing some comparisons on eBay when you're buying something. Because I have this one.
And I haven't really gone any further to figure out if I could sell it to on a medical website or something like that. It's just I think it's sitting in a shelf on my, my inside of my storage my my warehouse that I haven't done anything with so just be careful when you're looking at medical stuff. Make sure that it is allowed to be sold on ebay if you're in ever in question Jump onto the help of eBay and ask them questions or get them on the phone and ask them hey, am I allowed to sell this is it?
Okay, if I sell this before you actually buy it that way, you know, you're not getting stuck with something.
Melissa: Yeah, but and also if they do like I said if they flag it or they pull it down, don't try to repost it. Cause that will, the one like little warning is not going to hurt you. It'll be fine. But if you keep doing, we did that one time, I can't, it was years ago.
We kept trying to put the oxygen ones back on and then we got in trouble. We got a ding for a little bit. So, just don't do that. So just take it down. It's not worth it to try to resell it. So.
Rob: Who would have known you could buy $25 prosthetic leg from the flea market and pay your mortgage with it. We were able to do it.
We love it. Hopefully you guys will be looking for some prosthetic legs while you're out there in your sourcing, whether it's yard sales, flea markets, even a storage auctions, whatever you're doing. Hopefully you'll be able to find something that you can make some money on. So.
Melissa: Thanks for hanging out with us.
Rob: You guys are awesome. Have an amazing day and we'll see you on the next episode.