Want to know our largest, most expensive flip that we’ve ever done? It’s the highest value dollar wise that we’ve ever sold, and we sold it for $25,000 on eBay. There were a lot of aspects to this flip that we’ll talk through as we share our lessons learned.
Hopefully it will help you if you get to the point where you want to invest in one of these higher profit flips. We’ll share some do’s and don’ts too.
This item is not one you’d come across very often, so I was excited when I saw it. It was a parking lot security tower. It sat on a trailer and lifted a small box that could hold a few people inside. You got into this thing and then it lifted itself up to like 25 feet in the air. It was used as a parking lot watch tower for theme parks.
Melissa was not excited about it at first because it was a $5,000 investment, but it was a great flip.
We got it from an auction and my cap was $2,500 but I got invested in the item. If you’re bidding in auctions, don’t do that. Know your cap and stick with it.
Looking For Comps
I couldn’t find any other information on this item other than if it was bought new. Retail on the security tower was $127,000-$130,000 to build this new because it’s a specialty item.
We usually try to sell it for 50% of retail, but it’s hard to determine a good price when comps aren’t available. Now, depending on the condition, if it’s almost new, you can ask for more than that. If it’s not as great or you can’t test it for whatever reason, then we go under the 50%. I new 50% of retail of $120,000 was a lot of money. I didn’t think I’d get that much, but I knew I’d at least make my $5,000 investment back.
The retail information was on the paperwork from the original manufacturer.
If you can’t find a sold comp on something like this, that means when you get it posted it is going to be the only one online. It will typically show in a Google search when somebody types in parking lot security tower.
It ended up selling in less than a month on eBay. I had it listed for $30,000 and someone shot me an offer for $5,000 and I took it. It was our largest, most expensive flip.
Payment Problems
At that time eBay was using PayPal for payment and the guy paid me through PayPal with a credit card because he wanted points. PayPal put a hold on the money, which made sense for a large transaction.
Then the guy sent a driver down to pick up the trailer with the item and the title. After that I found out PayPal’s normal hold of 2-3 days didn’t go away. I called them and they said they were going to hold it for 6 months because it was a high risk transaction.
I had my buyer’s phone number because of the transaction. I called him and asked if he could refund it (he’s got the item now) and if we could do a wire transfer. He said no, but he could jump on a three-way call with me and PayPal to say he wasn’t coming back for the funds. He was an attorney so he said he would sign an affidavit saying he was happy with the item and to release the funds to me.
PayPal wouldn’t do it. Instead of waiting six months for our money, we did some research and a blog said to talk to our local congressman. We went down to our local congressman, told them what was going on. They gave us a form, and within 72 hours, PayPal had released all the funds into our account.
The moral of the story is if something ever happens to you like this you can go and go to a a local congressman where you can fill something out and they will deal with the company on your behalf.
Get Your Account Established Now
Don’t just jump into eBay with $1,000, $2,000 sales. Build your credibility and history with eBay on smaller sales so eBay knows you’re a credible seller when you eventually level up. eBay acts as the mediator in solutions between the buyer and seller, so you want to build your credibility with eBay before there is a problem.
eBay doesn’t use PayPal anymore, but no payment processor is perfect. They all have their own issues and they’re all not fun to work with.
If you do find yourself in a situation like this, know there are solutions to the problems.
Show Notes
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FURTHER RESOURCES
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