How To Score Profitable Items At Yard Sales To Resell Online W/Cary Williams

Podcast Tiles Cary Williams

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Transcript

Rob: Awesome, today we have Cary with American Arbitrage with us going to give us some great tips on yard sales, how to beat the overwhelm when you walk up on our yard sale. So, Cary thank you so much for spending some time with us and actually handling this question for us.

Cary: Yeah, of course I, one thing I love doing is going to yard sales, been doing it for a decade now. And, it’s my bread and butter, my favorite thing to do.

Melissa: That’s awesome. So we’re going to dive into more of that, but first, before we do that, give us a little bit of your background, how you know of reselling, like how you got started, how long you’ve been doing it and all that good stuff.

Cary: A decade, I’ve been doing it for 10 and a half years. I graduated from college 10 years ago, 10 and a half years ago from the University of Utah. I should have known I would be a reseller at that point because I got I’m, I’m curious about everything. I got three degrees at the U. I have a political science, history, and a Spanish degree. And I was going to go into teaching.

The recession was happening. I was planning on going back and getting my master’s and my PhD and everything. And I got caught up in the Storage Wars, American Pickers fever of like about a decade ago, and I fell in love with this. So this is what I started doing. And I’ve been doing it for, for 10 years.

I’ve had my own shop for most of those ten years. And, I’m an auctioneer here in Utah. I do all sorts of things. I’m all over the place.

Rob: Awesome. So do you ask, do you auction off your own stuff or you work for a company that you actually go in and do like estate auctions?

Cary: I’ve done both. I’ve done both here in Utah.

I did my own auction. I ran for about three or four, maybe five years, where I gathered all this stuff and I handled it. In the last couple of years has been strange because, the pandemic, but before that, I was just being hired on to do auctions and stuff.

Melissa: Now when you’re doing an auction, can you buy something when you’re doing an auction when you’re hosting an auction? I don’t think you can.

Cary: Sometimes. It depends on what kind of an auction it is. I mean, sometimes I’ll buy stuff for myself. If it’s really slow, you don’t want to do that much, but if an item doesn’t get a bid, for example, and I wanted it, I’ll buy it. Cause you’re supporting the consigners that way.

Rob: That’s awesome. That’s a cool feature. I don’t even think about that, but you’re auctioning up the price and then you’re going, okay, well, this is me.

Cary: You don’t want to, you don’t want to bid up the price, but if nobody bid on anything, I would feel like it would be okay to, and I’ve done it before where I’m like, I’ll just give them five bucks, you know?

Cause you know, in the auction and then, you know, then that person, at least made some money on something.

Rob: That’s awesome. That’s a cool, a cool trade.

Cary: Yeah it is a little weird random trade secret that I’ve learned in that decade I’ve been doing it.

Rob: That’s awesome.

Melissa: So where’s your favorite place to sell right now?

Cary: Wow, eBay is still number one for me.

I’ve been, I mean, just like everything I’m all over the place. I just started selling on watnot

which is a live auction platform. And I’ve been doing that for about a month and I do live auctions on there and people bid on the screen. They bid stuff up. The payment comes out immediately, which eBay doesn’t seem to be able to understand how to get payment immediately.

So that’s been fun as well, but eBay has been my bread and butter. It’s my, my first love in reselling for sure.

Rob: As to what what’s that name again? Whatnot?

Cary: It’s yeah Watnot W AT N O T they started out as like a Funko pop app, but now they do a collectibles, so video games. I’m actually, I, I got brought in to do action figures.

They brought me in, they wanted me to do action figures for them. And then they just wanted me to kick off retro video games next week for the whole app, which is, you know, it’s a billion dollar company and I’m, I’m going to help them start out their vintage video game section. So I’m doing vintage video game auctions.

I’m doing all sorts of stuff, stuff that I’ve kind of done for years. I like it.

Rob: That’s awesome. That’s exciting.

Cary: It’s fun. It is really.

Melissa: So you do those auctions a couple of times a week or?

Cary: A couple of times a week. Right now I’m doing two to three auctions a week, just depending on my inventory.

Melissa: Yeah, that’s really cool.

Rob: That is a fun, yeah.

Melissa: Fun little thing. Yeah. E-bay is definitely our top one too. We we’ve played around on other apps too.

Rob: That’s our go to just because it reaches so many people and we do unique stuff as well, that you need that big crowd, you need that poll of a lot of people to be able to see it and get the best price for it.

Melissa: Yeah. So we’ve seen that you love to visit yard sales. So is that one of your favorite places to source?

Cary: It is my favorite. The only problem here is I’m in Utah. So it’s about a five month season in Northern Utah. So, but yeah, it’s my favorite place. There’s just, it’s the thrill of the hunt. I don’t know if it’s the most efficient place at all times. A good week is a great week.

You know, you can bring in a lot of stuff, but you can have some bad weeks. But it’s my favorite way to hunt. The deals you can’t beat at a yard sale.

Melissa: That’s awesome. So what do you do on your off months when there’s no yard sales? Where do you go source?

Cary: Thrifting, a lot of thrifting. That’s where I’ve kind of made my name on TikTok and Instagram is my thrifting videos, but I, a lot of people think, I, I mean, I do love the thrift store, but it’s like my third or fourth choice when I have other options.

Rob: That’s awesome. Do you do any app stuff? Are you sourcing any on apps, local apps?

Cary: Oh yeah. I source, I buy on eBay, sell on eBay, source on Mercari, sell on Mercari..

I do everything. I do a lot of sports cards. And if you know what you’re looking for in, in lots, on auction, on eBay, and you can do this with anything. If it’s tools, if it’s, you know, car parts, whatever you’re interested in, if you go and look at auctions and see lots that are going through, and you, you know, that part or that card or that action figure,

and you know, it’s worth, you know what they’re asking just for that one figure, you can make some good money doing that. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of ways to source, but I think the funnest way is garage selling. It’s the modern, a treasure hunt, the pirate treasure hunt.

Melissa: I love yard sales. I, we always have this, like he loves the flea market, so we would go there and he’s like, it’s like 50 yard sales in one thing.

So I’m like, okay, I got, I get that.

Cary: Yeah. I didn’t want to get off topic on the yard sale, but I flea markets. I love just as much for that exact reason. Yeah, prices typically are a little bit more, but there’s more, more stuff in one location.

Melissa: And if you can get the used ones, not this new stuff, little stuff, it’s gotta be the people selling the used stuff.

Cary: Exactly. Yeah. You want the stuff that’s yeah.

Melissa: The good stuff. So can you walk us through your process of like how you go find some stuff to…

Rob: Once you pull up at a yard sale, you know, what’s the first thing you do? What’s say, because this is what paralyzes a lot of people is okay, I’m going to go to yard sale, I’m going to try to find some stuff.

I get to the yard sale. There’s stuff everywhere. Where do I start? So if you can give us kind of your breakdown since you’re a professional at this, what’s the breakdown to make the most out of a yard sale visit?

Cary: What I would do is when you first get there, do a quick walk around, just kind of get a feel for what’s there, unless there’s something super, super obvious that you know, is worth a lot of money.

I would just do a quick little walkthrough and see what area you kind of want to go to. First, there might be an area in the back that’s books and you love to sell books, but if you focus on a random box of stuff, you’re not interested in at the front of the yard sale, you, you could miss a good book that somebody else picks before you.

So I would do a quick scan through. Oh, that’s the first thing I would do is I do a quick walk around and I go, okay, this is where I want to go. And then also you can know if there isn’t anything at that yard sale pretty quick, because time is of the essence. You only have a few hours in the morning. You want to get out of the bad yard sales as quickly as possible as well.

Melissa: Yeah. So do you ever do those drive by like?

Cary: Oh yeah, I do drive there’s a lot of times I don’t get out of the car because there’s just not a lot of time. And it’s, you know, so if it’s, you know, clothing or stuff that I know I’m not into, and typically kids clothes and stuff like that. If it was vintage stuff, I’d get out.

At this point doing it 10 years, you, you get an eye for it. I’m sure I miss a few things randomly in boxes when I do this, but I think it’s, it’s hedging my bets and yeah, that’s, that’s what I do for sure.

Rob: Awesome. So once you’re there, you’re walking around, you take a lay of the land, you know, what’s going on. Now what happens once you finish the walk around? Where do you go next? What do you, what are your eyes attracted?

Cary: Well, I’m attracted, what I love the most is collectibles, which is toys, sports cards, statues. It could be even pop culture posters, just anything that’s kind of in the collectible realm, realm, and more pop culture wise, not vintage.

Although I do like vintage stuff. And one of the biggest tips I can give everybody is when you find a decent yard sale here, you want to, you want to pick up an item and this is some, this is kind of like something I do and see what their prices are. If they don’t have prices on it gauge where they’re at and then you can kind of see, oh, should I, should I get a lot of stuff together?

Or are they going to be a little bit tougher to deal with? And then always, I mean, we’ll probably get more into it, but always kind of gauge the prices and then bundle, always bundle as much stuff as you can, cause then you lower the price of every individual item you get and that’s, that’s key to make money, making money yard saleing.

Melissa: I remember watching American Pickers and Frank he’s like king of bundling.

Cary: It’s so true though. It’s so true. It’s most, most people at yard sales at garage sales, I’d say 70% to 80% are just people trying to declutter. There are the professional yard sellers out there doing Amazon stuff, or just that they pick and then they sell every week, but most people are trying to declutter. So the bigger pile you show them, the more likely they are to get excited and want to get rid of it. So they might give you, I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been astounded by the deals they’ve given me just for trying to do bundles.

Rob: Awesome. So that brings me into my next question. So you, do you find some of that stuff that you like, you try to get a bundle together? Are you looking up these items before you’re buying them or is this in your brain since you’ve done it for so long? You know what you’re looking for? You kind of have an idea of what these things are worth before you actually go up and try to make an offer or a bundle?

Cary: Yeah, it’s for me, it’s probably about 70, 30, like 70% of the time. I don’t need to look stuff up occasion, but I’m not shy about looking stuff up. And neither should you be, especially in this day and age, when everybody’s playing on their phone, you could just pull your phone out. People don’t necessarily think you’re looking stuff up.

Some people do. And even if they do it, doesn’t really matter because, you want to know if it’s worth even buying so that that’s more valuable than maybe somebody being like asking you a question if you’re looking stuff up. Or the random, very, very rare chance of them maybe upping the price because they see you looking at stuff.

The key is don’t pay more than you’re willing to pay for something. And then you’ll never lose. Yeah, that’s great advice. And don’t determine yeah. If you’re looking something up to find the value, don’t determine that.

Rob: Yeah. Don’t not do that because you’re worried about what the seller is going to think.

That’s great advice, Cary for sure, because you don’t want to get something if you’re not sure Cary’s got a great knowledge. He he’s, he’s been doing this for a while, so he knows what he can grab, but for some of us who don’t have the same knowledge on collectibles and stuff like that, that’s where you do kind of want to look it up and don’t worry about what they think about you.

No matter what, you’re either going to get the deal or you’re not going to get the deal. So it’s not the end of the world.

Melissa: So what would you tell somebody who is like how they’ve been to yard sales, but really haven’t been doing it to resell. So now they want to look for items to sell. How do they avoid, like, seeing so many things?

Do I have to look up every item? Like, am I looking for something specific? How do they have like maybe when you first started, how do you avoid that overwhelm of, oh, there’s everything. I don’t know what to do.

Cary: That’s a great question. Avoiding the overwhelm. And this is how I would do it, and how I have do it, how I have done it in the past is focus on what you’re interested in.

Everybody has interests, you know, hobbies. Like if you enjoy clothing, focus on that. You know, don’t get distracted by toys or video games or whatever else you’ve heard might have value pots and pans, whatever, focus on the clothing, get into that. Really learn it and just focus. And if you, if you miss some stuff at the start, you know, honestly, everybody misses stuff all the time in this business, you can’t catch everything, you know, and it’s overwhelming to try to be a Jack of all trades at all times.

Sometimes you can handle it if you don’t have a lot of other things going on a lot of garage sales that day or something, but, I would just say focus on what you’re interested in and that’s really the key to starting to resell in general. What are you interested in? I liked toys and sports cards. To this day

that’s still my favorite thing to sell. I’m probably an expert in both those categories and over the years, doing it for years and years, I’ve learned ok, pick up this Revere wear pot, even though I’m not interested in it per se, personally, so just go slow, be patient with yourself, focus on what you’re interested in.

Melissa: Awesome.

Rob: I love it. I love it for sure. That is, that is a huge point. If you can do the stuff that you, your hobbies, whatever it is, maybe even your profession, stuff that you have the knowledge already and you don’t have to build knowledge, start with that. And then, like Cary said, you might see some other things along the side that you want to look up.

That’s that’s where you go, but start with that stuff that you’re interested in and that you love, and that’s, I think one of the keys to being in this business and absolutely loving what you do most. I love what we do. It’s like, we’re not really working because you’re enjoying it. When you already have a passion for something

you’re enjoying it. So that’s all you have to do is just enjoy what you’re doing. If it’s what you’re looking for, stuff that you enjoy, it’s going to make it that much easier to go into this profession, side hustle, whatever you do.

Melissa: Yeah, I was going to add to that too, as far as like stuff that you enjoy, also your stages of life

we’ve noticed too, because we didn’t have kids for a while, and then we used to, all of a sudden had kids and now baby stuff. Who knew baby stuff is so expensive? There are thousand dollars strollers out there. We never tried to look at those to sell until now, like, okay, we’re going to go look at those brands that are selling for still hundreds of dollars or so

Cary: That honestly, whatever part of life you’re in,

that could be your edge. You know, you’re learning about the baby stuff. That could be your edge because as far as I know, a lot of people are passing that stuff up. So that’s why, when people tell me like, there’s, you know, what are we gonna do with you know, everybody talking about all these bolos, all these things to look up, there’s always another place.

There’s so thousands of niches. And, and that’s part of, you can get overwhelmed by that, but if you focus on what you’re interested in and then slowly grow as you become interested in other stuff, or, or different parts of your life, come, come forth.

Rob: Such a great key point for sure. So well said, well said

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, that, yeah, that’s awesome. I was thinking of something. I just lost my train of thought, but that’s okay. So do you have a certain criteria, like when you’re going to buy an item, like price point or know your profit, or do you have a criteria of when you’re going to go buy an item, before you decide to purchase it?

Cary: I don’t really have set rules when it comes to that kind of stuff. I know a lot of people do in general, if it’s one singular. You know, if it’s like a dollar, I want to make at least about $10 plus shipping in general, but a lot of times I’ll buy bundles. And when you’re buying bundles, you’re throwing things in that might be four or $5.

But for me, I know I have the clientele for an action figure or clientele for this, this, you know, bobble head or something I’m willing to sell for eight bucks because I know people would enjoy it. But in general, I mean, you really want, you know, figure out what you’re comfortable with you know, I’m, I’m a person who doesn’t mind selling low end stuff.

Some people only want to sell higher end stuff. You just got to find what you’re comfortable with. There really isn’t in my opinion, a right or wrong answer. But, you just got to kind of follow what works for you.

Melissa: I remember what I was going to say now on what you said before about, the like people thinking there’s so many, there’s thousands of niches and like, all these people are getting into reselling and stuff, but there is so much stuff out there cause we even like, okay, we, now we know some more resellers in Orlando.

There’s so much stuff there. There’s no way all of us could get it all, you know,

Rob: There’s never a lack of inventory.

Cary: And like, if you talk about a random, you know, retro shirt or something that you found, the chances of somebody else, seeing your video finds it and then actually buys it and then posts it at the same time you have it,

it’s just, it’s not, it’s not probable. And also, the benefits of putting yourself out there in social media far outweigh a random thing like that happening.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.

Rob: So for sure, I do have another question about the bundling. So you’ve taken the lay of the land around the yard sale.

You hone in on that stuff that you’re interested in. You start bundling it together when you take it up to the seller, are you, are you asking them for a price on all the items or you offering them a price on the items?

Cary: I’m asking them a price. I’m always about the buyer orsorry the seller giving me the first price.

I never like to give the first price cause you you’d be surprised how low their prices can be sometimes. And if they do come back high, then you can work it out. You can negotiate and you know, you know what your ceiling is, but yeah, I never give the first price if I can help it. I always want the seller to give the first price.

And that that’s a key to negotiation. One of my biggest negotiation tips at yard is the winner of every negotiation is the person who cares less. So you’ve got to try not to get attached to these items, know what your profit margin could be. And I struggle with this at times, if it’s something I love reselling, but you know, if you, if you, if you’re willing to walk away, if you care less than the seller does, you’re going to win every negotiation every time because you either don’t buy it because you didn’t want to pay too much or you buy it at the price you’re comfortable with win-win.

Rob: Yeah, that’s awesome. For sure. Now that brings up another question as well. So you’re bundling it. You’re asking them what’s their price. Now the dance is getting them to come down on that price. Do you always negotiate or do you just say, okay, sometimes I got a really good deal there they’re already low price,

I’ll walk away and pay what they’re asking for it.

Cary: I don’t yet. I honestly, and this is something that I’ve learned over years of doing this. When I started, it was kind of like a family thing with me and my dad and my mom. We would go out. They were always telling me to negotiate hard and do all, and my dad loved to barter and stuff.

That’s not really who I am, but, but here’s how I negotiate. If I know I can’t pay the price they ask and I know what it needs to be I will, I will stick to that price. But if they’re fair, if I know I can make a hundred dollars on this item and they say even 20 bucks, a lot of times I’ll pay it because I’m like, I’m going to three or four times my money.

They’re giving me a fair price. So people are fair with their pricing realizing, you know, I’m going to resell it. Most of the time, they know I’m going to resell it. I have cameras on me. I’m doing all that stuff. So it’s not really, it’s not really hidden than I’m a reseller. So, if it’s a fair price, I will pay it.

And I think that’s the way I like to do it. I’m not saying that’s not necessarily the right way. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with negotiating for negotiation sake, just to lower your margins, but it’s not something I do.

Melissa: So how would somebody who might have, like, they’re trying to get comfortable with negotiations. What’s not like maybe something we could tell them to, to help them, like the, if it doesn’t come natural, like just do it more, like, what is something maybe that you would tell them?

Cary: The key, the key to overcoming anything like you’re right, the key to overcoming anything like that is to just practice and do it more.

I did theater for years and what I, you know, live on stage theater and what I learned is that nobody’s really rooting against you in theater. They actually want you to do well. So there’s no reason to be nervous. And when you come into a negotiation, they want to sell their items. You want to buy their items.

There, there shouldn’t be any nerves there. If they’re, you know, a little bit aggressive or pushy with their price, maybe they don’t really want to sell it that bad. I don’t know, but you you can’t get too attached. That’s why I say don’t care so much. Try to train yourself to be as much of a Jedi and a robot as possible with the negotiation process.

And you’ll, you’ll be more successful that way, but practice will help a ton. It wasn’t natural for me. I, I’m not a big confrontation person. I’m a pretty easygoing person. And, I don’t consider a negotiation of confrontation, but there is, you know, sometimes people want two different things. You’ve got to come at at a, at a medium point there.

Rob: Yeah. That’s a great point. And I’ve never looked at it that way. You guys, we are somebody’s trying to sell something. We’re trying to buy something. So it’s not like you’re walking up to somebody’s house and saying, hey, can I buy that bicycle in front of your house? No. They’re trying to sell it.

Cary: Exactly, that would be a little that you might want to be nervous if you do that, but you could probably still get some deals if you have, have the guts or, you know, to do that.

Rob: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Another question it sparked in my mind is, so if you do bundle some stuff up, you take it up there, their prices are too high. Do you ever, you know, put the stuff back and say, yeah, I’m sorry, I can’t do it and walk away? And if you do walk away, do people come after you and say, no, no, no, no,

you know know, I’ll, I’ll work on that price or go lower?

Cary: Yeah, I’ve definitely walked away and they’d definitely come after me before. Sometimes they don’t, you know, but honestly, usually this is the thing, like, as you become more and more expert at doing this and really just doing this, like one summer going out, you know, most weekends you’ll become really good at this.

You kind of have a vibe and a feeling for how these people are gonna gonna handle that. So typically by the time I’m making a big pile, honestly, I already know I’m going to be able to work with them. Cause I’ve already gotten a couple things and I like in a pile that seem reasonable. I’m pretty sure they’re going to be reasonable with other stuff.

So, but yeah, there’s a lot of power in walking away from a bad deal. You don’t have to make a deal just like, excuse me, they don’t have to sell. You know, that it’s, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t attach any, any more feeling than we need to do it. They’re totally entitled to not sell it to you for a price,

they don’t want to sell it, and if we get a good deal, it’s because they were okay with the price ultimately.

Rob: I love it. I love it.

Melissa: Can’t get attached. Any of those fun toys, you can’t get attached.

Cary: I do get attached, but, but it’s not a good thing. I mean, I, I won’t overpay at this point.

Melissa: So what do you do you, this is just kind of an off the wall question.

So you’re walking up to these yard sales with your camera on. So does anybody get weird about that?

Cary: I thought they would. Almost nobody cares. That’s I was, that was one of the biggest revelations from, from doing it, is very few people care. They’re more people are interested in like, oh, you’re on, you know, with me, it’s like, you’re on TikTok or whatever.

Sometimes people know me and I’m on TikTok, which is, believe it or not helpful more than it is harmful. Like, they’re like, oh, I want to, I want to, I want to give you a deal. You know, I know what you do or whatever. I’m like, okay. So yeah, I’m surprised. I’ve had two people in the last summer that I’ve been wearing my GoPro that have mentioned it,

and both times it was off and pointed down. It was just, I wasn’t even filming them. And I’m like, and they weren’t going to give me too much trouble, but I’m like, I’m not even telling you guys it’s okay, relax.

Melissa: But most everybody is pretty cool. Yeah. That’s fun.

Cary: Yeah. I’ve never had a yard sale where anybody said anything negative about it.

So a couple of people mentioned it, but I want to be TikTok famous. They want it. They think it’s interesting. Most people just think it’s fascinating, you know, the culture of it.

Rob: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Melissa: That’s fun. Yeah. So is there anything else that you would want to add to this, the going to a yard sale? Did you think of anything?

Rob: No. I, I, I definitely think the negotiation, Cary, you hit the nail on the head. It’s something that takes repetition. It takes practice. You have to be willing to practice it. The more you practice it, the better you get at it. And like you said, you didn’t mention it this way, but you know how to read people.

So you kind of know when you’re up talking to somebody even about a price or two, you know, you know, in your mind, okay. I know I can get a good deal on this. So it’s more of learning, what kind of people they are when you’re walking up and doing it. So that’s a, that’s a huge benefit. I’m the same way I’ve done it for so long, that I can read people when I’m selling stuff to people,

and when I’m buying stuff from people. I know how to read them to know if I can get them down on the price or if I have to pay what they’re asking for it because it’s a good deal. So, that’s, that’s a huge point.

Cary: Exactly. And this is something you get from repetition and from practice. And the cool thing about practicing yard sales is you’re going out and you’re having a good time.

It’s an adventure, it’s a treasure hunt. And really, I mean, from the very start, if you’re, if you’re, you know, putting the effort in you should be, you should be able to make some money because you’re not spending a ton. You know, you are spending a little bit of your time. You’re trading that off, or maybe, you know, being able to get something easier that costs more, you know, like on, you know, our online arbitrage or something you’re spending your time instead of your money.

There there’s so many opportunities and so many great yard sales where things are a quarter, 50 cents, a dollar that, you know, you can bundle stuff up and sell it on eBay. You can sell things individually. It’s fun and people, I think people would be well-served to get into it. It’s a great way to make a little side income or a full-time income as I have

for almost a decade now.

Melissa: I was going to ask you if you did this part-time or full-time.

Cary: I’m full-time yeah, I’m full-time there was, a year and a half out of the last 10 years that I went back and worked because I needed to, unfortunately, but now I’m, full-time again, for the last couple of years.

Melissa: That’s awesome. Do you have, like a most memorable yard sale find and flip?

Cary: Yeah, I have a lot, but here’s one that comes to my mind when people ask that. So this was like a newer build build house. A lot of times the retro cool vintage stuff I’ve found at kind of like an older homes, you know, older neighborhoods, you know, barns, stuff like that, but this was in like a new build house.

And I walked up to a, a wheelbarrow, that had a bunch of different like rakes and stuff in it. And we took those out and under, it was a 1983 Tony Hawk skateboard. And I didn’t, I knew it was a retro 80 skateboard. I didn’t even know it was Tony Hawk at the time. It was a Chicken Head skateboard. I, in my head, based on my limited skateboard selling experience, which might’ve been one or two in 10 years, I was like, I could maybe get 40, 50 bucks for this and they wanted $10.

So in that case I did negotiate it. I said would you take $5 because I’m like, that gives me, that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable because I don’t know what this is worth. And they said, sure, did a little research in the car as we were yard selling that day and found out it was worth like about $400.

And I sold it to some business guy in LA, you know, I’m in a high rise, you know, a really nice place for, I think $395, something like that. And it’s not my most expensive sell ever, but I just love the fact that it was totally, I’m trying to think, like totally hidden. You would never have no, none, nothing else in that, yard sale was particularly vintage.

And now, you know, 37 years isn’t massively vintage, but in the skateboard world, it is. And, there was a rabbid demand for that. There was a lot of people who loved that and, and it sold really well.

Rob: That’s awesome. What a great story too. And then that just shows you what you can find at yard sales. You just don’t know what you’re going to roll up on and you can’t also, you can’t profile a house.

If it might be a house that doesn’t look like they have anything vintage, check it out. Cary just found this skateboard that made him 400 bucks, you know, that’s awesome. That’s so exciting. That’s exciting for the deal finder in me is to get out there and find some cool deals. That’s awesome.

Cary: They’re out there.

That’s one thing I’ve learned in 10 years is they’re out there and they’re plentiful. Honestly. Seriously, they’re plentiful.

Melissa: Yeah, he definitely gets that extra pep in his step when he goes out ready to go sourcing. It’s a lot of fun.

Rob: It is so much fun.

Cary: It is, it is the best part of this.

Rob: Cary, thank you so much for jumping on here. Let us know how we can find you.

Cary: Sure, yeah, you can find me on American Arbitrage, American Arbitrage on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And that’s, if you want to message me or talk more about a yard sales or whatever, Instagram is the best spot.

Melissa: Awesome.

Rob: Cary is full-time in this, guys, just like he said, American Arbitrage, go check him out.

Melissa: He’s killing onTikTok.

Cary: I’m trying, I’m trying. It’s a lot of fun.

Rob: That’s awesome. Cary, thank you again for spending some time with us, giving us some great tips for going to yard sales and figuring out how to find some cool stuff.

Cary: You’re welcome, I appreciate you guys.

Melissa: Awesome. Thank you.

FURTHER RESOURCES

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Robert Stephenson

I grew up in Central Florida and have lived here my whole life. I first got into buying and selling items when I was 16 years old, and have been hooked ever since. It has mostly been a hobby that makes some extra cash, but sometimes it serves as my main income as well. I don't plan on stopping any time soon. I find too many fun toys for my family (or myself), and just love the whole process.

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