Buy - ride - sell. With a profit. how to?

hey guys,
i like to buy cheap used bikes. so far, i have been lucky and sold almost every bike for more money then i paid. its not a business, but somehow my hobby is funding itself.
whats your secret on buying a bike, riding it for a season or two and then selling it with a profit?
cheers
Josef

I ride my bikes forr years so dont think about that
the only bike i made a loss on was my klr650 just to get it shot.

The secret is to buy a bike I don't like.

I do this, a lot. Buy cheap, because you can only sell it for so much. I buy dead ones, needs a carburetor cleaning, valve adjustment, tires, maybe a battery. I only buy if it's a ridiculous low price. Get it running, make it safe, ride it a year or so, then make it look all pretty, paint it if necessary, sell it when the tax returns come out.

what's a tax return?......

Obama's government send money to people who have none, so they can buy motorcycles.

I have made money or broken even on just about every bike I've owned, too. The only one I lost money on was the one I bought in running condition. Every bike I made a profit on, I bought in non-running condition for a steal. That's really the only "trick." I watch my local Craigslist almost daily, and every once in a while, a screaming deal pops up - like a DR350 for $600, the ZRX1100 I paid $1400 for, a CX650 for $200, a GL1000 for $300, a GL1500 for free. Those are just the ones I've been able to snag. There were plenty more where I was just a couple hours too late. Most recently, I missed a $400 GS500E.

Look for bikes that have been sitting, but not for decades. Wrecked bikes are hard to turn around for a profit, and it pretty much needs to have a title unless you get it for almost free. A bike that was ridden regularly then parked for a year or two is exactly the kind of bike you want - spend a weekend cleaning the carbs, lubing cables and chains, and so on, and you can get a non-running (and therefore worth less) bike back into roadworthy condition (and therefore worth more) without much expense.

Of course, the profit is never huge, the most I ever made on a bike was when I sold the ZRX and got back $750 more than I put into it. But it is nice to have basically free transportation. In my experience, it's much harder to buy a car, use it for a couple years, and sell it for near what you paid for it, let alone more.

+1, what he said, plus don't do rust. Anything rusty or corroded, look no further. It is just way too much time and effort to fix rust. Also ugly, don't do ugly if possible. It takes a lot more work to fix ugly than to get a dead bike in roadworthy condition. Ugly is not as bad as rusty, but when you are buying dead bikes, pretty ones don't cost any more than ugly ones, so why bother?

Best is to find one like my Concours, it had a failed cam chain tensioner, they guy thought it needed a top end rebuild because it was so noisy. Sounded like a paint can full of rocks on a paint can shaker. We had loaded it into my truck, deal done, I took the tensioner out, put the eraser end of a pencil in the hole, pushed on the tensioner shoe. Started the engine, it ran perfectly, in silence. The tensioner was all it needed.

That may be the smartest thing to do.

One more thing, for the profit, stick to big bikes. Little ones cost almost as much to fix up, but even perfect ones don't sell for much.

This is pretty much the way to go ^^^

Its amazing how many people sell bikes because they just wont start, only for it to be a simple fix(carby clean, new battery, loose wire etc)

I'm at a $6000 profit, and a brand new Macbook Pro, off the 3 cars I've purchased from craigslist over the past 4 years. But I've never been that lucky with motorcycles. I've only made a profit 2 times off motorcycles. One time I made a $200 profit and another time I made $300 profit + a brand new never fired Ruger Revolver. I know the used vehicle and motorcycle markets pretty good and realize that I never buy motorcycles to make money. I buy them for a good deal, ride the piss out of them, and then sell them for a slight loss. I bought my 2010 Triumph Daytona brand new otd for $8500, and it came with a free $1500 package of an Arrow exhaust, Triumph quickshifter, and adjustable levers. I rode it for almost 3 years, granted I only put 10000 miles on it (still high enough miles to turn away 90% of potential buyers for those performance bikes) and I sold it for $7600. So I wasn't too upset. I just use my vehicle profits as my motorcycle funds

Oh yeah, that post remended me of one more thing. If you are buying bikes new enough to still be depreciating, you are fighting a losing race.

I must be doing something wrong...I tend to buy ratty old bikes cheap, spend way too much money fixing them up, ride the crap out of them for a bit, then sell them way too cheap to fund the next purchase.
It may not be profitable but I really enjoy taking an old heap and turning it into a nice ride.

Buy cheaper. Spend less fixing. Sell higher.

I enjoy it too, but enjoy it more when I make a few bucks. It can never compensate for my time and effort.

It's the money that I send off to the IRS every year that gets distributed to what seems like EVERYONE else.

You don't have to buy basket cases or fixer uppers.In fact, you'll make a hell of a lot more money buying bikes in mint condition then old beaters. You just have to have a decent amount of cash on hand. I got a buddy buys bikes and sells them for a profit all the time. He just waits patiently for someone desperate to sell for much less then market value. We're not talking making a couple hundred on a bike but a couple thousand. He'll keep the bike for a few months to even a couple years and almost always turns a hefty profit.

Or is like the guy that claims to always win at Vegas?

What I usually do is buy an older bike, put lots of money in parts and a lot of time in turning wrenches on it until it fits my standards, then sell it for a substantial loss.

Oh wait, you wanted to know how to make a profit.

Marc

This is pretty much what I do. I also look for niche bikes, things that are unusual or rare for some reason. the big money makers are the exoctics that dont run. Its also important to know your local market, and what will actually sell.