Many young car enthusiasts grew up watching Gas Monkey Garage. Richard Rawlings and his team often found the coolest examples of used cars and managed to modify or restore them before flipping them for a profit. But, as it turns out, there is a lot more to the story than appears on-screen, and for those who take an interest in flipping cars, there are a few harsh lessons that are better to learn by watching other people make the mistakes.
Flipping Cars And Making Profit Takes Experience
Flipping cars isn't for the faint of heart, and it is something that typically gets better with practice. In the automotive content creation world, however, it doesn't get much more practiced than Richard Rawlings and his team. Richard has been in the garage and car industry for decades sharing his passion and turning a profit, and younger enthusiasts and amateur car flippers look to him for guidance because, when it comes to actually making a decent profit that's worth your time and effort, it takes a bit of experience to know what to do, and sometimes more importantly, what not to do.
Flipping Cars Isn't As Easy As They Make It Seem
When we watch TV shows and automotive YouTubers flipping car after car for insane profit, it's easy to forget everything that we don't get to see behind the scenes. Time-lapse videos make tasks that take hours seem accomplished in mere minutes, and the drab activities that don't make it onto the screen, along with the hours and days of labor behind the cars, don't come to light.
Because of this, it's easy to get caught up in the idea of flipping cars, but that doesn't mean things go as smoothly as you might think. From finding the cars and negotiating prices through refurbishing and selling, it turns out that it isn't as easy as it seems on screen.
Where To Find Used Cars To Flip
The tricky part of finding used cars to flip is to buy them directly from the seller, which helps you minimize the costs you would see buying that same car from a used car dealership. This lowers your overheads significantly and increases profit margin, but only if you know where to start looking.
Once upon a time, Craigslist would have been the go-to for car flippers, but in more recent years a newer platform has taken the stage: Facebook Marketplace. Facebook is a great place to look for individuals trying to privately sell cars, and not just lower end, old cars either. To many's surprise, you may even notice antique vans, classic cars, half-finished projects, and even wrecked supercars and exotic cars on the Marketplace here, and you can work directly with the seller to negotiate price and pickup.