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The wooded lot up on a slight hill sold for $198,900 and the one up the street on the flay non-wooded lot sold for $188,900.
Since these sold be fore we ever broke ground, they kind of turned out like custom houses but only in a very small way. We had already priced everything based on Gen. Contractor prices which we can still get from our older days in the business. But since the buyers bought very early [before we even broke ground], then of course they wanted to do some upgrades. We gave them an allowance number [based on our original cost estimates] and gave them our sales reps names and showroom addresses and they went to the showrooms and selected what ever they wanted as actual finished products and we just did an addendum to the sales agreement and paid us 50% down on the upgrades with the balance due at closing.
I don’t have final numbers yet because we still have about a months work to do on both houses and won’t have the final numbers until we are through with both closings. We kicked in $5,000 toward closing costs for both buyers, so will have to wait about a month to get the actual bottom line. Out of about 50 item categories on my spread sheet we have over estimated and underestimated some and the rest about where we thought. We have home building software that we used to use when we did this frequently and just had to update that. Also from the blueprints we had, we called our old vendors and asked them to give us a quote based on the prints we sent them. so we had pretty solid numbers going in.
The 3rd lot which we flipped we bought for $10,000 and sold within 90 days for $21,000.
Yep we can build a house in about 4 months straight out of the ground if we have the land free and clear. We built both of these at the same time, so they are almost both at the same point of completion.
After we pay back some of the side partner investors we still think about $40,000 ++ on both houses and we still have the fourth lot that we did not start on which we have to decide if we will or not, but based on my time constraints, I want to flip it also.
The last lot is a sloped lot which would require a walk out basement. About a 3,000 sq. ft. house, two story plus the walk out basement. These are more costly to build due to the excess concrete for the basement walls and some rough mechanicals down there [elec., plumbing, framing, etc.] but would not finish the basement off. We were thinking about pricing at about $229,000 to list with about $125k-$130k to build. But lots of earth moving, dozer and back hoe work on a basement along with final grading. We would have to figure it out, but as I said I am really not interest any longer because of the time hit I would have to take. Doing houses would mean we would probably have to give up the Ebay businesses and any hopes of doing any studio art work, making our own clocks, sculpture, table lamps for our Etsy store AND put me back “on the clock” of having to be places at other peoples time schedule and we are supposed to be retired now and make money working in our pajama’s not walking across roof joist in freezing rain and waiting for subs that are a no call no show. 🙂 🙂
I rather be sitting in a bar, eating Mexican and drinking Margaritas rather than supervising houses. Our store motto is “Live to Create and Celebrate”….. so it time for me to do just that.
Do I hear an Amen!
Mike and Susan at MDC Concepts, Inc
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Smartparts Small Equipment Parts
Ebay, Etsy, ShopifyThat’s us …………
Quick up date.. Out of the 4 lots we bought last Nov. as stated up in earlier posts we had 2 of them sold before we ever broke ground. Those two houses are now almost done. They were graded, concrete poured [both were on a slab], all plumbing done, both framed, roof on, siding finished, windows, in and passed all inspections. Interior items all ordered lights, cabinets, fixtures, flooring, paint colors etc. and some interior work being done. Insulation and drywall is done so we are done to the final stages.
One was to close on April 30th and the other May 30th, but we moved the April over to both closing at the end of May. Some delays took place due to one customer wanting a bunch of upgrades which they took their sweet time in selecting.
Out of the last two lots we had left, we sold one of those lots for double what we paid for it to the nephew of my partner. So the third lot is off our plate and the table. That was just clean, crisp, quick cash by flipping that 3rd lot.
The 4th lot stills remains in our ownership. We own it outright so we can just let it set for as long as we want and decide later to maybe just flip it down the road or go ahead and build a third spec house on it.
I prefer not to build that last house and just flip the lot. The first two houses as I have said in earlier posts turned out to be a scenario whereby I bit off more than I could chew. Not experience wise but time and interest wise. I discovered it was taking way too much time to the point errors were being made on our Ebay businesses and things were not getting done in a timely manner. And I have not been able to get into the art studio either.
So after the end of May and we close on house 1 and 2 I am done with building houses. Just no interest in that type of work any more and at 70 years old it is just not worth the worry, hassle, bickering, problems with the subs, quality of work, on time scheduling, political and county inspectors, time constraint hassles and the buyers.
Profit or no profit, these are the last and I will be back 100% on our Ebay and Etsy stores and down in the studio creating and celebrating.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Howdy.. To make a clear distinction. You did say the “GSP” [global shipping program right? That is different than a seller just shipping Internationally.
If you did join the GSP program which we did years ago, there is nothing for you to do or screw up differently than shipping to a US buyer.
That is because Ebay has contracted with Pitney Bowes to handle all of their International Shipments and they are located in Erlanger, KY USA. So when something sells to a foriegn buyer in a country that is included in the GSP list of countries Ebay ships to, all you do is pull-pack-wrap-box just like you always do for US buyers, go to Ebay labels and select what method you want to use to ship to Erlanger, KY. Either USPS First Class package, Priority Mail or Parcel post. Click on print your label and apply to the package. That is all their is to it. Ebay and Pitney Bowes handles everything else for you. Customs forms, VAT [value added tax] charges your buyer those fees plus import fees and custom fees, etc, etc. In many cases the fees are more than the cost of the item. But you don’t have to do anything except box, label, select carrier method and ship to Kentucky.
Erlanger is just a few states up and over from Atlanta, GA so usually costs us about $7 to $8 depending on the weight.
Also as a member of the GSP program you can look at the shipping tab of any listing and Ebay will have changed the way it looks. You will have 2 sections, one will say “we ship to these countries” and the lower section will say “We do not ship [excludes] these countries. That is beacuse due to certain political issues or civil war, etc., etc. Ebay will not ship to those and we don’t care because there are enough of the larger countries they do ship to that will get you extra sales.
Now, you can, if wish to, can go to your preferences and change those and include those excluded countries, but we never have over ridden Ebay because they know where the trouble spots in the world ae and if Ebay says don’t ship there then that is good enough for us. BUT if you want to include Brazil and the like, go ahead, but many of those countries are horrible at completing their on mail services.
If want to ship items yourself, as some do and some here on SL go ahead, but you will have to do your own custom forms and handle any issues that pop up.
The GSP program handles all issues for you.
So simply box and print a label and ship like you always do for anybody and then you can wash your hands of the whole mess unless your item is not as described or you misled the buyers.
Hope this helps somewhat…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Here is a question for those using WonderLister and SixBit – [Troy].
I see in SixBit “both” sales showing on both the sites. I wonder why didn’t the SixBit Software end the cross listed item as soon as the same was made on the Ebay site? My own thoughts may be that the 3rd party software apps only “ping” or “refresh” from most platforms at a ceratin timed interval. I believe WonderLister is every 10 minutes and I think I read where SixBit is every 15 minutes. I think Ebay restricts 3rd party apps from constantly “ping-refreshing” from there servers constantly. Evry second or two eats up resources just like an issue I had with one of my SSR readers pinging Scavengerlife a few years back. Ryanne emailed me and said their site web master saw a large amount of band width being used by constant pinging-accessing. So maybe Ebay and Etsy restricts the 3rd party guys to accessing their site to only every 10 or 15 miutes or so..
So in this case, if the buyer decided to make both purchases within a minute or two of each other, that quickness in buying on both platforms did not give SixBit enough time to record the first sale, and then synch with the second site and cancel that cross listed item off of that second platform. Just thinking out loud, but seems plausible.
I imagine that is what happened between Ebay and Bonanza in Jay’s case. It sold on one channel and again a second time BEFORE Ebay and Bonanza could synch. But Bonanza has always been a little buggy for us. We deleted our Bonanza account over a year ago for that reason plus only a sale or two per year wasn’t worth it.
mike at MDCGFA
I will contact the SixBit Support team and ask about that and if tht is a plausible reason.
Just discussing at our morning production meeting. Our helper says the buyer may be either completing a set, wanting to start a set or could be buying for a special event and needs a quantity of the exact same items. That being said I think Vintage Treasures is right about contacting the buyer with a short letter of explanation and the “offer” on only shipping the two and giving the rebate along with the cancellation and then “ASK” if that is acceptable with the buyer and if only getting the two will suffice. AND IF SO, then we ship the two from Ebay AND IF NOT, we will cancel both orders.
Mike at MDCGFA
Well Hello and where the heck were you with this tid bit of info. about 3 years ago! LMAO :-). Thanks. Guess I just never thought of it. I won’t do too much until maybe Ayden gets 100% on board, then that way we can all kiss PayPal goodby [for the most part]. But will still offer as a payment option.
mike at MDCGFA
Thanks SCJ: I am going to start getting the clear and brown tape and not spend my coupon on another 36 rolls of Ebay “Multi-colored Circus” tape. LOL :-). So, I will spend it on some of the small size boxes that have a good side wall height for me to cut aprt to full length and create creased roll strips out of them for roll wrapping many of our breakable items.
We use lots of tape also, both internally and externally. The clear makes the box more professional.
Also being in the printing business for decades I know where I can get rolls of flexo labels printed. I may just have several rolls made up with our MDC Galleries and Fine Art name along with our “monkey logo” on it and use those to cover any other labels. Might as well start branding ourselves since we are on, [or will be shortly] 3 selling platforms.
I can also print up my own thank you cards to put inside of the box along with a discount coupon for our own Shopify store to help drive traffic there. But the Shopify store is a ways off right now. Maybe a year or so. But agagin we can start branding us for now.
Thanks for the links and appreciate your input and sharing. It’s what makes this the best place as far as a helping community goes.
By the way for those using auto listing and management software [especially Mark, Brian and Troy]. I have finally after 4 plus years finally made the swithch from WonderLister and moved over to SixBit Enterpise Duo. Took a few weeks but got it almost done, just a few more twaeks. Both the Ebay store and the Etsy store are in synch and listing, revising, bulk editing, business policies, shipping and eventually our Shopify store will all be done from a one page control panel dashboard and SB will add, revise and delete from all 3 of those platforms and keep all the financials and report straight. Still more to learn, but as Troy told me, I would have it down pretty quickly.
Take care..
mike at MDCGFA.
Looks that way to me. Etsy payment system is so painless. They just transfer my money into our business checking account. Hoping Ayden is more like the Etsy system.
I would have opted into their Beta Trial when they first announced it, but to do so, they make you opt out of the Global Shipping Program. But as soon as that is not a requirement any longer I am going to opt in before they make it mandatory.
PayPal is set up in our Quicken Accounting program and they never balance. Reconciling PayPal is the biggest pain in the rear. I have to make a blind adjustment to balance every month because they are always getting the monthly statement line items wrong. Only a few dollars but it takes way too long to go through their monthly statement line by line to find multiple small penny like errors.
One thing they do is give you a total on the monthly statement but the actual entries were either included in the previous month or show up in the next months statement. UUgghhh.
mike at MDCGFA
So Call Joe: Thinking about what I said above, I really don’t want any more of the multi-colored, circus looking tape from Ebay. Do you use clear or tan tape on your packages? Do you use the thicker, more heavy duty type? Ryanne used to use the thicker “Duck Tape” brand but think she has gravitated to the Ebay “Circus” Tape. AND if you don’t mind would you share your source and cost for the tape you use? I know I can search it out but just wondering what you were using, paying and where sourcing.
If your tape source is a go to source, then maybe I will just get boxes this quarter with my coupon and skip the tape. I usually take the small boxes and cut them open into strips and roll it up in the direction of the grain. Then I use it to wrap around glasses, cups, and other objects.. This round cylinder then becomes the interior box for extra protection after I place the rolled glass or cup into the larger outside box.
The forum here has tape in the resource section and it is the “Duck Tape” brand which is good tape if the thicker tape. Ebay tape is the thinnest they can make. It is thinner than Scotch tape we use to wrap christmas presents and tears so easily. And we usually use two layers to assure a good high bursting strength on the heavier boxes.
So just thinking and asking….
Thanks,
Mike at MDCGFA in Atl.BTW Jay.. I said this a year ago or so, and I still see it as of now. The Ebay Shipping Supplies offering are getting less and less. Unless I am at the wrong site, there are only 20 items being offered. They used to have about 3 pages full of items they offered.
While I know Ryann has answered before that she uses a bunch of padded envelopes but ya’ll must have a lot of small, unbreakable items ya’ll sell a lot of. We only sell breakable items and many multiple piece tea sets, plates, dishes, bowls, vases, etc., etc. We need boxes. Yes we use USPS boxes but we like and use sizes they don’t have. yes, I resize larger boxes down all the time, but hard to make a box larger unless I splice them together.
Ebay only has 6 box sizes and 4 of those are fairly small and not one square box among them. Some post cards, 2 types of round stickers, 1 choice of paper and that is tissue, and the padded or un-padded envelopes, 1 choice of poly tape style and now a water tape. Pretty slim selection as to what used to be almost 70 items. They used to have more than 20 box sizes.
I also see that they have gone to plain brown boxes with just a black logo and the new wide water tape is also brown and black. What happened to their new marketing approach of “Add a Little Color to Your Life” campaign. Don’t see there TV advertising along those lines either. Now this offering of shipping supplies looks plain vanilla. Looks like they are still chasing Amazon.
I understand, I guess they cut out the things that were just not the popular items or profitable to them. But my point is that the $50 coupon is getting to have less and less value to me as a seller.
My $50 is going to buy 1 36 roll box of tape. That comes down to Ebay giving me a half a roll or tape per day for 90 days. At 75 yards per roll that equals about 37 yards of free tape per day and only of the multi color style at that. [This is the tape that makes our packages look like a Jack in the Box, Circus looking package when we use a lot on larger boxes] Very unprofessional in my opinion.
You know thinking about that, now that we are selling more and more on other platforms, I would just as soon that Ebay would allow me to apply that $50 to my store payment and let me skip the shipping supplies all together. I prefer plain brown boxes with either clear or tan tape. Very clean, stream lined and professional looking.
But alas no, so on to ordering my half a roll of “free” tape per day in return for my $250 per month Ebay invoice. I get a better return for my patronage at my local grocery store. LOL 🙂
Ok, off the soap box for the day…
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Atlanta, GA.FYI… Uline has stopped local pick-up here at there Atlanta DC Cneter about 2 or 3 years ago. I called their corp. office and they said that the traffic from cars coming into their pick-up bay was creating a hazard to the truckers. And they also implemented a rule if you wish to do a pick-up they would but it would be a flat $30 pick-up fee.
So if I wanted to place a $30 order for let’s say bubble wrap or some boxes, it was going to be double the cost at $60. Someone said that they wanted to end the small local buyers crowding into there pick up bays and focus on larger orders.
I call them about once a year to see if they still have that minimum rule and flat rate pick-up fee in place and they still do here in Atlanta.
So haven’t bought a thing from Uline in over 3 years.
Thanks guys:
Steven, going to give that vacuum fix a try and keep my fingers crossed. Then follow your advice on joining a few of the selling groups.Also will try keeping the whole set together.
Will a buyer want me to have the whole thing wired back together and powered up and want to test each component? Re-connecting each unit to each other in the back is a pile of cords. Most of the cables are for the master synch whereby all units are controlled from the one Master Hand Remote Control.Theres 3 or 4 cables that plug into the back starting at the top and then cascade down like short umbellical cords. It would take me a while to figure it all out even with me having all of the original manuals that came with it.
Thanks for the details.
mike at MDCGFA
Steven..Very interesting on the JVC set of speakers. I have not only a pair just like them I also have the whole JVC stereo rig and the cabinet for them. You and I talked about a year ago, but don’t know if you remember. You has given me some ball parks on the numbers for each componenet and you mentioned to sell each separately [I think]. Any way I just left everything in the storage area because of the size and I just didn’t want to deal with Craigslist. But now that u mention FaceBook Market place I think, since it is spring and we need the space in the storage area, it may be time to move the whole thing out.
I have the AMP, receiver, equalizer, radio tuner, dual cassette player- dubbing recorder, 6 disc stack player and turn table. I have the original manuals to each component, remote control and a pile of “gold tipped” connection cables. All of these are inside a wooden cabinet with glass front and the two speakers on each side.
At the time I thought you mention being they were JVC not to expect much more than $30 to $40 for each component and i guess you have set the bar at about the $80 to $100 mark on the pair of speakers. Are you still thinking numbers in about the same range as you posted last year?
Is there anything special about getting set up to sell locally on the FB Market Place? I already have a business account but really have never posted much of anything. It has just set for years.
Oh and if you may recal, one of the speakers had a small dent in the larger woofer in the smaller center rounded cap, where my daughter poked her finger into it back in the 80’s. I am the original owner of the unit which was about $600-$700 back then. You told me to try to use a vacuum cleaner nozzle over the dent to see if I could “suck” it out. Do you think that would still work and is there a possibility of bursting the small cone by too much suction?
FB MarketPlace may be the place to unload all the large items we have accumulated that we will never ship and would get too little at a yard sale. Pluse we don’t like siiting all day in the hot summer for such little results.
We have a tall, upright clothes steamer, a movie projector screen just like the one you also sold some time back [but u shipped yours if I remember], two managuins on a stand [male & female], several tubs full of artificial flowers, couple old computers, an antique fire screen with a needlepoint design, several large framed paintings about 2′ x 3′ in size and about 30 or 40 66qt. clear plastic storage containers with locking lids [we are transiting over to tubs half this size so we can get more items on our shelves and reduce the weight of those larger containers].
So I think this should be enough to drum up some interest on FBMP don’t you think. Interested in any comments from anyone on if this old, oversized death pile may get a draw and sales so I can reclaim the storage space. And your thoughts again Steve on that JVC stereo system
Hope eveyone has a great week and things pick up. We had the best 60 days in Feb. and March ever at a little over $4,000 gross total.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine ArtYep.. Remember the gas lines well. Lines around several blocks, hours and hours waiting to get to a pump and then a small dollar limit on how much you could buy. No fill ups and certainly no extra gas cans. They had people guarding the pumps or should I say monitoring.
Interest rates sky high and inflated prices. Friends bought an older 15 yrs ++, smaller ranch, about 1,100 sf for $185,000 end of 1979 to 1980 and bragged about getting it at 18% interest.
Luckily I had a steady job back then. Just starting in the printing business which lasted almost 25 years with the same employer.
@Troy.. Amen. Back-up in as many areas as you can. We have a running inventory of all supplied and keep a min-max. level which we re-order when we hit the min. levels. Two printers all on the wireless network, two computers [a desktop and also a laptop for your same reasons]. Datafiles in WonderLister and also now in SixBit, [yeah I am finally making the switch-what a pain but think SixBit will provide better control on both Ebay and Etsy and Shopify is going to be added in the future so SB will handle all 3], 3 weight scales, back ups to a 4 terrabyte external, the desktop [of course] and to One Drive in the cloud. Photos in 2 spots, an an office supply cabinet of small tools and supplies all with multiple items.
Believe it or not a few weeks back [unsure if I posted about it], but both printers went out at the same time. But it was a network, firmware and connection issue. Took almost 2 days, but work through it all.
So, operationally, I got ‘cha.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
