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You speak the truth, though 50 sold items is a great week for us. Good news is our average sale price remains pretty high ($40) with very low COGS. Works for us.
And someone in our group made a good point about “list and forget”. If you have any kind of good taste/eye, then 20% of each 100 items will likely sell quickly. Then 50% will sell within a year. Then 30% is the loooooong tail that might take 2+ years to sell.
So as long as you’re listing consistently, things will always sell. And if you build up enough long tail items, it’s a pipeline of cash of random items that’s selling.
Its really all about the equation on time you want to spend VS risk you want to take VS profit you need to make to pay then bills.
Usually life is cheaper in rural areas because there’s very little obvious culture, services, and “things to do”. We see people try to move to our area from the city and leave within a year because it’s “boring”. Stores are usually few (hail mighty Walmart), fast food might be the best places to eat, and everything shuts down by 6pm.
Rural living is what you make of it. Plenty to do if you’re willing to meet new people. Church dinners (even though we’re not church people). Miles of trails to explore. Cheap real estate to start your own business.
We’ve found that military patches are particularly tough. Authentic vintage patches are valuable, but many many reproductions have been made for military items that its tough to authenticate.
You’re still doing great on eBay, even though you now have a second steady stream of income from that listing service.
I live in a low tax county in VA. But everyone should remember: low tax, low services. Our public school system is funded at the minimum that the state allows. To the chagrin of many parents (except home schoolers 🙂
Very weird. This message came through. Ill check to make sure theres’s no issue on the backend.
Model trains is an old man’s hobby and while it sounds morbid I have a feeling there are plenty of recent widows who are looking to sell their late husband’s collection.
It’s just the life cycle of stuff. A person spends their life gathering a collection trying to make it “perfect”, then he/she dies and their collection often gets broken up and gathered up by other collectors.
Do you see an uptick in train collecting? Are younger people getting into it?
After fees/shipping, its more like $500 net profit…but that’s still good! Average price per item was about $40.
Dylan’s original comment was lost so I reposted it.
I’d love to hear other people’s opinions. Back in 2008, there were definitely real estate deals if you were willing to “geographic arbitrage”. No one wanted to move to our rural county so we got a cheap house.
These days it seems like there are all kinds of investors snatching up land, homes, and commercial properties in all zip codes. Homes in our area have doubled in the last two years. Investors from out of state are buying up property to rent. Or Boomers are selling for high in the city and buying a retirement home for cheaper (but more than what locals would pay).
As far as your current home, other than high taxes…is it paid off? How much could you sell it for? How rural are you willing to be?
Obviously moving where other people don’t want to live is when real estate is cheap. If you want to live in a “good place”, it’s likely going to be more expensive. SoCal Joe on this forum sold his place in Southern CA for big money and moved to rural CA for much cheaper.
Dylan wrote:
Hi All,
In the next year, give or take, I might be in a situation not unlike the good hosts of this forum were when they decided to move to the country to pare down expenses; though, unfortunately, I’m a little older than they were then – and I’m a little older than they are now. 😉
Be that as it may, I would like to pare down expenses and sell FT. This isn’t so much a what should I do question, but more where could I go?
A lot has changed since Jay and Ryanne moved to the country. One of the biggest changes of course is property values. That has helped and hurt me. I could potentially sell my place for more than I bought it for, but, in the meantime, property taxes have just about tripled in the last 10 years and don’t show any signs of slowing down.
I may end up staying here in the PNW, but, as far as I know, I can’t save much by moving to the country here – or it seems anywhere in the west. Everything is just too damn expensive now.
So, I am seriously considering getting out of dodge. It doesn’t have to be the country of course, it just has to be relatively cheaper than it is here – enough to really make it worth it.
Is it even possible these days to find (relatively) cheap places in “good” areas that are great for sourcing or at least close enough to get there without it being onerous?
There are a million other questions that this brings up, e.g., what is “good,” but I’ll start with that and see if this goes anywhere interesting.
I’m not sure where to post this, so I might try in the Podcast Comments if not many see this here.
I also thought I’d post this because it seems like a Jay topic 😉
– Cheers
I used to waste some time looking at my followers (especially when the number went up or down) or other sellers followers, so for me personally it’s good that info is hidden.
It was great when you could see a buyer’s purchase history. Remember when eBay showed the exact price people paid for items? Now, when someone makes an offer, it’s just the full price with a mark through.
