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I'd now rather have the $5 in my pocket for the book I've already read (just sold $500 in books)
Did you sell 5,000 books to do that? My mother and my girlfriend are both voracious readers and I literally can't give the things away. I have about 400 books in my house right now destined for the trash can. Combined between their libraries I bet there are easily 10,000 books (and my mother bought each and every one of them brand new and many are $20-$30 hardcovers).
Or do you have books of value that are collectable?
I'm not even joking that if I can load these things up and get $0.25/ea in bulk somewhere I'd be a happy guy. Even entire big chunks of hard covers from the same popular author are like $5 auctions on eBay (and shipping is $40 because they weigh a ton).
No joking at all, if there is a secret to selling used books I'd love to know it. My mother uses my girlfriend as her cast off pile so I get about 150 books through this house in a year as my mom has to reorganize and my girlfriend doesn't even want to read 10% of the stuff my mom drops off. Their tastes are too similar and my mom keeps the "good stuff" in her library.
Personally, unless I was completely broke and downright needed the money, I'd rather sit on something for years at a time than sell it and take a loss on it. I'm not about to sell something for less than I paid for it just to get rid of it, I'm not in the business of breaking even or taking a loss, I'm in it to make a profit.
Obviously I'm not talking about buying something brand new and expecting to get the same price for it used. But if I invest in an item with the intention of flipping it, I'm not going to sell it for less than I have in it, I'd rather it sit around collecting dust than to pay $100 for something and sell it for $50 just because I'm tired of it sitting around.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
I own fairly broad based investments instead of ones that are narrowly focused (such as individual stocks or sector funds) so that I can mostly avoid this problem.
Did you sell 5,000 books to do that? Or do you have books of value that are collectable? No joking at all, if there is a secret to selling used books I'd love to know it.
Hey Max... A few niche collectables & a few out of prints, but mostly I sold them for $10-15ish/each... a few for more. The site I used to sell through for a decade was half.com (an Ebay site), but they just closed doors in Aug. I sold all media... books, CDs, DVDs. That made up the $500 in just 2-mos.
You can sell bulk books on powells.com. They don't buy DVD/CDs. If you live in Portland (their only store), you can walk them in. I've got 150 to sell & that's my last stop before either donating to the library or Goodwill. I haven't done it yet... that's a project for Oct... but, you have to list a min of 7 ISBNs at a time. They're very picky on condition (basically, it must be in perfect condition & not a mass market edition or have a lot of stickers), so read the rules carefully. They'll quote a price & if you accept, you can print off a UPS sticker for free shipping... of course, you need to drop off yourself. They pay only with a store credit or Paypal... so I just opened a PP & still don't know the ins & outs of that... like I said, I just found out about them.
Also, you can sell via Ebay... another thing I haven't tried yet. I was thinking that whatever I couldn't sell on Powells site, I'd group into like categories... a set of computer books or cookbooks, etc. & try to list the whole "collection" on Ebay... maybe 5-10 in the collection. Same with DVD/CDs, cuz I've got 100 of those, too. Perhaps you can check into that, as well... look at what others are offering & maybe you can do a test run with 2 "collections" of 10 books by the same author or 10 mysteries, etc.
Call local consignment shops. They might be interested in a huge collection of romance novels or murder mysteries (you'll have to catalogue them first so you can email or drop off a list), especially if they're in excellent condition. You could use Craigslist, but I've sold things through them & there's a huge ick factor with the people I've had to deal with... lots of oddball emails to pour through... but, you may sell the entire collection at one time for a few hundred to someone who can resell at a flea market, etc.
Lastly, don't forget that senior apt complexes, assisted living homes, hospitals might love to receive some for their patients... or a local school might want to take them all to sell at a school sale at $1/apiece for uniforms.
I'm studying for state boards right now, so don't have a lot of time to dedicate to it just yet, but if you'd like to know how I progress, send me a friend request and/or stay in touch via DM & I'd be happy to share whatever I learn. Just give me 'til the end of Oct, cuz it's not high priority 'til I take exams in mid-Oct.
Sorry for the tangent, lads, but I listed it all here in the event it could benefit anyone else. Back to the program already in progress...
People who say they'll never sell at a loss are poor investors.
A good investor knows that they're not going to win 100% of the time. The trick is to be disciplined enough to win more than you lose, and knowing when to cut your losses is a very large part of that. That holds true whether you're dealing in securities, real estate, collectibles, etc.
I have friends who used to be heavily invested in (still are, in some cases) in sports memorabilia and trading cards.
Well, the market really dropped off a cliff in the early 90's and never really recovered. Some of them are still holding on to all their stuff, tens of thousands of dollars worth when they bought it, and now worth $5k or less. It's been over 20 years, and they could have used that money in other ventures all this time, but are too afraid of taking a loss.
Except that those 10's of thousands of dollars of 'collectibles' are possibly worth a couple of hundred dollars after selling expenses, which is meaningless money in the long run. This is especially true if they were figuring 'book' value instead of what they actually paid.
If making money is the deciding factor, which it usually is, taking a loss is always better if that money even has a chance of doing better somewhere else.
Every losing investment starts out as "a chance of doing better" than some other investment. Unless you have superior knowledge of future markets, it's all a crap shoot.
Timing is everything in life.
It helps not to be emotionally attached to an asset or have your ego involved (such as $$ spent on your home that no one will pay extra for).
Anecdote: My spouse inherited some stocks on his grandfather's death about 25 years ago. Most were blue chip names, a little of this and that because the shares were divided 3 ways. I used this event to become more educated about the stock market which was going gangbusters in 90's. Most were blue chip standards, GE and GM and railroads. But there was one stock I did not understand, named Enron.
I called my brother in Houston, not a financial person but smart, and asked what this company did. He tried to explain what he knew about it and I said "I don't really understand what they make or sell and don't like not understanding" so I sold it. No big deal, under $500, added to the cash to buy stocks we did understand. Am I a genius? No way. Spouses siblings kept theirs, in fact I think they kept all those inherited stocks with no changes. I think my Houston brother lost some money on Enron but we don't discuss it.
I've lost money in the stock market and made it. We bought our current home 10 years ago at top $$ and don't regret it. Houses like ours are hard to find and none have come up for sale since. Timing doesn't always make money, sometime it's about getting the right thing. Like marrying the right person. We'll break even when we sell in a couple years but if we lose money that's OK too. When we were looking for this house we saw one for sale the next street over. We made a reasonable offer but the owner was not asking a reasonable price, about $100k too much. Our agent saw we were serious and talked the people on the next street into listing at the price we offered and that was that. It wasn't listed for sale but they were getting divorced and we had cash. We like the house we bought more than the one we didn't buy and have really great neighbors (well one is borderline trashy but they are good people).
The homeowner who asked too much $$ never did sell his house even though he wanted to move to Tennessee (he said). Still there and house still not worth the $$ he asked back then. Maybe in 10 more years or he's dead his wife will sell it.
Personally, unless I was completely broke and downright needed the money, I'd rather sit on something for years at a time than sell it and take a loss on it. I'm not about to sell something for less than I paid for it just to get rid of it, I'm not in the business of breaking even or taking a loss, I'm in it to make a profit.
Obviously I'm not talking about buying something brand new and expecting to get the same price for it used. But if I invest in an item with the intention of flipping it, I'm not going to sell it for less than I have in it, I'd rather it sit around collecting dust than to pay $100 for something and sell it for $50 just because I'm tired of it sitting around.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
I was in the antique business roughly 1995 through 2005. My thoughts are I saw many unsuccessful and stubborn antique dealers who felt exactly the same way you do.
Everyone makes a bad buy occasionally, but these people had garages full of bad buys (because they had already sold the sellable goods) and couldn't force themselves to part with the stuff to recover a portion of their capital. One couple had many outbuildings full of antique furniture that were rotting away.
Unless he was a car dealer it would be seen as a hobby at best. Can’t deduct losses for hobbies.
Yup so they said but the blood sucking VAMPIRES sure wanted their share of his "profit". If he couldn't have shown his expenses , , , well you know the drill.
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