Did I swap or didn't I ?

Ok so you are up to date with what new dilemma I had to face.

The guy who rang me at 5pm offered me £800 cash or his car as a straight swap.

What car was it ? a vauxhall vectra !!!! my first thought in my head was eurrgggghh ! but I thought I would ask him more about it anyway and here is exactly what it was :

S Reg Vauxhall vectra 2.0l diesel, top of the range (all electrics, alloys, air con, sunroof, on board computer etc) 117,000 miles navy blue, very good condition, FULL SERVICE HISTORY and only 1 owner from new !!!!!! PLUS 4 months MOT !!!

So what do you think I did ?? of course I swapped it ! - parkers car guide price is £2040 for this exact model for an S reg.

I also ran a hpi check on this car just to make sure (cost me £9.95) and it came back 100% clear !

So lets give this an update now

I bought car 1 (the ka) for £800 and sold it for £1000 so I made £200 profit

I bought car 2 (the saxo) for £650 + £35 for the mot + £5 for the advert in the paper

I then swapped car 2 for car 3. So my cost so far is this

£695 - £200 PROFIT = £495 of my own money (investment )for this S Reg vectra !

Do you think I done the right thing ? comments appreciated, also be intereseted to hear what how much you think I should advertise it for in next weeks paper (I managed to persuade him to give me the full log book - to retain only 1 owner status !) so no waiting from dvla !

I have an idea what I am going to advertise it for (basically I want to make enough money to give my initial investment back to me and then use all the left over money to buy the next one) so then I am operating ALWAYS on a profit and never on my own money

Thanks for reading

what did I do with car 2 ? hmmmmmm....

Ok sorry it has been a while since I updated but lots has happened.

I put car 2 (the saxo) in for the mot and it failed miserably ! needed about £300 of work doing to it !!!!!!!!

So I listed it for £1000 spares or repair BACK IN THE SAME PAPER and it appeared yesterday. I had about 15 calls (first one being 6am !!! thanks for that !) and only 2 people turned up - one thought the car looked too good to be true for the price, and the other was buying for his missus and said "she wouldn't like it as it is too sporty" ??? well it is a boy racer vtr (and I put a picture in the ad too) so I don't know what he was expecting ??

Then at 5pm I had a call from a guy who asked me if I was willing to either sell the car for £800 cash (bearing in mind the car cost me £650 + mot £35 + advert of car £5 so £690 in total) or if I was willing to swap for his car !!! hmmmmm what car was it ? what did I do ? did I do anything ??

Well if you wait about 10 minutes you will see exactly what I done !! look out for the next blog post coming your way

dilema time ! what would you do ?

Ok so I have woken up this morning with a dilema on my hands !

Knowing the extras with this car and afer checking out similar ones on ebay, I am tempted to advertise this car as it is for £1000 and see if I get any takers. It cost's £7 to advertise the car for 2 weeks in my local free paper. I could have the car back in the paper and possibly sold by this time next week if I tried this option at a cost of £7.

I would just need to make the advert fancier than a cillit bang advert otherwise I will not get much interest - this advert needs to say "Buy me I am your dream car" to a prospective buyer.

Another option is to put it on ebay (not sure of cost) but this also runs the risk of hassle and time wasters like Mr bluchivelski from nigeria wanting me to post the car abroad in exchange for half of his dying fathers fortune ($143 million last time he offered - but i sadly declined) plus I do not really want to do this, as I want to keep to the rules at all time - selling the cars I buy, fromthe same paper I bought them from.

The third option is put it in for an MOT (cost £40) and see what they come back with as needs doing and how much it will cost to get an MOT on it - could be £50, could be £500 I have no idea.

Hmmmmmmm what would you do ?

option 1 - readvertise the car for £1000 and try to make some pure profit with no hassle (like I did with the first car)

option 2 - put it on ebay (my least likely for reasons stated above)

option 3 - spend £40 on MOT and hope it doesn't need much doing

Second car bought !

Ok so this is a bit of a gamble with this but today I bought this car which is as follows

T Reg citroen saxo vtr 1.6 16v.

Now the good points - there is alot of extras with this car including 17" alloys with good tyres, a toad thatcham category 1 alarm and immobilizer with anti hijack features, tinted windows,it has been delocked, it has a k and n air filter and also a sport exhaust - the car is gleaming red and in good condition

Now the bad points - it has no tax OR MOT !

the book value for this car - £1595 for a private sale

what did I pay ? have a guess and post your guesses on the blog !

First car bought and sold !

Ok here we have the first car I bought

A T reg ford KA with 12 months MOT and 5 months tax

It was advertised for £900 - I negotiated the price of the car and got him down to £800 and bought it, this was on 20th June 2007

I advertised it in the SAME paper yesterday for the price of £1300 and let it go to the first person who offered me £1000 (the first viewer)

My initial thoughts after buying the car was "Omg what have I done, there is alot of rust on it and it will be hard to sell this"

The car was definatly rough for a T reg KA.

Not to worry - £200 in profit ! Sold on 11th July 2007

Introduction

Ok so I decided to use some of my entrepreneurial skills and tendancies offline for a change.

I have decided I am going to try and make £15,000 profit in 1 year on buying and selling used cars in my local paper.

The twist is this - I will be buying all of the cars from one paper AND reselling them in exactly the same paper a week or 2 later for a profit !

I know as much about cars and their engines as Russell Grant knows about dieting - Naff all !!

I am planning on using my "eye for a bargain" and my entreprenurial skills to determine what I buy and how much profit can be made from each deal.

Wish me Luck !