Winning at Craigslist: Reclaim Your Time and Your Money! by Joshua MacDonald

Author:Joshua MacDonald [MacDonald, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-09-23T07:00:00+00:00

Winning Tip: Decide how much your time is worth and pay yourself that hourly rate!

I recommend starting with the end and working backward. In other words, decide how much your time is worth and try to pay yourself that hourly rate. As an example, we’ll return to the dining room table. You have a side furniture business, and hardwood dining sets are hot in your area. You find the perfect specimen, priced at $500, but the meetup spot is an hour from your home. Via email, you negotiate the seller down to $450. Since the table is large, it requires every inch of your family minivan, which is less gas-efficient, but has the requisite amount of space inside. You drive 45 miles (which sucks down $7 in gas, and includes $3 in tolls each way) to the meetup spot, and then wait another hour for the selling party to show up. You pay the $450, bring the table home, and spend 5 hours and $75 in materials over the next two weeks getting it in sale shape. When it’s ready, you list it for $1,000 and commence the waiting game. You find the market wasn’t as hot as you thought for the table, and two weeks go by with just a few weak bites. In week three, a serious buyer emerges, but they are only willing to pay $750, and they’re coming from 2 hours away. Since it’s taking up valuable space in your garage, you agree to meet them halfway (or another hour drive). In the end, how much did you make per hour?

($750 (sales price) – $450 (purchase price) – $20 (gas and tolls) – $75(rehab materials))

÷ 10 hours (driving, waiting, & rehabbing)

= $20.50/hour

If your target rate was $20/hr, then you nailed it. If not, then you need to make an adjustment somewhere. The easiest element to adjust is to decrease your driving radius. Set a maximum distance you’re willing to drive, and then stick to it. In this case, if the meetup spots would have been 15 minutes away you would have saved 3 hours of time, and instead of netting $20.50/hr, you would have made $29.29/hour. The second easiest area to adjust is sales price – hold out for a better offer. But, that requires patience, and is much less in your sphere of control than is your target radius.

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