For years now I have been using my hobby of flipping furniture as a side hustle. Being a stay at home mom, I like that I have found a fun way to contribute to our families income. We never seem to have any trouble finding a use for extra cash. Today, I will show you how to make extra money flipping furniture for sale on Craigslist. You can apply these tips when listing on any local classified ads.
Turn Furniture Into Cash
After years of experience, I’ve found to get the best return on your initial investment, you need to know how to choose the right piece for flipping. I’m going to be using a recent makeover I did, as it is a prime example of the perfect find for resale.
When you are hunting in the thrift store or through the jungles of a neighborhood estate sale, you’re not just looking for any piece of furniture. This coffee table that I came across is the perfect example of a little equation that I keep in mind while on the hunt. That is:
Your Sale Price – Initial Investment – Flip Time – Material Cost = Profit
Now don’t let nightmares of your college Econ classes scare you away. This concept really just means that you want your sale price to be way higher than all the money, time and effort that it takes to flip a piece of furniture. And don’t forget that time is money!
Solid Wood
One criteria for furniture that helps keep profit high and investment low is to always buy solid wood furniture. Laminate furniture is for sale for cheap all over the place in bargain stores and online. You want to sell something that someone can’t walk down to Walmart or Ikea and grab for a few bucks.
And just because a piece is solid wood, doesn’t mean that it will cost any more in the thrift store than a cheapo laminate piece. In my favorite thrift stores, similar pieces are all listed the same. For example all dressers are 39.99, whether they were hand carved in Italy or came over as sawdust from China.
Not only that, but solid wood furniture has a draw because of the quality that is assumed when you advertise it as such. It’s even better for your sale if you can pinpoint the exact wood type of your piece. Solid wood and more details = higher asking price.
A Brand Name Can Make You More Money
So a piece of solid wood furniture has caught your eye. Now you are going to inspect it all over and see if you can find a brand name. I don’t always follow this rule, because many really solid pieces wont have an item number or brand on them. However, finding brand names and product numbers will give you the information you need to find the exact value of the item.
The above, flaky remnants of a brand on my circle coffee table might not look like much. A quick Google search of Sophisticate by Tomlinson Furniture will tell a different story. With this brand name, I was able to look up how much this specific line is selling for now, that it was made in the 1950’s, that it was made from Butternut and Pecan wood and I even came across the original 1950’s sales catalog. Which was a really cool addition to my Craigslist ad.
All of these details were made possible by having the brand name, and helped drive my asking price up. Buyers will also use any item identification names and numbers to research an item themselves. This is great way for sellers to affirm an items price, and I would highly recommend adding as much information as you can find online into your posted advertisement.
Time Is Money
As mentioned earlier, time is money when you are flipping furniture for resale. You must look at a piece of furniture as potential profit. The scale of your project can easily make or break your flip. The coffee table I was working on needed a new finish. You can see that the old finish was actually chipping off. That was it though, the table wasn’t wiggly, wobbly or damaged in any other way.
Because I have the tools and knowledge to refinish wood furniture, it was an easy decision for me to purchase this table. If however, a leg was cracked and broken, I would have passed. This is because the amount of time and money it would have cost me to prepare this table for sale would have outweighed the profit.
The whole point is, know your limits. This includes skill set and budget to finish a piece of furniture.
Furniture Flipped for Profit | The Outcome
How well did my Mid-Century coffee table fare? Plugging it in to my little equation, sale price was $300 – $25 initial cost – 3 to 4 hours of refinishing work – $5 for sandpaper (I used stain and sealer that I already had) = pretty darn good. Basically that translates to $270 for 3 to 4 hours of work or $67.50 per hour at the very least.
This is the type of cash return you can expect from a piece of furniture that checks all of the boxes in terms of quality and project scale.
Start Selling
So if you enjoy flipping furniture, or it is something that you would like to learn more about, then I would encourage you to channel the eye of the tiger, get your hunt on, and start making that extra cash. Consider these simple tips for how to make the most money out of your furniture makeover projects, and start selling!
You can also check out my video about this table if you want to see more details about the refinishing process.
Or find more flipping furniture idea here.
