Fair pice for 32 non functioning laptops?

I've got a lead on 32 laptops for parts. Most of them are missing a single component (hard drive, power supply, ram etc) everything from pentium 1 up to dual core. The guy is asking 500 for the whole lot. I don't want to pay more than 10 a piece. Am I being unrealistic or is 10 each a fair offer?

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

I guess it depends on what you plan top do with them. thats out of range for scrapping them.

+1

You are looking at a way to lose a LOT of money really quickly. If this guy is in the computer field (which we will all assume because he has 32 laptops for parts) it would make no sense for him to sell laptops that he has the knowledge and parts to fix if they were worth fixing. He would simply fix them and sell them. Because he is not doing this, I feel pretty safe to say most of the laptops are not fixable at a reasonable price or not worth fixing at all. They are scrap. If they are scrap, to make money you need to be in the 2-3 dollar range. You are WAY out of that range.

If you think that you were going to refurbish them and sell them, you are still overpriced at 10.00. Anything below a P4 is going to be a really slow sell. The dual cores (who knows how many) will sell but only for around 120.00 if they work perfect. A new battery and A/C adapter will easily run you 50.00. You most likely will need a new hard drive and windows. You could easily price yourself out of the market just buying the minimum to get the dual cores working to sell, IF they are fixable. A P4 is worth less than the dual core and command a lower price making it even harder to make any money even IF you only had to buy a battery and adapter. You throw some memory and a hard drive in the laptop easily puts you in the red.

Originally Posted by ROKrecycling

It all depends on what type of computers they are. If they are all Core 2, they would be worth well over $600. If they are P1's, they are worth 75 cents a pound. My buyer page lists prices for each model of computer. Might help you.

That is a big part of the problem. They are not all Core 2. They are missing parts. He is asking 500.00. Even if 1/3 are Core 2 (which I doubt) it's too much money, there is a very low upside and a very high potential for a big loss. It's not worth the chance. For that price you are better off going with Govdeals to buy laptops, even if you paid a little more, you know what you are getting. These are NOT laptops that were taken out of service, these are a computer shop's leftovers that they are trying to get rid of.

A good rule of thumb when buying things is don't pay much more than you would get in scrap. If they are worth 5.00 in scrap, even if you were going to resell or part out, it's safe to stay under that mark. There are always deals that come along, sometimes the best deal is the one you don't make. While you think you may be able to part some of these out, you can't count on that. Keep in mind, these were already raped by a computer company for parts.

My payou would be $32 max. I pay $1 for broken laptops period. Missing parts? maybe less.