I am looking for some advice from you guys.

I have been thinking very hard for the last month about getting me a shop.I currently do this from home and have no overhead but also no time to store stuff to make more money either and i am always in a rush to get stuff gone.
Now i have been thinking of a shop and doing more to maximize and make more money.
Say shop is $1000 per month ok.
I can take motors out of the cars and sell them that way which is twice what i get for them leaving them in there.Right now i get $0.1225 per pound leaving them in.If i pull the i get $0.25-$0.28 which is basically double.So say a 6cyl motor weighs 250 pounds thats a extra $31.875 each just for the motor.So it would take 31 cars/motors a month to cover the shop rent.But i would also have all of the transmissions,Alts,starters,ac compressors,alot more harness wire.
Plus i could let them sit say a week and sell parts and i would have more time to strip stuff off of them to list and sell parts on ebay.I just hate to do it since i have no overhead now.
But i think if i had a shop i could make alot more money but i am still undecided.



I am looking for your opinions and help on this matter.Thanks alot guys!

Originally Posted by newattitude

Not to mention, can you do this all on your own? Will you have to pay helpers? And the big question - can you get 31 cars a month?

+1

Lots of people have had a few good months, tried to scrap full time, only to find out that there are slow periods also, and back to finding a job. But with a commercial lease, even if you have a slow month you need to come up with the bill money. Low overhead is a good thing.

i only pull certain parts off of cars myself.....i usually look at how hard it will be to get off,,,,how fast they are selling on ebay,,,,and of course the fact if it needs to be stored inside......in my area i can only get about 2.00 dollars more per hundred for motors thAN i can if i leave em in the car......

i would advise anyone to take it slowly when thinking about making any move that will require a large monthly payment......ive never been one who uses credit and i also am completley against the idea of renting anything.....

i know this has kept me from doing things in the past but it also has kept me from loosing anything...remember you cant loose it if you dont put it out in the middle of the table...

i am currently talking to a few companies about buying auto cores from me.....if i find a good one and it works out i will post my results.......

in the end the best advice i can give has already been said by others before me in this thread...only you know if it is worth it to you....move slowly,,,,think it through,,,,,,do some number crunching on the extra income you will get minus the new costs it will generate.... dont forget to add what your time is worth.....

also as mentioned above.....make sure you have a good supply.......when folks first start out they can usually go real good the first few months,,,alot of this is because they get junk from friends and family and there uncles third cousins neighbors girlfriend ,, that those folks have saved and normally would have not got rid of...but since they like you or someone in your family they will go ahead and let you have it.......this will eventually slow down.....i am fortunate and have a large family...id say i get at least a ton or better of appliances every 2 months just from friends and family switching out broken stuff for new......

anyhow i wish you the best of luck on which ever way you decide to go

Well Frocker from the date of joining the SMF it looks like you have been doing this for a while, I don't know if this is your full time or part time income but I am going to assume you are a full time scraper, I am a true believer in keeping expenses as low as possible but some times you just have to take a educated guess in business, do the benefits out weigh the negatives? In your case I believe they do, from what you have said you rush a lot of things just to get done while knowing that you are leaving a lot of profit on the table, not to mention all the gravy, I also do auto parts recycling no cars just scrap from dealers and repair shops, most of the real profit is from my core buyer, Core Pro also known as RAS but there are many good ones all across the country, they have a data base that allows you to put the make year and model into and it tells you what parts if any they would buy and for how much before taking the time to remove them we just put the part numbers in and it tells us the same information, just a example we sold a rack and piñon that was picked up from one of our auto repair shops for steel price and they bought it for $90.00, this could never have happened working from home, also having a actual business location opens up other avenues of revenue, walk in customers both buyers and sellers. I don't mean to get long winded here but I think having a shop a posed to not having a shop in your case is a no brainier, one more thing I would like to touch on, when you have a shop a real place of business when you come in the morning it's time to work and you will stay focused more rather than getting side tracked doing house chores, or running errands that have nothing to do with your business. What ever you decide best of luck to you, I think it's time to make the move.