Belt Auction

what would i need to start this buisness?

I’m looking to start a company where I go to police, public, bank repot auctions and buy cars a dirt cheap prices, invest some money into them (clean them up, fix anything that needs to be fixed, smog check, etc...) and sell them threw auto trader, Craig’s list etc. for market value. What kind of license would I need, I already have a vehicle sales licenses. What else would I need? And what would I need to get into the privet bank police auctions? Im only looking to do 1 car at a time, so I wouldn’t need to buy any property for it. And for the service of the car I would go to a local mechanic…

Public Comments

1. ok, firtst if you go to the auctions you will pay too much for the cars to make any good profit cause theres always some dummy there that makes the price go up and he probaly doesent even have that much money. Go, to the tow yards in your city and surrounding citys the bigger the city the better. The cars are running when police have them towed becuase someone is drunk or doesnt have a license or registration., they are cheaper and the tow yard people will go down on the price too. that first, second call dmv tell them what you are doing and they will tell you what you need to do. and you will need a business license, tax id # and a factisious name statement and a bank account too.
2. Company Structure and Financing would seem to be the two big ones. How do you want to be structured? C-Corp, S-Corp, LLC, Sole Proprietor? (Hint: Don't be Sole if you can avoid it!) You can easily find a lawyer to do this for you for $600-$800 bucks with a recurring annual cost of $200-$300 to file the appropriate paperwork. I know people that do this, so feel free to PM me and I'll give you a few names (No, my name isn't one of them, I do not do this, I just know people that do). How much start up capital do you have? Do you have it segregated out as to Maintainence, Purchase, and paper work fees? Do you know how much the taxes will cost you? Don't forget titling the car to you. If you're looking to build to a larger scale, do you know where to get business loans and Corporate Credit (again, I know people that do this as well). Do you have a formal business plan? Do you have profit projections? Turn around time estimates? You have a vehicle for sales (Auto Trader, etc.), but do you know how to use it most effectively? If a car doesn't sell in 30 days, can you afford to keep re-listing it until it does sell? Also, have you considered eBay.com as a place to sell?
3. You need to find out if where you live requires other business licenses. You will need a secure place to keep the cars, cleaning supplies and car vac and access to water. If you plan to do some of the work yourself you will need a secure place for that and supplies and tools. You should probably have insurance to cover the cars and your liability in case something happens. Say you replace a tire and forget to tighten the lug nuts and the buyer crashes. You would be liable for damage. You can check to see how much the Craig's and Auto Trader costs. Not knowing much about your situation, I will need to guess but I would think you would want to have more than 1 or 2 cars at a time in case 1 happens to be hard to sell. You will need enough money to help you should you hit a snag and not sell any cars for three months. Yo would have money tied up in inventory and need to pay rent and phone, etc. I am guessing you would need $10,000 to 25,000. less than 12% of new businesses fail and more than half of those failed businesses leave their owners witha large personal debt. The number one reason new businesses fail? They are undercapitalized. (Start up with too little money on hand) Good luck.