The Lowdown
What is Flipping Luxury Watches?
Do you have an interest in high-end watches? What if you were able to buy and wear luxury watches and sell them later at a profit? Sounds too good to be true right? It isn't. Luxury doesn't have to be a depreciating asset. In fact, you can actually learn how to make money buying and selling certain luxury watches.
Unlike cheap mass produced "luxury" watches that lose all its value as soon as you buy it off the shelf like Movado, Michael Kors, Gucci, Versace, and many other designer label brands, there are certain watch brands and watches that grow in value over time like wines, antiques, classic cars, and art.
Brands like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Omega, Audemars Piguet, Panerai, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and IWC tend to have staying power. It's not to say that all of their watches will increase in value. There are certain models that hold their value and some that increase in value over time. The exact nuances that drive a watch's value to increase over time are not always black and white so it helps to be familiar with the market.
The art of flipping luxury watches comes down to knowing:
- Knowing which watches to buy
- Knowing where to buy them
- Knowing how much you should pay for them
- Knowing what to do to raise their value
- Knowing where and who to sell them to
If you have a taste for luxury and love watches, then flipping luxury watches could be a great side hustle or even a full-time gig.
How Does it Work?
How Do You Make Money?
Making money flipping luxury watches is pretty straight forward. You find luxury watches that have a discrepancy in what you think the value of the watch can be vs. what you're paying for it. Flippable luxury watches can range from $1,500 - $25,000 with 5% - 40% returns on average. It can take a couple of days or a couple of months to sell a watch depending on how much ROI you're looking to receive.
Just like any new car that loses value as soon as you buy off the lot, it's the same with high-end luxury watches. As soon as you buy them, they depreciate in value. However, some luxury watches will depreciate up to a point and then stop depreciating. After that point, they tend to slowly appreciate in value.
But you don't need to find a watch that appreciates in value to make money flipping watches. You need to find watches that stop depreciating in value and buy it for less than what you can sell it for. Surprisingly, this happens all the time. Some watch sellers might not fully know the value of their watch and sell it for less. Some just don't take the time to get their watch's full value's worth. Others just need the money and want to sell their watch as quickly as possible. It's these opportunities that make for a profitable trade.
What Are The Pros & Cons?
- Able to make sizable amounts per watch sold.
- Wear watches while waiting for buyers.
- Opportunity to network with high net worth individuals.
- Able to create an affordable luxury lifestyle.
- Can be costly if you don't know which watches to buy.
- Locks up capital until watch is sold.
- Need enough capital to start.
Estimated Startup Cost
To start buying and selling your first luxury watch, you're recommended to have at least $1,500 to purchase your first watch. Luxury watches can range from $1,500 to millions of dollars, but as you start out, you don't need to break the bank to get going. Starting out relatively small will give you the experience and confidence you need to move into more expensive watch reselling.
Watch Purchase
Total Cost
Key Activities Flipping Luxury Watches
Most of your time spent flipping luxury watches is finding watch deals. This can be through different platforms watches are sold on, network groups, local jewelers, and connections. Once you've acquired the watch, you'll want to make the watch and case as presentable as possible. Attention to the details can be a difference-maker when it comes to getting max dollar for your flip. After getting the watch ready for sale, you'll spend a decent portion of your time taking quality pictures and writing out a detailed description of your watch. Once it's posted and sold, you'll arrange packaging and shipment to the new owner. Rinse and repeat.
Start Flipping Luxury Watches
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By Pejman Ghadimi
My name is Pejman Ghadimi. I am a serial entrepreneur and avid watch and car collector. While today I am well off financially, I still use the strategies I teach with every single watch I buy. Years ago I realized I really enjoyed luxury lifestyle, but couldn't afford to drive anything I wanted or wear the watches I admired the most.
I certainly didn't have enough money to buy more than one of anything either. This forced me to get creative in the way I looked at luxury lifestyle and pushed me to discover how to turn every car and watch I bought from a liability into an asset, as well as leverage financial tools (since I had a long background in banking) to afford all I wanted without spending all my cash.
Understanding the best ways to leverage assets lead me to understanding what to buy and how to buy, and it eventually became a process after doing this over 60 times in the past few years with cars and over 1,000 times with watches. From my first Panerai watch coupled with my Porsche 911 Turbo to my latest Aston Martin Vanquish coupled with my Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Rose Gold, I can no longer do one without the other.
Exotic cars and luxury timepieces just go hand in hand.