If you’ve been an auto lover for a while now, you might have considered making your hobby a career. While a lot of people do this with various degrees of success, you can easily get the best of both worlds by keeping your current career and making auto trading a side-hustle and boost your savings account. You get to keep your hobby and can enjoy making a bit of extra cash on the side.
Although how you go about with this is up to you, we’ve found a few alternatives you can enjoy with a brew and a smile; a side-hustle means, after all, a lot more money in the bank.
Work at an auto dealership
The first and most traditional option is to offer your services at a dealership. It sounds an awful lot like a normal nine to five job, but it couldn’t be further from the truth; most car salespeople work like freelancers, set their own hours, and are often to be found in multiple car dealerships rather than one.
The upside to this is that you’ll be able to receive benefits, can enjoy the freedom of freelancing, while also putting your knowledge and skills to the best of use. The only downside is perhaps the stigma that follows car clerks from back in the days, being seen as shady and pushy when it comes to settling a deal.
The more you know about the laws regulating this industry before you make a decision, the better it will be for your reputation as a car salesman; get familiar with a lemon law lawyer and spend some time reading up on this article.
Buy used cars at auctions
Most of the large car dealerships get their used cars at auctions, and there is no reason that you can’t take advantage of the great scoops they make here. Rather than offering your services to an established company, bid for pristine cars at auctions and get the chance to purchase them at wholesale price. It’s one of the best ways to take your auto hobby a step further, in all honesty, and it’s a lot more likely that you hit the jackpot here than anywhere else.
Keep in mind that some auctions require you to have a dealers license to bid for cars at some auctions, though. It’s a legal requirement and no getting around it, so make sure you obtain one before heading off an auction.
Buy used cars through the Internet
Whatever you need, you’ll find it online – and used cars in excellent conditions are no exception. You need to be cyber savvy, though, and be wary of deals that seem too good to be true. Using the Internet is particularly relevant if you don’t have a dealers license as you’d be able to buy great cars without having to go an auction.
Keep in mind that most states have regulations on how many cars a person can own at a time. Since this is going to be your side-hustle and no more than an additional income, you don’t need to worry too much about this.
If you’d like to make serious money, on the other hand, you should read up on the laws and consider transferring a vehicle to your spouse’s name or similar.
