How To Flip Furniture For Profit – Ultimate Money Guide

How To Flip Furniture For Profit - Complete Guide

One of the side hustles that not many people are focused on nowadays is flipping furniture. 

The reason for its unpopularity is that people are looking for side hustles that don’t involve much work, and are Internet based. 

From apps for odd jobs to selling feet pics on platforms like Instafeet, there are so many legit and simple money making options today. 

What they don’t know is that flipping furniture for profit doesn’t actually involve that much work. 

What we also heard is that buying, restoring and flipping furniture makes one of the most enjoyable side hustles out there. 

In today’s guide, we will focus on providing you with all the necessary information you need to start a business of flipping furniture. 

How Furniture Flipping Works? 

Flipping furniture is very simple. The idea is to find undervalued pieces of furniture from people who are selling it or giving it away. You can also find furniture at second hand stores. 

After you acquire a piece of furniture, your goal is to restore it and spruce it up. By doing that, you will increase its price and then you can proceed to sell it to the highest bidder. 

Flipping furniture can be very profitable. However, you need to be cautious and you certainly need to acquire some skills that will make this a successful side hustle. 

The reason why a lot of people fail in flipping furniture is because they overpay when buying furniture. 

Your focus needs to be on building skills that are related to restoring furniture – something that you might need to know a bit about if you want to do this side hustle. 

Another reason why people fail is because they spend too much time restoring the furniture. 

You will need to understand that sometimes you won’t be able to increase its value more than it’s possible, even if you spend more hours on it. 

That’s why it’s important to also focus on building the business – finding clientele, advertising and selling for a bigger price. 

How To Start Flipping Furniture For Profit? 

There might be a few things you need to know about before you decide to start with this side hustle. 

For starters, you will need to know which pieces of furniture you should focus on acquiring, what materials hold more value, and where you can actually purchase furniture. 

Knowing these things will be your beginning point. 

Once you develop a system and a sixth sense for potentially valuable furniture pieces, you will be effectively putting yourself in a position to succeed. 

What Kind Of Furniture To Look For? 

Unlike what you might assume, furniture that is older, and that comes with a lot of character and imperfections should be your focus going forward. 

Something like an old table, a dresser, or any other piece that gives that high quality vibe, even if it shows signs of wear and tear. 

A mistake that a lot of people make is that they are focused on buying the furniture that looks better, rather than it is of higher quality. 

This is a mistake simply because through the process of restoring, you will be able to fix these imperfections, and sell it for a much greater price. 

Also, if you are a newbie, and just getting started, you should focus on furniture that is easier to refurbish. 

Spotting Real Wood

What often makes furniture a high quality piece is that it’s made from real wood, like Oak. Your first clue in spotting these is that they are extremely heavy. 

That’s why a few year old piece from Ikea may not hold much value and you won’t be able to flip it for much, or at all. 

What Kind Of Furniture To Avoid? 

Exactly what we mentioned earlier. You should avoid fake wood at all times. Stuff like particle board and MDF furniture are practically worthless. 

Another great thing is if furniture comes from a smoke-free and pet-free home. It’s often very painful to try and get the smoke out of furniture. 

Where To Find Furniture to Flip? 

There are many places where you can find quality pieces of furniture that you can flip later on. Some of the most popular places involve garage and yard sales. 

People will often decide to give away these pieces as long as someone is willing to take it and transport it to their own location. 

Here’s a list of places that you should consider when looking to buy a quality piece of furniture to flip: 

Best Furniture Tools & Supplies

Before you purchase any furniture piece, make sure you have the right equipment for this line of work. 

In a list below, you will find some tools & supplies that we feel are most needed: 

  • Paint Brushes
  • Sander
  • Rags
  • Paint Stripper
  • Staple Gun
  • Wood Glue
  • Drop Cloth
  • Chalk Paint & Brushes

How To Restore Old Furniture

Here’s the most fun part of doing this business. Keep in mind that this business is intended for those who enjoy doing this type of work. 

If you are already a hobbyist who is familiar with tools and supplies, and have done similar work, then flipping furniture is going to be ideal for you. 

However, if you are not that skillful and hate doing manual labor work, you might not find much success doing this line of business. 

Keep in mind that these skills are not that hard to learn – even if you don’t have much prior experience. 

There are many easy and standard fixes for common problems that happen with second hand furniture. 

New paint job is one that occurs most often – this can work wonders on an old dresser or an old chair. 

Oftentimes you’ll run into fixes that are incredibly easy to do – like tightening screws and fasteners. 

However, not all jobs will be as simple as that. Many will involve replacing wooden parts of furniture, and that usually includes recreating that wooden part on your own. 

It’s very important to scope out all of the potential problems and fixes you will need to make before you buy the furniture. Sometimes, even the highest quality furniture is best left unpurchased if you don’t think you are skilled enough to refurbish it. 

Here’s the most common process of restoring through repainting it:

  • Stripping the old paint –  The first step in restoring furniture is to strip away any old paint or stain. Keep in mind that this is only necessary if you are actually gonna paint the furniture again. If you feel like the piece looks incredibly good and doesn’t need any new paint, then this can obviously be skipped. 
  • Removing polish – Using the polish remover, you should neutralize the paint stripper. When buying a paint stripper, make sure you check what type of spirit or polish remover you might need. 
  • Check if it’s fully clean – Before moving forward, do a complete check to see if there’s any leftover paint or stains. If there is, make sure you redo the process. Once you completely remove the old paint, wipe the furniture off and let it dry for 24-48 hours. 
  • Smooth the wood – Using sandpaper, you will remove any spots that are rough. 
  • Apply new stain – Make sure you wipe away any surplus stain and let it dry for a day or two. 
  • Apply wax or oil – After the stain is completely dry, you can apply wax or oil as a finishing touch. This should give your furniture a nice shine to it. Again, the process here is simple. Once you apply the wax or oil, make sure you leave it dry. During this process, you can reapply wax and oil multiple times if you are targeting a shinier look, but just make sure you always wait for it to dry before reapplying. 

How Much Money Can You Make Flipping Furniture? 

There’s no limit in how much money you can make flipping furniture.

It all boils down to how successful you are going to be negotiating (when buying and selling), identifying valuable pieces and being able to restore them. 

Some people can make thousands of dollars each month, while some make a couple of hundreds.

A location and where you are will impact your earnings as well. Ideally, you should be located in a city with a bigger population because that will naturally land you a significantly higher number of opportunities. 

Flipping items has and always will be a profitable industry – some more than the others.

If you are looking for ones that turn bigger profit quicker, check out our guide on flipping cars for profit.

Where To Resell Furniture? 

Finding places to resell furniture is pretty much like finding places to buy them. Depending on how serious you want to turn this hustle into a business, there’s always an option of setting up business pages – Facebook and Instagram. 

You can also set up a website, and start advertising online or offline. 

Word of mouth is also going to be your friend. Once more people know you are buying and selling furniture, they will reach out to you on their own. 

Where most people focus their efforts are Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay or antique stores. For the first three, we advise you to make sure you take high quality pictures of your furniture. 

This can have a serious impact on how well you do in the sales department. 

For the antique stores, make sure you get your furniture into the popular ones that get many daily visitors. 

Best Furniture Flipping Tips

Here are some of the best furniture flipping tips that you should keep in mind. 

  • High quality photos. 
  • Don’t accept your first offer. 
  • Good negotiation skills
  • Promote your items
  • Lower your price initially to get more customers and get the word out. 
  • Charge for delivery
  • Have good listings. 

This is pretty much all we have regarding the best furniture flipping tips. Hopefully, by now, you have a good idea of what it takes to build a business buying and selling furniture for profit. 

If this doesn’t seem like a good idea, make sure you consider some online ventures. We have a great guide that will teach you how to earn Paypal money fast.