I try to neither be pessimistic or optimistic, but realistic.
I source from a lot of places. Estate Sales, Auctions, Garage Sales, etc.
I started doing this at the age of 14 under my parents account way back in 2007.
I used to go to auctions and fill up a car for under $100.
Farms started consolidating and the farm auctions dried up around 2009-2012.
Gone were the days of the entire household's contents being thrown into boxes and totes on 3-6 hay racks.
Did REALLY well on electronics since most in attendance were older folks. You'd also sometimes find a $100-$1000 item at the bottom of a tote. The auctioneers might of been lazy, but antiques wasn't their niche, it was land, tractors, implements, etc.
Was also one of the first people with a smartphone to be able to lookup sold comps.
Around 2014, as if someone flipped a massive switch, video games dried up. I went from finding as many as 20-30 classic systems (Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, etc) a year to 1-2.
In the same vain, personal computers dried up as well. Too many people didn't want their personal info somehow getting out there. Old school Apple computers are a rarity anymore as well.
The biggest hit was Covid. Half the auction companies in a 200 mile radius retired, the other half went online.
When they started taking credit cards and began shipping nationwide, prices skyrocketed. Most beforehand only took cash or check.
When I went to court a month ago over a bad landlord, there were TWO DOZEN people ahead of me who were being sued by credit card companies. Young adults being stupid? NOPE, all were 55-75 years old. Hoarding and buying junk from TV shows like QVC and Jewelry TV from what I heard from some. So I can imagine others are just buying en masse from online auctions too. Oh...if you are on social security or disability, they can't garnish your wages. They know they are "untouchable" and that is why they do it.
Thrift stores have became way more selective with what goes onto the floor and what goes online in the last 5 years. I can't blame resellers for this (some do, which is incorrect) as places like Goodwill have been selling on their own sites as well as eBay since 1999 or so. They have just become greedier doing this, as with pricing as well.
I'm not saying it's not impossible anymore, it's just increasingly becoming harder. I used to go to one sale or two and have enough for a week's worth of listings. Now I have to hit up 3-4 thrift stores, a dozen or so yard sales, 1-2 estate sales and 1-2 auctions a week just to make the same amount of sales.
Since pretty much everyone under the age of 50 is online, more and more gets looked up. More and more never makes it to various souring channels.
You also have a bit of wave of younger flippers muddying the waters, who often crash and burn because they see people with YouTube channels claiming to make a million a month selling Funko Pops and Vinyl Records, and don't realize 99% of these channels inflate their actual profitability for clicks and views. Some now are making more off their YT channels than flipping, so it makes it VERY easy to fudge numbers and make up sales for clicks.
