Two years flipping laptops

It started with a laptop I didn't want

After my PC was stolen, my uncle gave me a gaming laptop. I preferred a PC, so I sold it and built one.

Selling it showed me there was a margin in used laptops if you bought and sold at the right price, so I started doing it regularly.

The good start

The first one was a Lenovo ThinkPad E470. I bought it for 180 dollars, spent 20 on it, and sold it for 500.

Then a gaming laptop, an Acer Aspire Nitro 5: bought for 500, sold for 758.

And the best one of all, an HP Pavilion: bought for 306, sold 14 days later for 704.

I kept every deal in a spreadsheet.

The numbers

Cost includes repairs and parts. All figures in US dollars.

Fifteen deals. 4,999 dollars in, 5,787 out. 788 dollars of profit, a 15.8% return over two and a half years.

What the spreadsheet says

• Holding is expensive. Everything I held for more than a year lost money, except the Nitro 5. The best deal of all sold in 14 days.
• 2024 was the good year. Counting by the date I sold, I made 300 dollars in 2023, 656 in 2024, and lost 168 in 2025.
• Repairs eat margins. The worst deal was an HP Pavilion that needed 330 dollars of work. I sold it at a 253 dollar loss.
• Not everything was a laptop. There's a Nintendo Switch in there. It sat for 822 days and lost 15 dollars.

Why I stopped

I stopped after a laptop repair technician scammed me.

I was also working full time, studying at night and moving into data. In two and a half years the laptops made me 788 dollars, and that time was worth more spent on my career.

I don't regret it. I learned to price, to negotiate and to keep track of everything.