It makes sense intuitively that heavy appliances would be the most profitable. People don't say, "sure you can have my iPod for $20" but I could see them being willing to part with a washing machine for that price if someone would carry it out of their third story apartment.
Yes. They will take a lesser fraction of the value in cash when there is a positive value in getting rid of it. Small items are easy to get rid of anyway (you could just throw it in the trash), and if they have value they may be willing to store them and wait.
My overall reaction to the article, though, was that he's doing a fair amount of work for a pretty so-so return, and it looks hard to scale it upwards. (That $1,000 for the week doesn't come with any fringe benefits, like insurance.)
$1000 per week is actually quite good, remember this guy was unemployed and was getting occasional construction jobs so he didn't have any money and insurance in the first place. The experience he is gaining running a successful business also has a lot of value. I know a similar guy who started dealing in used items, after working for 25 years he is one of the biggest antique and scrap metal dealer in town.
It definitely will take a lot of work to scale it, but I think it can be done. I could probably be watching 3-4 cities at a time fairly easily. Portland has a very active Craigslist community and I have a lot of down time waiting for new ads to come up. On the other hand, if I'm always at the computer, I lose a good chunk of profit on items I have someone else pickup, so I have to increase volume to make up for it, which is not always easy. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, as this is my main hurdle I'm facing right now.
I'd say that a netbook with 3g internet would be a worthwhile investment, so you could check for new deals even while your out on the job. Then you'd always have your next destination, you could plan routes efficiently, etc.
I have a 7" samsung galaxy tab with built in 3g from verizon. I also have a dash mount so I use it as a gps as well as to pull up emails, addresses and listings on the fly. It also acts as a hot spot to give internet to my laptop when I'm traveling.
Couldn't you make some application which scrapes Craigslist every 5 minutes and detects newly posted items, maybe filter them on some criteria, and SMS them to your phone?
The CL app can do that for you. Say, you save a search for "refrigerator" in a certain area, in the "Free" category, the app would notify you (it puts a # on the top bar of your phone) letting you know there's a new listing for "refrigerator". Same thing for "roommate" or "carpenter" jobs, etc.
It's pretty cool, wish I've known this app when I was looking for a free carpet.
Interestingly enough, just last month, I bought on CL and sold a pair of girl's snowboard boots for $15 more in a matter of 4 days. Mostly because I really didn't want it.I was just practicing on my selling skills. I'm more inspired after reading this.
Median income in the West in 2010 was $53K, according to the Census Bureau (via Wikipedia), and since "the West" includes California I'm betting it's lower in Portland. Considering he says he's only working 25 hours a week, 1,000 a week is pretty darn good, even if he does have to pay for health insurance.
I have a really solid aluminum hand truck with stair skids on it. Most appliances weigh less than 250 lbs (I would guess average would be 175-200 lbs) and I'm able to move even the heavier ones up and down stairs by myself (not always easy!) It can be pretty physically demanding work sometimes, and I will ask questions to find out how difficult it might be to remove/deliver an appliance and bring help if I need it.
