Flipping Couches: Make a Couple Hundred Bucks THIS Weekend

One of my favorite topics is side hustles. And one of my favorite side hustles is flipping couches. My wife and I have been doing this for the past 6 or 8 months and it has gone really well! Let me show you our journey thus far and some different pointers that we can give you if you want to start flipping couches.

(1) Where do you get furniture?

There are a variety of places where you can obtain inventory. However, I use Facebook Marketplace most of the time. But there are more as well.

1. Facebook Marketplace
2. Offer Up
3. Estate Sales
4. Furniture thrown out on the curb
5. Yard sales
6. Craigslist

It doesn’t really matter where it comes from because you will only have the item(s) for a short period of time and you will be cleaning, fixing etc. the items anyway.

I usually look for items that are less than $75. That is my personal limit but I have known of other people like Ryan Pineda who routinely have spent $400-500 on a piece of furniture to resell for $2,000-3,000. 

I’ll get into what specific items that I look to flip later.

(2) What do you do when you get the furniture?

When you get the couch (or whatever piece of furniture you decide to flip), you will probably need to do a few things:

1. Vacuum it
2. Wash the cushions
3. Spot clean any stains
4. Trim off any loose threads
5. Sew up town parts
6. Paint the legs
7. Etc.

You won’t have to do each and every one of these steps to every couch that you flip but you will at least have to vacuum it and clean it up a little bit.

(3) What do you look for and what do you avoid?

First, let me say that in flipping couches, this is personal preference. But I personally look for sectionals and three seat couches.

I don’t like to flip lovesets or recliners. They just don’t sell as well in my experience and recliners have several moving pieces that can get messed up and I don’t have the time nor the desire to fix them.

I just stick to flipping couches. 

As far as what I avoid, that list is a little longer. 

I avoid:

1. Anything that smells like smoke (any type of smoke).
2. Any couch that has the corners destroyed by a cat.
3. Any crazy/weird colors.
4. Any couch that has been rained on.

I don’t worry about it if there is a hole in the cushion because I will sew it up again.

I don’t worry if there are some major stains, because I can probably get them out.

And I don’t worry if the house had pets, so long as the couch isn’t destroyed. I can clean the pet hair out.

Everyone is going to have some different standards. And that is completely fine. I have just decided that I don’t want to spend a lot of time on a couch and not make an awesome profit from it.

(4) How do you list the couch for sale?

I list pretty much all of the couches that we flip on Facebook Marketplace. In addition, I also list them (at the same time) on some various yard sale and for-sale Facebook pages in my local area.

When you are listing the couch it is important to do a few things well:

1. Take good pictures all around the couch including any up-close pictures of stains/rips/etc.
2. Have an accurate description of the couch including the dimensions.
   1. Also, specify what the dimensions are LxWxH so that way there is no ambiguity.
3. Offer delivery if you want.
4. Set the price to comparable to similar couches in your area and be prepared to take a negotiated offer sometimes.

I offer delivery for an extra fee in most cases. Usually the fee is an additional $25 to any REASONABLE distance. I will sometimes waive that fee if I have had the couch for a while in the garage though.

However, I do not deliver inside of someone’s house. I will deliver it to their driveway, porch, yard, etc. but I won’t go into their house. I have done that before and it is just weird sometimes. I don’t want to risk getting into a bad situation personally.

(5) What tools will you need for flipping couches?

You’ll need a few things to get started. We didn’t buy anything for our first couch flip though. We just used the things around our house. 

We used our vacuum, a bristle brush, and a pair of scissors. 

But we have leveled up a little over time and these are the items that we have purchased that have made our lives much easier.

1. A Bissell spot cleaner
2. A fabric shaver
3. A shop vac

Additionally, you’ll need a truck, SUV, or van to haul the couches as well as some ratchet straps to hold them down and a place to work on them (a garage, basement, spare room, etc.).

(6) How much money have you made?

This is the question that everyone wants to know. We have sold several couches now. But in our first two months we sold 7 couches for a total of $1,495. We spent a total of $95 on all of the couches. 

Here is a breakdown of the different couches that we sold in our first two months of flipping couches:

And after we purchased the shop vac, Bissel, and fabric shaver we have had a total profit of $1,291.

Not bad for spending about 2 hours on average per couch. That’s almost $100 per hour. 🙂

Final Thoughts

I’ll be honest. I was skeptical when my wife first told me that she wanted to start flipping couches. I thought that it sounded weird and not lucrative. 

BUT I WAS WRONG!

I really enjoy flipping couches. The money is pretty good and you get to hopefully keep the couch out of a landfill. 

If you have a pickup and a place to clean these couches up, try couch flipping. It can be a really great side hustle!

You can do this!

Until next time!