Let's start with my qualifications to write this guide. I make 300k-500k or more a day on the AH. That's profit, not total sales. The AH in Flight Rising is one of the easiest to make a profit on of any online multiplayer game I've tried. There is no fee for listing, no tax for gem sales, and a fairly low tax for treasure sales. There is no reason anyone should find it hard to earn currency in FR. You'll need to spend a little time learning the prices and putting what tell you here into practice, but anyone can do it. It's a lot more fun to be an Auction House Shark, than to be an Auction House Guppy. Let's get started.
Don't be a jerk.
There's a difference between something being underpriced and being obviously mispriced. If you spend time in the AH, you'll likely, at some point, come across an item that you know the lister meant to list for gems put listed for treasure instead. It's one thing if it's a relatively low loss. Let's face it, we're all going to do the same thing at some point. On the other hand, if the resulting loss would be enough that you'd be really unhappy if it happened to you, be a decent person and offer it back to the seller. You'll both have a nicer day because of it and you might make a friend.
Math is required.
You need to be able to do math either in your head or with a calculator. Very specifically you need to be able to convert between the gem and treasure eqivalents of prices. The current ratio is around 1:900. Thus 5 gems=4500 treasure. Being able to know the price of a listing in the other currency is a major key to knowing what to try to flip. If you buy for 5 gems and sell for 8500 treasure, you've made around 3k profit. You need to know when there are opportunities like that. You also need to be able to figure out the per item cost of full stacks whether they are selling for treasure or gems. If I can get a stack of 99 of something for 20k and then sell in smaller quantities for 500 each....well do the math. This is far easier with the new AH.
If you don't list it, it can't sell.
This may seem obvious, but I constantly see people complaining about not being able to make treasure when their hoard and vault are loaded with items they will never use, apparel they will never wear, eggs that will be worth 1/10th of their value once hatched, and skins and accents they no longer have dragons to wear. 90% of the items on the AH will be there in the future if you end up needing it again. Meanwhile, the currency you could make by selling it now will have grown many times by then. The AH does the work. All you have to do is list the items and collect your profits when it's convenient to you.
You won't always win.
In short, you will take losses sometimes. It's going to happen. If you follow this guide they won't be large losses. When it happens, use it to learn something and move on.
Risk is inevitable.
If you want to make money on the AH, you are going to have to take risks. Even as experienced at it as I am, I still sometimes have to take a deep breath, trust my knowledge and instincts, and go for it. Spending 100's of thousands on a piece of retired festival apparel that is underlisted (not mispriced) can still be tough even if everything I know tells me I'll be able to sell it in a day for a nice profit. As you get more confident, you'll feel better about taking the occasional large risk. You are going to mess up occasionally. You need to be able to say "Ok, that didn't work, I won't do that again." and continue on.
You have to spend to earn.
Whether it's buying items to flip, farming in the coli, or using gather turns, you have to spend something to get the items you'll be selling. Sometimes that's currency, sometimes it's time.
The lower your cost, the lower the risk.
There's a reason I love sniping and reselling items in the 4-7gem price range. The chances of a good profit are far higher than the chance of a serious loss. If the market goes flat, there's always Baldwin. Now if you buy an item for 30k and the market gets flooded and the low sell price drops to 15k, you're kind of stuck.
It's only an investment if you plan to sell it.
People talk about 'investing' in retired items like Sprites, old festival apparel, etc. The problem is they usually get one of any given item and they never sell. This is not an investment, it's a purchase. There's nothing wrong with making a purchase. The whole point of learning to make money on the AH is so you will be able to purchase the items you want, but you need to know the difference. The nice thing is that once you learn how to make treasure and gems, you don't have to lie to yourself about which it is because affording something nice won't be a source of stress.
Always Be Brewing!
Baldwin isn't really connected to the AH but the materials he makes are a good constant source of income when sold. Melt items for materials and only use alchemy to make items when you'll be away for longer periods (like to sleep). Most of the time these items aren't going to give you that great a return percentage where as the materials will. If there's not a festival going on, stick to apparel and familiars. The common mucks and slimes sell for a reasonable amount unlike goo, sludge, and ooze. During festivals, this can change. Pay attention. This is also why my favorite items to flip are apparel and familiars. I can snipe good deals for 3-6 gems, and if the market for something dries up, I can still melt it down and sell the result. If you're online, Baldwin should be working for you.
Don't trade with Swipp (or Pipp or Tripp)
Sell stuff to those trying to trade with them. I can't tell you how often I've made more selling the items people need for trades at that cart than the item in question costs off the AH. You have better things to do with your time than collecting 200 samples of Froboz Snot.
Sell all eggs.
I'm not joking. As soon as you hatch an egg and get that likely hideously colored Gen 1, it's now worth 1/10th of what it was as an egg. Short of hitting the lotto and getting an XXY or XXX, it'll be a typical Gen1 trash dragon. With the number of colors now, the chances of an XXY are much less and XXX's will be as rare as the rarest Kickstarter item. Start earning the good money and you'll be able to buy a nice colored Gen 1 and avoid all the random crap.
Never sell chests.
Well at least don't sell Rusted, Iron, and Gilded chests. If you know how to use the AH, the currency plus the items in these are almost always worth far more than the low market price for them. I regularly look for good deals on bulk stacks of these to buy, open, and sell the goodies inside. 100% profit or more isn't that hard if you get them for a low price.
Use 1 day listings as much as possible.
You want the item to sell. If you price it to sell it'll sell in a day, especially lower cost commodity items. If it doesn't, you can adjust the price and relist. If you list for 7 days and it sells in one, you just tripled your tax. If it doesn't sell in a day, you probably priced it wrong to begin with. Now for high cost items, you might want to use a 3 day listing. I never use a 7 day. It's too easy to have the market change to where your listing has no chance of selling, but you won't know it for a week.
Sell in convenient quantities.
Choose your stack size to be convenient to your buyer. If 200 of an item will be needed for Swipp, people aren't going to want to buy them a single item at a time. At the same time, people expect to pay less for bulk items so you may want to limit the size of the stacks you sell. If you're selling materials for alchemy, sell at least some stacks of the size needed. If three are needed sell some stacks of 3, 6, and maybe 9. Don't ignore stacks of 5 and 10 here. Some prefer to buy those and you want to accomodate them. Always list a few singles but don't go overboard.
Don't list too many duplicates.
You will encounter people who seem to think it's a great idea to list 50 stacks of 5 of something for 7 days. Aside from making that item a pain for customers to browse, it also guarantees they will be undercut continuously. There's no reason to list more than you'll sell in a day
Time is money.
This is why you want to price things to sell on the first listing. If an auction expires and you have to relist, you've spent the same time as you would have listing a new item to sell. It's also why there is a point where even if you can make a profit, the amount of profit just isn't worth the time. This also means items you get grinding in the coliseum aren't free. You've invested your time in them, the nice part is you get to set the rate you get paid for your time to a large extent.
Breaking even is worse than losing money.
First of all, you've wasted time on the listing (probably on multiple relisting.) The problem is you then want to tell yourself "Well, I didn't lose money so it's good." You did lose money. If you were trying to flip an item off the Marketplace or from the AH, you lost out on whatever profit you could have made on a better deal. The problem is you aren't nearly as likely to learn from it because hey, you broke even right?
Timing matters.
The busiest times for sales of materials from Baldwin's Caldron are from 9-10AM EST, Noon-1EST, and 10-midnight EST. People are more likely to start the making of longer items at these times. Apparel sells best in the late afternoon and evenings. You'll get more for adult fodder in the evening in a lot of cases. Also, pay attention to the expiration time of auctions. If the lowest priced item is going to expire in 30 minutes, then there's no reason to undercut that one, look at the next one in line that will not expire before the next busy time.
Avoid Cancel/Relist Fever
Especially when it comes to auctioning items from Apparel, Material and Other where you'll likely list multiple auctions, don't cancel and relist just because somebody undercuts by a small amount. It costs time and if it's an item that sells regularly, the buyers will get to yours. With the new AH sorting by price, it can make a little more sense to relist if the undercuts have gotten larger or if there are a lot of the item listed lower than yours.
Patience is a virtue.
Sometimes something weird happens with the market for a given item and you get stuck looking at a loss you don't want to take. If you are convinced it's a temporary downturn, hold onto the item. Check back a week later and see if anything has changed. You can't force a deal if the time is wrong. Everything is eventually in demand....well almost everything. Nobody ever wants Highnoon Hanks.
Know your market
Learn the usual price ranges of the items you'll be selling. This will clue you in on whether you need to do a major undercut back to what people will actually pay or maybe spot an opportunity in a listing that's way under usual market prices.
Your Participation in the Market Affects the Market
An occasional listing for something isn't going to appreciably affect prices long term, but if you start regularly flipping in a particular area, it will affect the overall prices. In general they will go down somewhat and stabilize in a much narrower range than they had been. This is good for you because you'll know what to buy more of that item for and when to clear undercuts to relist. It's also good for those who depend on those items (if it's an item for Alchemy or Swipp trading) since they may well be trying to make their own items to resell and they can then know what their costs are going to be. This is just something to be aware of and plan for.
Undercutting is good.
You have to do it. The trick is to know how much to do it by. It would seem at first that undercutting by 1 treasure is the way to go. That isn't necessarily the case. People don't like dealing with odd amounts of treasure. Try to end your undercuts in a zero. Thus undercut by 10, 100, 1000, etc. Now when it comes to how much to cut by, if the last several listings are in the same general range, then great, undercut by the unit that seems to make sense. Now if you got something for an extremely low price or from a drop in the coliseum, then you may wish to do a larger undercut in hopes of making a fast sale. If somebody whines to you about undercutting them, it means you're doing it right.
Money sooner is always worth more than money later.
Which would you rather be able to do? Buy an item for 6k and sell for 20k after a week or buy an item for 8k and sell for 14k but sell in 2 days? The first is ok certainly. The problem is that 6k is tied up for a whole week. In the second case you make less, but you get the profit much faster which then lets you re-invest in new items to sell which will allow you to earn that much more. Undercutting a bit more and having something sell right away is usually to your advantage in the long run. This is the reason I think retired items are poor investments. Sure they increase in value, but not nearly as fast as the amount they cost could if not locked up in said item.
Buy for gems, sell for treasure when it makes sense
That's because there's a lot more leeway in price when selling for treasure. You are more likely to find somebody selling something a bit too cheap because the next gem price up is a bit too high. Remember you can usually buy gems for treasure in the Items for Sale forum. This becomes more of a risk as the gem:treasure ratio climbs higher. Be careful and make sure the flip makes sense.
Don't hold large amounts of treasure.
The rate of inflation in the treasure:gem ratio means you should trade your treasure for gems as soon as you get any serious quantity. For me that's enough to buy 500 gems and have maybe 100-200k treasure in reserve for treasure purchases. As the ratio climbs there will be fewer gem sellers so you need to be ready to jump on offers or plan to spend the time running a buy thread.
Be very careful flipping items from the Marketplace.
This is where you really have to know the market. It's not just a matter of buying for less than the listed prices for that item. You need to know that that item actually sells in the first place. There are total dogs that maybe one person a month buys. You don't want to sink a bunch into something like that. That said, you can make a nice amount sniping the Marketplace If you know the items to grab. Sylvan gear, Wolf Capes, and silks are generally worth getting. If your flight has dom, spend more time doing it. Especially watch for deals on bundles that you can break up and sell the separate apparel pieces for a nice profit. This can take a while, but for some bundles it's worth doing.
Festivals
Festivals can be profitable provided you prepare. They aren't the currency generators they once were, but if you go in with a reasonable about of copper muck and grey slime, you can do well by brewing fest currency to buy the apparel and familiars to resell. Don't expect to make a mint doing this. Do not buy festival skins and accents to resell, there are so many players buying them now that the resell price is almost always lower than the purchase price. As a matter of fact, if you wait till the end or even a month or two, you can get any skins/accets you actually like at well less that the original 35k.
Guidelines for flipping Apparel.
There is a section for this because it's proven to be one of the most profitable areas of the AH for me. The following are from my own experience. They aren't set in stone, and you may find you can make a profit in areas I don't bother with.
If there are muliple colors of an apparel piece, usually the black, white, and red versions will be the most popular.
Wing, tail, and head apparel are usually the most popular in a given line.
Don't bother with Western themed apparel. Sure, there are some adorable dragons with Western apparel, but it's a limited market. Even the 'rare' versions of the apparel take forever to sell. Nobody wants Highnoon Hanks.
The same thing applies to desert themed apparel. Turbans, sashes, etc.
Likewise for Haoris and Warrior Face Masks.
Flair Scarves are great....on your dragons. As apparel to flip, they are far less desirable. There's a period of time after a reg window where they are profitable, otherwise I don't waste time.
Bows are for gifts, not dragons. Red Bows sell around Christmas and Valentines. Sparkly Blue Bows can sell decently, but usually take some time. The rest? Don't bother. The profit isn't very good and the sales rate is pretty bad. Once again, after a reg window you might be able to sell some.
Rogue's Gear. Be careful. The capes tend to sell well. The hoods can, The rest, well get them cheap if you're going to try. Dusk, Leather, and Crimson are usually the most popular.
Aviation Gear. Once again, this looks awesome on dragons and everyone ends up with a dragon or two with a set, but then they don't need any more. The coats and helmets sell well in general. Black, leather, white, and crimson would be the colors I'd focus on.
In short, check the items that are selling for 4,5,and 6 gems. See all those duplicate items. Guess what? Nobody wants those.
Now while you're checking, if you see something that doesn't fit in with the rest, that's when to check and see if it's an opportunity.
And now, the single thing I can promise you will make a regular profit on:
Buy fodder hatchlings, hold them until they become adults, sell them at adult fodder prices. It's that simple. Every empty slot in your lair could be earning you 15k-30k/month for no more effort than doing that. Once again, I almost always buy for 4-6 gems and sell for treasure. If you spend a little more time and cherry pick the hatchlings, you can relist the better ones during the time they are growing up for a nice markup. I always list these for gems, usually between 12 and 15. Occasionally there's one that's got especially nice genes and I try for 20. Don't be so fast to buy a load of 4 or 5 gem hatchlings. Check the age on them first and then check the age on the 6 gem ones (put 6 in the upper range and then search by price descending and it'll show the oldest first). If you can get a 4 or even 5 day old hatchling at 6 gems, it's far better than a 1 hour old at 4. The reason being you can flip two in the same time you'd normally take for one. This is a reason to do some lair purging and even to expand your lair. I figured this one out early and pushed to get a fully expanded lair which I did 4 months in. It's well past paying for itself. I make 50-100k a day profit doing this. Not bad for maybe 5 minutes time a day to do it. You better bet that as soon as there are more lair spaces available, I'll be maxing them out again.
Hibernal Den
This efectively gives you more lair slots because any dragons you keep for display only can be moved there, freeing up a laire slot to be used for flipping fodder. Consider you can buy 100 slots for 50 gems which is an absolute bargain. Obviously if lair expansions are cheaper than 250kT for you, get the expansions first.
I hope this helps some of you enjoy the game more by having the funds to do what you want. Good luck
Don't be a jerk.
There's a difference between something being underpriced and being obviously mispriced. If you spend time in the AH, you'll likely, at some point, come across an item that you know the lister meant to list for gems put listed for treasure instead. It's one thing if it's a relatively low loss. Let's face it, we're all going to do the same thing at some point. On the other hand, if the resulting loss would be enough that you'd be really unhappy if it happened to you, be a decent person and offer it back to the seller. You'll both have a nicer day because of it and you might make a friend.
Math is required.
You need to be able to do math either in your head or with a calculator. Very specifically you need to be able to convert between the gem and treasure eqivalents of prices. The current ratio is around 1:900. Thus 5 gems=4500 treasure. Being able to know the price of a listing in the other currency is a major key to knowing what to try to flip. If you buy for 5 gems and sell for 8500 treasure, you've made around 3k profit. You need to know when there are opportunities like that. You also need to be able to figure out the per item cost of full stacks whether they are selling for treasure or gems. If I can get a stack of 99 of something for 20k and then sell in smaller quantities for 500 each....well do the math. This is far easier with the new AH.
If you don't list it, it can't sell.
This may seem obvious, but I constantly see people complaining about not being able to make treasure when their hoard and vault are loaded with items they will never use, apparel they will never wear, eggs that will be worth 1/10th of their value once hatched, and skins and accents they no longer have dragons to wear. 90% of the items on the AH will be there in the future if you end up needing it again. Meanwhile, the currency you could make by selling it now will have grown many times by then. The AH does the work. All you have to do is list the items and collect your profits when it's convenient to you.
You won't always win.
In short, you will take losses sometimes. It's going to happen. If you follow this guide they won't be large losses. When it happens, use it to learn something and move on.
Risk is inevitable.
If you want to make money on the AH, you are going to have to take risks. Even as experienced at it as I am, I still sometimes have to take a deep breath, trust my knowledge and instincts, and go for it. Spending 100's of thousands on a piece of retired festival apparel that is underlisted (not mispriced) can still be tough even if everything I know tells me I'll be able to sell it in a day for a nice profit. As you get more confident, you'll feel better about taking the occasional large risk. You are going to mess up occasionally. You need to be able to say "Ok, that didn't work, I won't do that again." and continue on.
You have to spend to earn.
Whether it's buying items to flip, farming in the coli, or using gather turns, you have to spend something to get the items you'll be selling. Sometimes that's currency, sometimes it's time.
The lower your cost, the lower the risk.
There's a reason I love sniping and reselling items in the 4-7gem price range. The chances of a good profit are far higher than the chance of a serious loss. If the market goes flat, there's always Baldwin. Now if you buy an item for 30k and the market gets flooded and the low sell price drops to 15k, you're kind of stuck.
It's only an investment if you plan to sell it.
People talk about 'investing' in retired items like Sprites, old festival apparel, etc. The problem is they usually get one of any given item and they never sell. This is not an investment, it's a purchase. There's nothing wrong with making a purchase. The whole point of learning to make money on the AH is so you will be able to purchase the items you want, but you need to know the difference. The nice thing is that once you learn how to make treasure and gems, you don't have to lie to yourself about which it is because affording something nice won't be a source of stress.
Always Be Brewing!
Baldwin isn't really connected to the AH but the materials he makes are a good constant source of income when sold. Melt items for materials and only use alchemy to make items when you'll be away for longer periods (like to sleep). Most of the time these items aren't going to give you that great a return percentage where as the materials will. If there's not a festival going on, stick to apparel and familiars. The common mucks and slimes sell for a reasonable amount unlike goo, sludge, and ooze. During festivals, this can change. Pay attention. This is also why my favorite items to flip are apparel and familiars. I can snipe good deals for 3-6 gems, and if the market for something dries up, I can still melt it down and sell the result. If you're online, Baldwin should be working for you.
Don't trade with Swipp (or Pipp or Tripp)
Sell stuff to those trying to trade with them. I can't tell you how often I've made more selling the items people need for trades at that cart than the item in question costs off the AH. You have better things to do with your time than collecting 200 samples of Froboz Snot.
Sell all eggs.
I'm not joking. As soon as you hatch an egg and get that likely hideously colored Gen 1, it's now worth 1/10th of what it was as an egg. Short of hitting the lotto and getting an XXY or XXX, it'll be a typical Gen1 trash dragon. With the number of colors now, the chances of an XXY are much less and XXX's will be as rare as the rarest Kickstarter item. Start earning the good money and you'll be able to buy a nice colored Gen 1 and avoid all the random crap.
Never sell chests.
Well at least don't sell Rusted, Iron, and Gilded chests. If you know how to use the AH, the currency plus the items in these are almost always worth far more than the low market price for them. I regularly look for good deals on bulk stacks of these to buy, open, and sell the goodies inside. 100% profit or more isn't that hard if you get them for a low price.
Use 1 day listings as much as possible.
You want the item to sell. If you price it to sell it'll sell in a day, especially lower cost commodity items. If it doesn't, you can adjust the price and relist. If you list for 7 days and it sells in one, you just tripled your tax. If it doesn't sell in a day, you probably priced it wrong to begin with. Now for high cost items, you might want to use a 3 day listing. I never use a 7 day. It's too easy to have the market change to where your listing has no chance of selling, but you won't know it for a week.
Sell in convenient quantities.
Choose your stack size to be convenient to your buyer. If 200 of an item will be needed for Swipp, people aren't going to want to buy them a single item at a time. At the same time, people expect to pay less for bulk items so you may want to limit the size of the stacks you sell. If you're selling materials for alchemy, sell at least some stacks of the size needed. If three are needed sell some stacks of 3, 6, and maybe 9. Don't ignore stacks of 5 and 10 here. Some prefer to buy those and you want to accomodate them. Always list a few singles but don't go overboard.
Don't list too many duplicates.
You will encounter people who seem to think it's a great idea to list 50 stacks of 5 of something for 7 days. Aside from making that item a pain for customers to browse, it also guarantees they will be undercut continuously. There's no reason to list more than you'll sell in a day
Time is money.
This is why you want to price things to sell on the first listing. If an auction expires and you have to relist, you've spent the same time as you would have listing a new item to sell. It's also why there is a point where even if you can make a profit, the amount of profit just isn't worth the time. This also means items you get grinding in the coliseum aren't free. You've invested your time in them, the nice part is you get to set the rate you get paid for your time to a large extent.
Breaking even is worse than losing money.
First of all, you've wasted time on the listing (probably on multiple relisting.) The problem is you then want to tell yourself "Well, I didn't lose money so it's good." You did lose money. If you were trying to flip an item off the Marketplace or from the AH, you lost out on whatever profit you could have made on a better deal. The problem is you aren't nearly as likely to learn from it because hey, you broke even right?
Timing matters.
The busiest times for sales of materials from Baldwin's Caldron are from 9-10AM EST, Noon-1EST, and 10-midnight EST. People are more likely to start the making of longer items at these times. Apparel sells best in the late afternoon and evenings. You'll get more for adult fodder in the evening in a lot of cases. Also, pay attention to the expiration time of auctions. If the lowest priced item is going to expire in 30 minutes, then there's no reason to undercut that one, look at the next one in line that will not expire before the next busy time.
Avoid Cancel/Relist Fever
Especially when it comes to auctioning items from Apparel, Material and Other where you'll likely list multiple auctions, don't cancel and relist just because somebody undercuts by a small amount. It costs time and if it's an item that sells regularly, the buyers will get to yours. With the new AH sorting by price, it can make a little more sense to relist if the undercuts have gotten larger or if there are a lot of the item listed lower than yours.
Patience is a virtue.
Sometimes something weird happens with the market for a given item and you get stuck looking at a loss you don't want to take. If you are convinced it's a temporary downturn, hold onto the item. Check back a week later and see if anything has changed. You can't force a deal if the time is wrong. Everything is eventually in demand....well almost everything. Nobody ever wants Highnoon Hanks.
Know your market
Learn the usual price ranges of the items you'll be selling. This will clue you in on whether you need to do a major undercut back to what people will actually pay or maybe spot an opportunity in a listing that's way under usual market prices.
Your Participation in the Market Affects the Market
An occasional listing for something isn't going to appreciably affect prices long term, but if you start regularly flipping in a particular area, it will affect the overall prices. In general they will go down somewhat and stabilize in a much narrower range than they had been. This is good for you because you'll know what to buy more of that item for and when to clear undercuts to relist. It's also good for those who depend on those items (if it's an item for Alchemy or Swipp trading) since they may well be trying to make their own items to resell and they can then know what their costs are going to be. This is just something to be aware of and plan for.
Undercutting is good.
You have to do it. The trick is to know how much to do it by. It would seem at first that undercutting by 1 treasure is the way to go. That isn't necessarily the case. People don't like dealing with odd amounts of treasure. Try to end your undercuts in a zero. Thus undercut by 10, 100, 1000, etc. Now when it comes to how much to cut by, if the last several listings are in the same general range, then great, undercut by the unit that seems to make sense. Now if you got something for an extremely low price or from a drop in the coliseum, then you may wish to do a larger undercut in hopes of making a fast sale. If somebody whines to you about undercutting them, it means you're doing it right.
Money sooner is always worth more than money later.
Which would you rather be able to do? Buy an item for 6k and sell for 20k after a week or buy an item for 8k and sell for 14k but sell in 2 days? The first is ok certainly. The problem is that 6k is tied up for a whole week. In the second case you make less, but you get the profit much faster which then lets you re-invest in new items to sell which will allow you to earn that much more. Undercutting a bit more and having something sell right away is usually to your advantage in the long run. This is the reason I think retired items are poor investments. Sure they increase in value, but not nearly as fast as the amount they cost could if not locked up in said item.
Buy for gems, sell for treasure when it makes sense
That's because there's a lot more leeway in price when selling for treasure. You are more likely to find somebody selling something a bit too cheap because the next gem price up is a bit too high. Remember you can usually buy gems for treasure in the Items for Sale forum. This becomes more of a risk as the gem:treasure ratio climbs higher. Be careful and make sure the flip makes sense.
Don't hold large amounts of treasure.
The rate of inflation in the treasure:gem ratio means you should trade your treasure for gems as soon as you get any serious quantity. For me that's enough to buy 500 gems and have maybe 100-200k treasure in reserve for treasure purchases. As the ratio climbs there will be fewer gem sellers so you need to be ready to jump on offers or plan to spend the time running a buy thread.
Be very careful flipping items from the Marketplace.
This is where you really have to know the market. It's not just a matter of buying for less than the listed prices for that item. You need to know that that item actually sells in the first place. There are total dogs that maybe one person a month buys. You don't want to sink a bunch into something like that. That said, you can make a nice amount sniping the Marketplace If you know the items to grab. Sylvan gear, Wolf Capes, and silks are generally worth getting. If your flight has dom, spend more time doing it. Especially watch for deals on bundles that you can break up and sell the separate apparel pieces for a nice profit. This can take a while, but for some bundles it's worth doing.
Festivals
Festivals can be profitable provided you prepare. They aren't the currency generators they once were, but if you go in with a reasonable about of copper muck and grey slime, you can do well by brewing fest currency to buy the apparel and familiars to resell. Don't expect to make a mint doing this. Do not buy festival skins and accents to resell, there are so many players buying them now that the resell price is almost always lower than the purchase price. As a matter of fact, if you wait till the end or even a month or two, you can get any skins/accets you actually like at well less that the original 35k.
Guidelines for flipping Apparel.
There is a section for this because it's proven to be one of the most profitable areas of the AH for me. The following are from my own experience. They aren't set in stone, and you may find you can make a profit in areas I don't bother with.
If there are muliple colors of an apparel piece, usually the black, white, and red versions will be the most popular.
Wing, tail, and head apparel are usually the most popular in a given line.
Don't bother with Western themed apparel. Sure, there are some adorable dragons with Western apparel, but it's a limited market. Even the 'rare' versions of the apparel take forever to sell. Nobody wants Highnoon Hanks.
The same thing applies to desert themed apparel. Turbans, sashes, etc.
Likewise for Haoris and Warrior Face Masks.
Flair Scarves are great....on your dragons. As apparel to flip, they are far less desirable. There's a period of time after a reg window where they are profitable, otherwise I don't waste time.
Bows are for gifts, not dragons. Red Bows sell around Christmas and Valentines. Sparkly Blue Bows can sell decently, but usually take some time. The rest? Don't bother. The profit isn't very good and the sales rate is pretty bad. Once again, after a reg window you might be able to sell some.
Rogue's Gear. Be careful. The capes tend to sell well. The hoods can, The rest, well get them cheap if you're going to try. Dusk, Leather, and Crimson are usually the most popular.
Aviation Gear. Once again, this looks awesome on dragons and everyone ends up with a dragon or two with a set, but then they don't need any more. The coats and helmets sell well in general. Black, leather, white, and crimson would be the colors I'd focus on.
In short, check the items that are selling for 4,5,and 6 gems. See all those duplicate items. Guess what? Nobody wants those.
Now while you're checking, if you see something that doesn't fit in with the rest, that's when to check and see if it's an opportunity.
And now, the single thing I can promise you will make a regular profit on:
Buy fodder hatchlings, hold them until they become adults, sell them at adult fodder prices. It's that simple. Every empty slot in your lair could be earning you 15k-30k/month for no more effort than doing that. Once again, I almost always buy for 4-6 gems and sell for treasure. If you spend a little more time and cherry pick the hatchlings, you can relist the better ones during the time they are growing up for a nice markup. I always list these for gems, usually between 12 and 15. Occasionally there's one that's got especially nice genes and I try for 20. Don't be so fast to buy a load of 4 or 5 gem hatchlings. Check the age on them first and then check the age on the 6 gem ones (put 6 in the upper range and then search by price descending and it'll show the oldest first). If you can get a 4 or even 5 day old hatchling at 6 gems, it's far better than a 1 hour old at 4. The reason being you can flip two in the same time you'd normally take for one. This is a reason to do some lair purging and even to expand your lair. I figured this one out early and pushed to get a fully expanded lair which I did 4 months in. It's well past paying for itself. I make 50-100k a day profit doing this. Not bad for maybe 5 minutes time a day to do it. You better bet that as soon as there are more lair spaces available, I'll be maxing them out again.
Hibernal Den
This efectively gives you more lair slots because any dragons you keep for display only can be moved there, freeing up a laire slot to be used for flipping fodder. Consider you can buy 100 slots for 50 gems which is an absolute bargain. Obviously if lair expansions are cheaper than 250kT for you, get the expansions first.
I hope this helps some of you enjoy the game more by having the funds to do what you want. Good luck
