Hello, I've added nearly all of my investing sets into BrickFolio, a really nice feature.

Can I confirm the prices used are 'sold' prices and not 'going rate' prices, and if these prices are calculated from worldwide sales or those just is the USA?

As an active buyer, and one who is keen to be a value buyer, I'm finding a discrepancy between the prices on BrickFolio and the prices commonly asked – somewhere in the order of 25-35% usually, but can be as high as 200%. Don't get me wrong, I agree that 'sold' prices are a much more valuable tool for valuations that asking prices, but that would depend on if it was country-specific data collection. In general, almost certainly because of volume, availability and demand, US prices are lower than UK/European prices.

For example, I own 70810, which is valued by BrickFolio at £181.40 as I write. This is only marginally above the original retail price. If anyone in the EU is selling one of these for that price I would snap it up immediately. But they aren't. Sold prices in the UK for these sets are typically £250-260 – even a used set sold for over £200 at the end of January.

So, my questions are:
In which country are prices calculated and by what method?
Are they averaged across the world?
How often are they updated and in which periods?

I have listed 39 sets so far with a total BrickFolio valuation of £1498.76 – this is about £500 short of my own valuation.

Again, I must clarify, this is not a complaint, but more of a clarification.

Thanks, Steve

Questions I hadn't asked for fear of appearing to be complaining too! I've stopped using the Brickfolio

Ha! Maybe I have no fear because I'm new (and confused).

For example, my buying thread in the Classifieds section was locked, but a little further down there is someone who is actively selling in their thread. The more I look, the more examples there are, in fact.

In a very rough calculation there seems to be more general sellers than there are buyers. As an active buyer I would have thought I would have been seen to be more favourable. By hey, I'm absolutely not complaining, just getting the hang of the rules and procedures – complicated though they are!

Steve

25 minutes ago, ThemeCollector said:

Hello, I've added nearly all of my investing sets into BrickFolio, a really nice feature.

Can I confirm the prices used are 'sold' prices and not 'going rate' prices, and if these prices are calculated from worldwide sales or those just is the USA?

As an active buyer, and one who is keen to be a value buyer, I'm finding a discrepancy between the prices on BrickFolio and the prices commonly asked – somewhere in the order of 25-35% usually, but can be as high as 200%. Don't get me wrong, I agree that 'sold' prices are a much more valuable tool for valuations that asking prices, but that would depend on if it was country-specific data collection. In general, almost certainly because of volume, availability and demand, US prices are lower than UK/European prices.

For example, I own 70810, which is valued by BrickFolio at £181.40 as I write. This is only marginally above the original retail price. If anyone in the EU is selling one of these for that price I would snap it up immediately. But they aren't. Sold prices in the UK for these sets are typically £250-260 – even a used set sold for over £200 at the end of January.

So, my questions are:
In which country are prices calculated and by what method?
Are they averaged across the world?
How often are they updated and in which periods?

I have listed 39 sets so far with a total BrickFolio valuation of £1498.76 – this is about £500 short of my own valuation.

Again, I must clarify, this is not a complaint, but more of a clarification.

Thanks, Steve

The last update was the end of December, so the prices were accurate then.  The prices when calculated and updated are averages over the past one to two months, so even after an update there's still a variance. To make sure your brickfolio is showing you the correct prices, you need to set its currency to gbp,. That way you get average sales prices off uk sales.

Your Brickfolio can be customized a bit to your region. You can set your pricing guide to be in USD (US/CAN ebay market), BPS[is that even correct?] (UK ebay market), Euro (EU ebay market) and AUD (Australia ebay market). 

Yes, the values listed are averages of Sold listings in the specified market chosen. Occasionally there will be some outliers that get lumped in like bulk sales or parted out sets which can throw values out. If you note these in the main Brickfolio thread, Jeff usually looks into the data and removes the outlier culprits on the quick. 

That said, the Brickfolio is usually updated monthly, sometimes less frequently even due to other obligations like website updates and streamlining. We haven't seen an update since December. Jeff notified everyone that data was being compiled for January sales about a week ago, so keep an eye on your brickfolio and the numbers should update soon! 

Good question(s), I was in the same boat and came across your post here searching the forums for the Q&A on it.

@Seeyounexttuesday (or anyone who may know) - does that mean that the currency you select drives the sales *in that currency*, or *in that currency's domestic market*?  For instance, if I select USD, does that mean it shows me US-only sales, or any sales (globally) where the seller's listing price was in USD?  I suspect that may have been more to the crux of Steve's question there...

Also of interest would be if "shipping & handling" are included in that value appraisal figure.

Thanks for any insights, on behalf of a "longtime lurker, recent member, serious builder, smalltime investor".  Love this site and the tools are invaluable, just the analytics geek in me hoping to gain some increased definition on the precise definitions of the figures I'm seeing 

Edited February 9, 201610 yr by AirborneAFOL
Format

Thanks both. That clarifies it a bit for me. Now that I know it's a manual job and not automated that certainly explains some of the issues.

Just FYI I have set my currency to Sterling.

Thanks, Steve

9 minutes ago, AirborneAFOL said:

Good question(s), I was in the same boat and came across your post here searching the forums for the Q&A on it.

@Seeyounexttuesday (or anyone who may know) - does that mean that the currency you select drives the sales *in that currency*, or *in that currency's domestic market*?  For instance, if I select USD, does that mean it shows me US-only sales, or any sales (globally) where the seller's listing price was in USD?  I suspect that may have been more to the crux of Steve's question there...

Also of interest would be if "shipping & handling" are included in that value appraisal figure.

Thanks for any insights, on behalf of a "longtime lurker, recent member, serious builder, smalltime investor".  Love this site and the tools are invaluable, just the analytics geek in me hoping to gain some increased definition on the precise definitions of the figures I'm seeing 

I think so yes. If you select usd as currency, Then the values you get should be based on us sales only. Euro = Europe sales,  aud =  aus sales etc.

 

I'm unsure if shipping is included or not.