Good Afternoon from the far east!

 

Long time maker (model maker, prop builder, Lego creator, etc.) that read a news article last year about Lego sets being investment worthy while I was on deployment and had tons of free time on my hands. After reading some more articles and finding out that there is a real community of folks buying and selling Lego for money, I got even more interested. I bought a couple sets about a year ago that are now sitting and collecting dust in my closet, hoping for the day they jump in value. I have some questions though...

 

How long does it normally take for a set to increase in value enough to justify selling it off? I am extremely impatient and limited on space, lol, I didn't quite plan this when I bought these sets and didnt realize how large they would be. I currently have 2x Sydney Opera Houses, 2 Big Ben's and the Ghostbusters Fire House Headquarters that I am waiting for the right time to part with. I also have a spare Saturn V which was just released a few months back which I'm hoping space nerds are going to go nuts for as soon as it retires.

Wow... posted on Sunday and still no help here? Jeez guys... can't help out a noob?  My 2 cents... How long does it take to make a profit?  As long as it takes  . Seriously tho, Nothing really appreciates until it retires.  Your S.O.H. is the only one that is retired, and is still struggling around $360 on eBay (probably still selling at a loss if you paid retail).  This set was around so long, there are quite a few out there in reseller hands, keeping the price down... but hopefully it will improve in the next year?

Frankly, reseller interest in large, expensive exclusive sets like the first 3 on your list has declined greatly.  There are simply too many "investors" and not enough buyers for sets like these nowadays.  They are expensive, they take up a lot of space, and take a long time to turn a profit. Most smart brickvestors have moved to smaller sets which can often be bought at good discounts, and be resold within a year or two at 50% to 100% profit (or more).  Of course... when the herd moves one way, opportunities can dry up, and the pendulum may swing back to big exclusives again... no one knows for sure.

If I were you (impatient, and with little storage space) I would dump all of my inventory for whatever price I could get, chalk up the losses as "lessons learned" and start over.

Long term Lego investing is over for the most part, esp in large sets. Capitalizing on short term shortages & loading up on smaller sets at a large discount is the best way to make money these days. High volume retail arbitrage, or QFLL  

Unfortunately investing in Lego and being impatient don't mix. There are many people doing the same thing, so the market is saturated for some sets. If you sell now, you lose money but free up space and money. Otherwise, lock them away and forget about them. Maybe in another year or so things will be better. Those articles are very deceiving. A lot of people got hooked because of the same thing (myself included).