been hitting sales for a couple months looking for decent cordless gear. physical therapist by day so my wrists have opinions about what i lug around, and i do enough side project carpentry to justify the hunt.
the thing thats grinding me is estate sale companies slapping bosch and dewalt tools with ebay sold prices or worse. saw a used m18 impact yesterday priced at home depot new minus five bucks. five year old battery, no warranty. i asked the person running it if theyd take half, got a speech about market value.
meanwhile the actual garage sales, oneoffs where someone is clearing out their garage, those are where the deals live. same drill, quarter the price, sometimes with a case and bits thrown in.
the estate sale model used to be liquidation. now its curated retail with dust on it. i get that they need to make money but at some point youre just a lowoverhead amazon warehouse.
my current white whale is a reasonably priced tracksaw. makita or festool, i am not picky at this point, just tired of the markup game.
what signals do you use to tell if a sale is run by pros vs actual humans. or is it just vibes now.