Resale?

[Jim Brennan]

We were planning on using one of these for an upcoming shoot. Since we need one for about 4 weeks, the rental price is approaching 10k. That's almost half the purchase price.

So we were thinking of buying one and selling when we are done. Assuming that nobody sits on it, anybody have a clue what we could get for it when we are done? We'll be buying one of the B&H packages with a Canon lens without the doubler, and probably that 2K chrosziel Mattebox/followfocus with it, so our initial purchase will be around 25K

I'm not asking for offers, just best guesses. I'm having a hard time finding these used at the moment (which could be good when we sell), but I can't really guage what we might get.

Thanks for any help.

Jim

[HVXguy]

You may have to do more than one shoot to justify buying vs. renting.
Renting would be a complete write-off for the production.
You would have to wait 3 years to fully depreciate a purchase.
But if you bought for $25,000 you might be able to sell it
for $20,000 if you kept in perfect shape. You might look at
parting it out to make more money. 16 gig cards are in demand
so you could probably sell them at full retail.

[Jim Brennan]

I'm not sure I follow you.

If I buy for 25, sell for 20 (or more) my out of pocket expense is only 5K instead of 10K for rental. How does depreciation enter the picture?


Just want to make sure I understand all sides of this.

[HVXguy]

I am not an accountant, but my accountant always says -"If you are
not going to hold on to a piece of equipment for more than 3 years
you are better off renting or leasing." She says - if you buy a piece
of equipment you can depreciate the costs over 3 years. Some
equipment you can do in one year. So if you bought it for
$25,000 and sold it for $20,000 yes you are out the $5,000
if you can sell it for that much. You just have to watch the books,
if you pay for it as a business expense it gets put on the books,
but it is not an expendable item in the eyes of the IRS.
So if you sold it immediately you would not be able to deduct the
expense, but you would have to pay taxes on the $20,000 sale.
So the $5,000 you may have paid may actually cost you $7,500....
And don't forget insurance....
I know it all sounds stupid but that is why my accountant gets
paid the big bucks and keepd us out of the ditch.

[Jim Brennan]

Good to know. Any acconutants here that can weigh in on this?

I took the 3 years depreciation on my DVX, but when I bought my new editing set-up I took it as a single purchase expense.

Dang, this is confusing.

[smelni]

I dont think this is correct - you can take a special depreciation on camera gear in the first year for up to the total.

And if you puchase it is an expense - if you sell its income - i dont think its more complicated then that - buy for 25K - sell for 20K - you only get 5K of writeoff

[joe 1008]

What´s about leasing? I don´t know the actual offers but with an inicial payment of more or less 5000$ I think you could get the camera and you could try to keep it by earning the following rates with the camera itself.