How To Make Gold Using Arbitrage In WotLK
Posted on June 27th, 2009 by Lawbringer under Alliance, Auction House, Efficiency Tips, Exploits, General Tips, Gold Building, Gold Farming, Horde, Low Level, Uncategorized, World of Warcraft, WotLKFinally; A Way To Make Arbitrage A Little … No … A LOT Easier:
A few days back I wrote an article about Getting a Low Level character to Booty Bay. Well the endeavor in question was Arbitrage. I have been using almost every other trick in the AH Mastery Guide, so I figured why not maximize my efforts?
I work ~60 hrs/week; and when I get home the last thing I want to do is work some more. I would much rather get to PLAY WoW instead of “working” (Farming and such non-sense) again. If I can buy something for 100g and turn around and sell it for 200, that’s 100g PROFIT in 5 minutes, that’s 1 whole night of raid repair bills (Ok, not quite … but you get the picture).
Arbitrage is Buying something from one faction and selling it for a profit to the other faction on the same server. To do that you need to use the Neutral Auction houses (Booty Bay: StrangleThorn Vale; Everlook: WinterSpring; Gadgetzan: Tanaris). Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale is the quickest, hands down. Especially since we’ve already covered how to get a level 1 Alliance toon down there with no sweat.
The most important thing to know about Neutral Auction House: They will take a 20% cut on your sale. So … you’ll want to list the item for 1 silver (or less) and buy it right away.
On Fenris, there are far more Alliance players then Horde, and that is the case with most servers. One faction will almost always have a much larger auction house than the other. Plus, prices for most items will vary between factions which means lots of opportunities for killer profits (you’ll have to use Auctioneer to get your server’s prices for both sides).
For Instance: Book of Glyph Mastery sells for 50-100g on Horde but on the Alliance side they list for 150-200g each. When I see things like this here’s what I do:
- Buy the Item with your Horde Bank toon and send it to your Horde Mule, sitting at the auction house in BB.
- Have the Mule List the item for 1 silver.
- Buy out that auction with your Alliance Mule in BB. Once the Alliance character has picked up the item out of the mailbox he can then …
- Send it to your Alliance Banker (sitting in Exodar of course) post that sucker for sale at the AH and voila … instant profit!
The way we set up Auctioneer you can find out what items are profitable for Arbitrage with one click of a button. That’s the true power of Gavin’s system. You can also turn right around and repeat the process with the Alliance toon selling things on the Horde side. In a matter of a few weeks you can have an enormous bankroll on both factions.
Now that you know – get out there and DOMINATE both sides of your server.
P.S. if you haven’t purchased the AH Mastery Guide for whatever reason, this is just one of many neat little tricks that it explains in far greater detail. Learn to EARN your money the smart way. Farming is for Farmers … I’d rather be a PLAYER not a Farmer.
*disclaimer–I have not tried this recently, but it was the case as of the launch of wrath*
I just wanted to clarify this strategy requires 2 accounts. You cannot buy your own auctions with any character on your own account, even if they are different factions.
Yes …
I thought I mentioned that in the article above but it seems to have been lost in the editing. You do need 2 accounts to do this alone or a trusted friend or guild member that can buy it right away …
The last thing you want is for someone else to buy your abyss crystal, dream shard, book or whatever else for 1 silver, so you got to be quick, dual box is best, but 2 instances of WoW logged into 2 different accounts at the same time works well for me (CPU permitting of course).
If you have enough REAL $ to pay for 2 accounts every month, why bother with this? For $20 per month you can set up to buy $3k – $5k gold per month depending on your server – even less time spent and more reliable too! And that is not even counting the $50k or so gold that you could have bought for all of those wow licenses and upgrades…
How about posts for “non-professionals” that don’t require multiple accounts and full time play?
wow… Great advice dude, instead of finding a clever way to earn gold, JUST BUY IT ALL FROM THE INTERNET, that’s what chicks dig now days, cheating.
I thought that you could not buy your own auctions.
PS: i would love to buy your guide but i don’t have money >.<
Is there a chance i could get it some other way. I’m already bugging my dad enough just to buy the 2 expansions for my second account(only have BC atm)
The other thing to watch is the really high deposit price that there is now, it can really sting. I used this method to move crafted items from my ally to horde, and a lvl 71 crafted item asks for a 10 gold deposit!
make sure you use the 12 hour AH option not the 24hr, the deposit is half
If you have plenty of gold (like there is such a thing) on both factions, you can also list items at a Very High price, giving you time to switch accounts. If someone Does buy it out (doubtful) you will Still have made a good profit. If all you cash is in one faction, list a common item at how ever much you want to transfer, and whala!
If you actually plan on buying out your auction for that ammount, just know thatthe neutral auction house will keep 20% so if you don’t mind losing that money, odds are that you don’t really need it.
Personally the only time I did that was fir start-up money and even then, I only transfered the bare minimum (~250gold)
Hello
I read ur aticle- it seems like a good way to make gold but if u have any other good ways i would like to know it bcause im having a hard time paying for my chants and gems….etc on my first 80(gotta get epics) and i even do not have my
epic flyer yet.
Yes. You can find all of our tricks in the Auction House Mastery Guide. Or you can surf through the archives and look for the rid bits like this one.
I’m pretty sure the Neutral AH takes a 15% cut, not 20%. Still a pretty steep price, especially when talking about big ticket items.
You could be right but I also remember the kickback being subject to faction reputation … 20% for neutral, 15% for friendly, 10% for honored, 5% for Revered and none for Exalted with booty bay.
Can someone confirm this?
Actually I work on 4 accounts, but that’s beside the point. The only situation that would require multiple accounts for arbitrage is on a PvP server. Even then, you can always have a friend help if you like. we do try to do a little something for everybody mon. That means a few for the pros and a few for the beginner to advanced, so just hang tight.
That’s why arbitrage works so well if you sell things to yourself for like 1-2 copper or silver. If you’ve got a ton of gold on one faction and are broke on the other you can just flip a few big ticket items to yourself from your rich banker and sell them on the poor one – without taking the 15% hit from the goblins.
This is very true and a tidbit I rarely think about. I try to keep about 500 to 1,000 on both of my BB mules for the deposits. But if you can remember to reset the auctions to 12 hour you can keep less gold in limbo. It doesn’t make a huge difference, it only ties up your gold for an hour. But if you’re trying to move a lot of items across it can be a pain to wait around if you run out of deposit coin.
haha i just made huge profit doing this.
I bought a huge load of wool cloth on Alliance AH for about 12-15s a piece, i then resold it on the horde ah for 45-50s a piece.
Im looking for some free advice for gold building and i gust reached lvl 80 and i am lost i cant git gear or any thing can some one help me with this problum????
Nothin in the world’s free, man. Personally, I own the AH mastery guide, and I’m in Dominate on the Fenris server. Everything in the guide is pure gold. Plain and simple.
I went from struggling with a level 74 toon, hassling and hustling to get every scrap of copper I could get out of my 2 professions (enchanting and inscription at the time). I’ve gotten used to what to look for on the AH as far as numbers, and so I decided to start my banking mule for some serious cash building. Great results!
Already, I’m free to spend play time levelling my now 79 pally and screwing around in northrend, and less time trying to ‘make’ money. Oh, and that level 1 undead priest I started as a banker? Yeah, he now sits in TB on a permanent basis raking in 800-1000G per day for about 20 mins of game time. Just buying and selling the right things. BTW: I started that bankroll with just 500G sent from my main.
Seriously, get the guide. Sell some comics, mow a few yards, wash a few cars. Whatever it takes. It’s well worth it.