The secret to earning a very healthy income is to use these short ads to match buyer and seller. The key is speedy response - you must be prepared to connect buyer and seller in short order, before they can meet up with each other without your help. If you enjoy swift action and the thrill of the chase, this can be a lucrative sport.

Working among the classified ads is almost like doing the work of a private investigator, but you're searching for clues about what people have, or what they want. Often this is clear from a tiny ad unless you know have trained yourself to read between the lines.

Keep in mind that at the same time you're arranging deals, you're trying to build your reputation as someone who knows what's out there. You especially want to build a stable of buyers who are always in the market for certain items. Your margin in arranging a sale to these people may be lower on each sale, but will have a route for generating quick cash.

Once they begin to rely on you, people will come to you as a first stop, to find the items they want. Your services will provide a shortcut through the time consuming process of working through of the classified ads.

Making contacts is a big part of this game, and knowing key people will help you initiate and close deals before the goods ever hit the newspapers. This will put money in your pocket with little work.

For your services, you can charge a finder's fee to cover your efforts. So that you're not bypassed when it's time for the money to change hands, you arrange to complete the deal in a meeting with the buyer and seller, and you collect your fee.

If you travel fairly widely, study the classifieds wherever you go. You may uncover items that are big sellers in one area ever as they lie dead in the water somewhere else. If you can't arrange the face-to-face deal because of distance, you may find it worth your while to buy the item and result it to the buyer at a profit to yourself.