Hoovies Garage is quickly becoming one of my favorite automotive channels on YouTube. It’s fun, quirky, and completely void annoying of over-the-top clickbait. Best of all, Tyler (the host of the show) is making a pretty good living doing it. Based on my calculations, I estimate Tyler Hoover‘s net worth to be roughly $800,000.
Yes, that’s extremely low for an automotive YouTuber of his size, but he’s said more than once that he’s fairly deep into debt in two main areas of his life:
- Car debt
- Home debt
He has spent a significant amount of money on both over the past several years. Maintaining a fleet of 20+ cars that are in constantly in need of repair isn’t cheap. Neither is a 3000+ square-foot house with a 12 car garage.
Anyway, it’s important to note that he isn’t totally broke. Tyler is making significant money with his YouTube channel, and he wouldn’t be able to provide the content that he does if he didn’t have a decent source of income.
Table of Contents
First of all: who is Tyler Hoover?
For those that don’t know, Tyler Hoover is the host of an automotive YouTube channel named Hoovies Garage. Tyler is an ex-car salesman turned automotive writer turned YouTuber who makes a living buying, repairing, and selling cars. For fun.
The primary purpose of Hoovies Garage, according to Tyler, is to save old cars from the junkyard. He’s not actively trying to make money on every car that he flips, as his YouTube channel generates enough income so that he can easily absorb any losses. And in the world of buying and selling old cars, there is a significant amount of loss to absorb. Here are a few more details you may not know about Tyler Hoover:
- He sold new cars at a Chevrolet dealership in Wichita Kansas from 2006-2008
- After that, he opened his own used car dealership again in Wichita Kansas
- During that time, he was able to meet the cast of the original Top Gear (you know – the one with Jeremy Clarkston and the gang). This, in turn, opened him up just bigger opportunities, which led to him becoming a writer at Jalopnik.
- While at Jalopnik, Tyler met Doug DeMuro. They formed a friendship, and both eventually went to write for autotrader.com/oversteer.
- Tyler eventually left the AutoTrader gig once his YouTube channel started to produce a significant amount of income.
- He is married to Quynh Anh Hoover, has two kids, and lives in Wichita, Kansas.
- He was born in 1987
Let’s take a deeper look into the net worth of Tyler Hoover:
Calculating Tyler Hoover’s net worth
The best way to calculate how much money that Tyler has (or doesn’t hav) is to break down his income and expenses, while comparing that against his total assets.
Disclaimer: nobody has detailed access into Tyler Hoover‘s finances other than Tyler and his tax person. The following calculations are based solely on what I’ve heard him say publicly on his YouTube channel.
He’s also very open on social media such as Instagram and Twitter, so if you’re paying attention, it’s not too difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on in his financial life.
First lest have a look at Tyler’s annual income
Unlike many other Youtubers, Tyler doesn’t seem to have a diversified stream of income. That’s not to say that he isn’t doing very well, but if it were me, I’d want to have money coming in from different projects. Anyway, this is not about me. Let’s have a look at how much money Tyler Hoover makes in a year:
$900,000: YouTube
YouTube is by far and away Tyler‘s largest source of income. With well over 1 million subscribers (and each of his videos getting close to a million views), he’s doing quite well in ad revenue.
For those that don’t know, YouTube ad revenue can be estimated by assuming that every 1 million views equals $1000. It’s not completely accurate, and it fluctuates from niche to niche, but for the most part most Youtubers can agree that this is a general guideline to follow.
According to Social Blade, Hoovies Garage generates an average of 300,000 views per day. Multiply that by 365, and you get 109,500,00 total views in a year. That’s a lot of views. And as you might expect, this is exactly the reason why he can afford to buy so many cars while living in such a nice house.
$50,000: sponsorships
Tyler doesn’t do many sponsored videos on the Hoovies Garage YouTube channel. However, because of the size of his channel and how many views he gets per video on average, advertisers are very likely paying him big money to get their product in front of his viewers.
I’m basing this $50,000 estimate on the frequency of his sponsored videos, along with what I know about the rates for sponsored content from my own YouTube channel. If anything, I’d say that the $50,000 estimate is low. This could very well be a significant portion of Tyler Hoover‘s net worth that I’m grossly underestimating.
$10,000: merchandise
Many of his viewers don’t even realize this, but there is Hoovies Garage merchandise (T-shirts, hats, keychains, etc.) available for purchase. Tyler doesn’t advertise this very often, which is a real shame. With an audience of his size he could be making significant amount of money on these merchandise sales!
Now, let’s list out his significant assets
Tyler doesn’t talk much about his personal stuff much, but he is fairly open when it comes to cars and family life. Based on what he has said publicly, these are his appreciating assets:
$250,000: home equity
OK, just so you know, this is a total guesstimate on my part. Based on what we know about his home, and what he says about being up to his eyeballs in debt because of it, I estimate that he’s got a fairly hefty mortgage on his shoulders.
As we all know, Tyler and his family live in Wichita Kansas. His home, which looks to be about 3000 square-foot, also has a massive 12 car garage. According to Zillow, a house like his in Wichita Kansas averages around $500,000 (give or take).
Based on what he has publicly said about being in debt on the home, I can’t imagine him having more than 50% equity in it at this current time. However, due to how much money he makes with the Hoovies Garage business, I’m being generous and assuming that he has 50% equity in it. Given his age, his income, and how long he has been a homeowner, it makes sense.
$1 million: the Hoovies Garage brand
Although I am fully aware that the Hoovie‘s Garage brand is nothing without Tyler Hoover, it’s still a valuable asset that he could sell off at any time for a significant amount of money. The size of his hyper-engaged audience on YouTube alone is massive, and it’s not illogical to think that a large brand / media company would pay top dollar to acquire it.
Finally, lets subtract his annual liabilities (the things he owes money on)
This is where it gets interesting (and a little bit muddy). Tyler has never been shy about admitting that he gets himself in over his head financially from time to time. Even though he makes a lot of money with the Hoovie‘s Garage thing, he is spending quite a bit to keep the operation going.
Not only that, he’s got a big house to pay for, and a growing family to keep fed and healthy. Here is a detailed breakdown of where most of his money is going:
$40,000 a year: mortgage
Assuming he has $250,000 mortgage (minimum), a significant amount of his net worth is likely going towards house payments every year. I’d guesstimate that this number is even higher when you add in things like property tax and general maintenance and repairs. It’s a big house, and as anyone with a big house can tell you, it’s not cheap.
$400,000 a year: cars and repairs
This is the big one. The motto of Hoovies Garage he’s all about saving Hoopties. Enter those of you who don’t know, a “hooptie” is defined as an old usually large vehicle in need of extensive repairs. Buying older cars (and fixing them) is what Tyler does. And as you might imagine, this isn’t cheap.
Based on the number of cars that he buys and sells in a given year, his fleet is always about 20 cars or so. With the endless amounts of repairs that each and every one of those cars require to stay roadworthy, I’d estimate that he is spending close to a half million dollars a year just on car stuff alone.
Although he pays for most of these repairs with cash, Tyler has admitted that he finances the purchases of some vehicles. It’s mostly the expensive stuff (like the Lamborghini Gallardo for example).
Based on the above data, I calculate Tyler Hoover’s net worth to be $800,000
To be honest, I didn’t expect his net worth to be this low until I sat down to write out this analysis.
The fact of the matter is that while Tyler makes a ton of money with his YouTube channel, he has debt. Not only that, he spends a significant portion of his income on cars. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, as it’s what allows him to earn the money that he makes.
It’s important to note that is also never said anything about other debt (such as school loans). It wouldn’t seem implausible that both he and his wife have school loans to pay off, and that’s one of the reasons why he mentions being in debt all the time. Who knows? That’s just an assumption on my part.
Once he can get his debt under control, he’ll be able to pour more money back into his business. This means things like a bigger garage, his own dedicated mechanic, and more expensive hoopties.
Things we can lear from Tyler’s income streams
Unlike many other automotive Youtubers, I get the sense that Tyler is doing Hoovie‘s garage out of a passion for cars – not money. He has always been involved in the automotive industry in some form or another, and if he didn’t have a YouTube channel, it’s highly likely that he would still be selling cars somewhere in Kansas.
Tyler isn’t rich, but he’s making a pretty good living doing exactly what he loves to do. He basically turned his passion for cars into a thriving and exciting career.
Here are a few notable things that I’ve noticed about Tyler Hoover’s net worth and the way he generates income:
He’s completely genuine
Unlike other car guys on YouTube, he isn’t trying to be cool or somebody that is not. Tyler is just Tyler. He admits to being stupid and goofy, and he owns it. This, in turn, makes his audience able to trust him even more.
Being genuine is one of the most important things to know if you want to learn how to be a car reviewer on YouTube!
It’s not about the money
If it was, not only would Tyler be trying to do all of the repairs himself, he’d likely be going all in on his merchandise business. Instead, he stays in his comfort zone and focuses on what he enjoys doing the most: buying and selling older cars.
He’s smart with his purchases
Because he used to sell cars in a previous life, he has a dealers license. This means that he is legally able to buy and sell more cars in a year than the average person can. It also means that he has access to dealer auctions, which allows him to buy cars for wholesale cheap prices. He would certainly be making far less money with this Hoovies Garage thing if he wasn’t able to take advantage of paying bargain prices for his cars.
