Auction Scene #7...July, 2012

Why oh why do I keep going to sales in the beach towns? Either the people are bums or the lockers are picked. Three facilities with a total of 7 units. There was only one I would have bought. It had a dozen boxes, two plastic bins, a nice hand stitched bed spread and a nice fold up lawn lounge chair. $50.00 was my max. The locker went for $300.00 to a guy that shows up every once in a while and spends way to much money. Really... Every other unit had at least one set of mattresses and several had crappy couches. The dump fees would have cost more than the units were worth.

Oh well on to a caravan tomorrow that usually has good units. Think I will stay from the coastal towns for a while.

Think I will stay from the coastal towns for a while.

But that's where the Storage War guys find all those rare surfboards !   

Not really a post about the auction scene as so much about an observation about the units I have won this year. Thought I would just stick it here instead of starting another thread.

The units I have won this year are really starting to perplex me. Typically, like many of you, and with the increased competition, I try to not spend more then half of what I think a unit is worth based on what I see from the door and other variables. Basically try to "double the money". This strategy pretty muched worked last year, there were some losers that lost money and there were some winners that made a lot more than double the money, but across the board the average was about 2.5 times the money.

Anyway this year has been completely feast for famine, using the exact same bidding strategy. I have had 4 really great units that have made atleast 5 times the money and the rest of been complete dogs, either losing money or breaking even at best.

Not sure what's going on, my first thought is the overall quality of the units up for auction might be dropping rapidly. I am wondering if more people are purposely leaving garabage in units to have auctioned off, if more managers and employees are pilfering the units before they auction them, or people making deals with managers to auction off there yard sale left overs, but the are more empty boxes in units, and less sellable goods in units it seems.

Too many of the units I have won this year have had used goods in them that were tagged and priced like they were yard sale leftovers. Yes, could have been a legitimate attempt by the previous owners to sell the stuff at yard sale before they stored it, I am just wondering if former auction buyers, flea market vendors, etc. are sneaking there left over inventory into units to be auctioned.

Maybe it has just been a random localized trend that I need to shake off and push through, but it's been making wary about bidding on the "stuff" units and looking more closely at exactly what is in the unit.

Not sure what's going on, my first thought is the overall quality of the units up for auction might be dropping rapidly. I am wondering if more people are purposely leaving garabage in units to have auctioned off, if more managers and employees are pilfering the units before they auction them, or people making deals with managers to auction off there yard sale left overs, but the are more empty boxes in units, and less sellable goods in units it seems.

Maybe all of the above, but of course hard to tell which locker through which technique. I do know that the quality over all is DOWN and my one feeling (supported by auctioneers) is that more people are paying up rather than lose their lockers...and those would tend to be the better goods I would think.

After all when any of us see a listing for 15 and there end up being 7, what could we expect except that the 7 left are for the most part going to be trashy. Sure, MAYBE one of the 7 would be good, but the odds of much more than that being good are slim.

I heard about one place I missed a couple of weeks ago though  listing 3 and having 3 and they were apparently all OK lkrs. One went for $1000 and consensus was the newbie who got it overpaid by about half, but oh well.

Anyway, quality is down over the last few years and especially since December, 2010 when the tv shows started. I think we can legitimately blame the shows for letting people know their goods WOULD go to auction.

Went to a by the piece sale.  They had 5 or 6 lkrs to piece out. First 3 were nothing special, but #4 was a 20 wide by 10 deep and the minute they started bringing the boxes out you could tell it was a good one with quality stuff.
Also, when walking by the open doors of the unit one could see quality furniture.

I bought $250 worth of stuff and feel it will double. Gas and time costs involved. Took from 8:30 to 3:30 and I left before the last lkr or two were sold.

This locker had four containers of Mary Kay stuff and I let one gal get the first one for $100..figure 2 to 3 times that in sales.  The next one she didn't want to back down so I took her up and up...she got it for $200. I got the third one for $70 (sales maybe $150 to $200) and she got the last one (smallest) for $45...I didn't bid on it.

I got a few good items at just $5 apiece and these will do well at $30 to $40 range.

Sounds good MovieMan.  My very first auction was a piece one.  Got exposed to this crazy business and turned my first bid ever ($1) into $70 and haven't looked back!

Don got a unit a while back full of Avon stuff.  Haven't had a chance to take that stuff to the flea due to weather and scheduling, but know it will fly off the table.  Women (most...........however not those like me) love that 'girly' stuff~
Me......I stop to look at fishing gear and power tools~

I've yet to get to a piece auction.  Most places here just do the whole storage unit.  Sounds like some good buys Movieman.
I have to make a decision on which auction to hit thursday.  I took the day off to take my daughter to some last auctions before school starts.  We have two 2-facility caravans on Thursday.  The first location is at 9am a dozen+ units and is silent bid, followed by another dozen units at 11am on other side of town.  Or I can hit a 10am auction with 6 units listed that is followed by 11am in my little town.  The smaller facility I've done ok at, they just want units cleaned so don't care how low price, and normal only 8-10 of us.

Strategy is going to be calling both places around 4 wednesday.  See which one has more units.  If second facility has all 6 units I may try the 9am first and then turn in my bid sheet at 9:45 and shoot up the road to the 10am.  I love when have so many choices.

Just checked - is 27 units and 15.  One has "Bike, Canoe" for listing.  Now that draws my interest.....

I've yet to get to a piece auction.  Most places here just do the whole storage unit.  Sounds like some good buys Movieman.
I have to make a decision on which auction to hit thursday.  I took the day off to take my daughter to some last auctions before school starts.  We have two 2-facility caravans on Thursday.  The first location is at 9am a dozen+ units and is silent bid, followed by another dozen units at 11am on other side of town.  Or I can hit a 10am auction with 6 units listed that is followed by 11am in my little town.  The smaller facility I've done ok at, they just want units cleaned so don't care how low price, and normal only 8-10 of us.

Strategy is going to be calling both places around 4 wednesday.  See which one has more units.  If second facility has all 6 units I may try the 9am first and then turn in my bid sheet at 9:45 and shoot up the road to the 10am.  I love when have so many choices.

Just checked - is 27 units and 15.  One has "Bike, Canoe" for listing.  Now that draws my interest.....

I need a canoe, where is that auction gonna be? 

Went to a nice small auction today at a single facility.  Nice small crowd!  I ended up with two reasonably priced lockers....spent a total of a little over 475 for the pair.....I'll start another thread for that....have an interesting story there, and I was LUCKY!

Anyway, have part of a Public Storage run for tomorrow then going to jump the run to another small single facility and see if I can't pick up a few more. 

Last few auctions, crowds definitely down, and so are prices....hope that continues!

Ended up with three more lockers on Friday.  Started off on the Public run.....lot's of bidders and high prices.  Went to two of their facilities, than jumped off to a lesser known facility.....only six bidders, and bought three lockers for a total of $27, $52, and $207. 

So, with the two I bought the other day ($350.88 and 101.88), I spend the princely sum of $738.76 for a total of five lockers......not bad at all in these trying times!  LOL.  I actually kind of over bought, but the prices were so cheap I couldn't help it! 

Along with the other two I bought the day before, I'm one busy fella!  I have two lockers entirely empty now and one that just needs a few big items moved and the garbage swept up.  One I have until the end of next week to empty, and the other one is supposed to be done by Sunday night.

I'll update these and show some pics when I can get around to it.  I have been putting in some long hours the last three days!  However, I did get a 42" Plasma TV out of the $207 locker, and I got about 60 Chilton's manuals out of the $52 locker.  And I did something I almost never do......I pulled a few things out and GAVE a locker back to the former owner on the condition they brought a truck and help and it was all gone TODAY!  That's pretty much a story in itself, so I'll save that for next week. 

Anyway, Public run still SUCKS!  Lot's of people with two much money in their pocket.  One guy literally said to me (and I AM NOT making this up!) as we walked away from a crappy looking locker that got bid way up, that that was less than he would have spent at the casino on Friday night, so it was no big deal!  Ugh!

Let me know how the Chilton manuals move.

I had hundreds of manufacturers manuals (like 750-ish) for every GM and Lincoln/mercury from 1960 thru early 2000's.
I couldn't give those things away.

Guess here, but thinking they were to technical for home guys, certified techs can get them online now.....
thinking Chiltons should be a touch easier.


Knowing what I know now I'd have had a garage sale or gone to swap meet. They seem to move in those venues.  But eBay?  Every manual I had was already listed multiple times for 99cents and never bid on.....

I put the small car specific ones out at the garage sales or swap for $2-$3 each and always sell, and I put the big thick ones out for $7-$10 and they move fast!

We had are big auction week this week, auctions every day of the week and two caravan runs. The bad news, crowds have grown again since June and early July. Had one auction with about 80 people and another with about 50. The others were between 15 to 30. Earlier this month the crowds were dropping to under 20 and even single digits at some auctions.

The old timers still seem to be gradually fading away. The crowd this week was generally less then 6 old timers (pre-tv shows), maybe 1-2 since tv shows, a dozen or less that are 3 month newbies, and all others are fresh faces. There really are no 3 month to 12 month "veterans" that I can think of that are buying units at all.

I mentioned the trend of the new crop of newbies NOT bringing flashlights out and that seems to be continueing. There is also a tendency among this new batch to try to convince the "old timers" and everybody else that they have a lot of knowledge in the re-sale business. A lot of platitudes about how best to sell things, and trends in the business, and how things use to be, yada yada..., From people we've never seen in are life on the auction trail. I suppose forums like this and You Tube are making everybody a "virtual reality expert" on this industry.

Prices are slooowwlllyyy edging downward, but the quality of units this week was uncommonly horrible. Not sure whats worse. People 6 months ago dropping $1000 on a $250 units that does have some good stuff showing, or people now dropping $200 on what should be $20 junk units.

I did manage to sneak in a get, in my opinion, the best unit of the week for a low-low price. I think everybody got so use to seeing junk and paying between $100-$250 for them all week, that when this unit came up they thought anything above $250 was too much.

Haven't had a chance to sort through it yet, but just from loading it up and cleaning it out it looks like it's been in storage since the early 1990's (bills, calendars, thick layer of dust, etc.) the furniture is 1920's to 1960's, & just a quick peak in the furniture drawers and boxes looks like a lot of the stuff is circa 1970's-1980's and hasn't really been touched since. This unit should be real interesting to go through. I think it's going to be a little bit like going through a time capsule.

The old timers still seem to be gradually fading away. The crowd this week was generally less then 6 old timers (pre-tv shows), maybe 1-2 since tv shows, a dozen or less that are 3 month newbies, and all others are fresh faces. There really are no 3 month to 12 month "veterans" that I can think of that are buying units at all.

Will it ever end ?

Hey all, FWIW, don't sell any pre 1980 "Dealer Service Manuals" for less than $100.00 each. There is pure gold in those books for the automotive rebilder that can't be found elsewhere. They are going for big money depending on the models covered and the condition of the book.

Hold on to them if you have to...

It would help if I knew exactly which ones were worth $100 and who would buy them.
I have no room to store.  77 plastic totes full of books. 
And I'm not listing and re-listing hundreds of books!

Like I said, a lot are LISTED at $50-$200 on eBay.   But the same book is listed at $4.99 by someone else.
And dozens of them.

And every tech I know, and I know a lot, gets all tech info on- line.  No one uses books.

I'm sure I got rid of some that I coulda made money on but that would have been way more work than Im willing to put out for a 'maybe' payday.