Author - Tiana Bodine

Internet storage auctions are quickly gaining in popularity among facility owners and bidders alike.

If you’re involved in the storage auction business, you should familiarize yourself with Internet auctions.

Like it or not, they’re the future of the industry.

Fortunately, they’re easy to like.

There are many benefits for Internet storage auctions for buyers and sellers alike:

Long auctions allow bidders time to research the lot
Sellers can post detailed descriptions and photos to help sell the unit to bidders
There are no large crowds to manage at the storage facility
Buyers don’t have to worry about wasting gas traveling to multiple auctions

Sellers can get higher bids from most auctions

Major online auction sites like eBay have paved the way for all sorts of Internet sales, and the format continues to gain in popularity. Everything from personal property to foreclosed houses can be sold on the Internet, yet storage auctions were late adopters of this technology.

The reason for this delay is due to lien laws in certain states mandating that auctions be held in a public place; although many states are rewriting their laws to be more technologically savvy, others still require auctions to be held at the facility.

Nevertheless, there are some loopholes that can help make internet storage auctions possible. By running the online auction concurrently with the live auction, storage facilities can stay within the law while still benefiting from the convenience of the Internet.

Just mention in the ad that bidding can begin online, and end the Internet auction a few hours before the live auction. If no one out-bids the winner from the Internet, the auction ends swiftly and painlessly.

Some websites offer to provide Internet storage auctions for a fee, but a listing service like OnlineStorageAuctions.com allows you to enjoy all the benefits of Internet storage auctions without paying a dime out of pocket.

Please leave your insightful thoughts in the comment box below.

Private Sales Are a Major Strength of Online Storage Auctions

April 23, 2013

When you visit a public self-storage auction, the units you bid on will generally be sold by the storage facility as a way to satisfy a lien.

This isn’t always the case with virtual auctions. While online auctions are certainly a great place to find lien sales, they’re also a source of units being sold by private sellers. Online storage auctions offer tremendous benefits to buyers and sellers alike.

There are several reasons a private seller might choose to auction of his own storage unit. Perhaps he’s running behind on his rent and wants to sell off the contents of the unit before he gets evicted.

Maybe he’s realized he doesn’t want his stored items any more and would rather sell them than pay to store them. Or maybe he’s a fellow auction hunter who’s bought units he doesn’t want to bother with re-selling piece-by-piece. Whatever the reason, private online storage unit sales are a great opportunity.

Why Private Sales Are Good for Buyers:

You deal directly with the owner of the unit’s contents, and you can back out of the sale if the unit isn’t consistent with what’s been advertised.
The units may be of higher quality than those from a regular lien sale.
You can buy items in bulk rather than searching for them piece-by-piece on eBay or Craigslist.
Private sales offer resellers a low cost source of inventory.

Why Private Sales Are Good for Sellers:

You can sell off unwanted items for free and get money in your pocket.
You don’t have to haul away unwanted items from a storage unit.
You can stop paying rent on stuff you’re not using anyway.
It’s easier to sell a bulk lot of household items than try to sell them individually at a yard sale.
If you’re in financial trouble, you can sell of your merchandise before you get behind on your rent and lose your property.

If you buy and sell a large number of units on a regular basis, you’re bound to end up with large quantities of items that will take you a long time to sell.

Rather than spend time and energy donating them or selling them individually through other sites, consider consolidating your items into a single storage unit and offering it for sale to interested buyers. Since online storage auctions tend to earn more money than live auctions, you’ll be sure to get the best price.

You’ll then be free of the small items and can focus your attention on selling the biggest pieces for a good profit.

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Why Do Storage Units Sold Online Sell for a Premium?

April 18, 2013

Online storage auctions tend to earn anywhere from 25% to 100% more revenue than auctions held in person.

While this makes some bidders nervous, it’s definitely a good thing for the storage companies and auctioneers involved in the bidding.

If you’re uncertain about getting involved in online storage auctions, you may be wondering what makes their bids go up higher than the auctions you’re accustomed to.

Here are a few reasons:

Bidders have more time. This one of the primary reasons why storage units sold online sell for more than they would at a traditional auction.

The average virtual auction runs for a week or more. During this time, bidders have plenty of opportunities to research the units, contact possible buyers, gather resources and consider their bids. They also have more time to develop a connection with the unit, which means bidding might become more personal for them.

The auctions have more visibility. Bidders from surrounding cities and even neighboring states might check in on storage auctions that they otherwise wouldn’t bother to attend. And everyone knows, a higher auction turn-out means higher bids.
The units look better. When you’re at a public auction, you only have a few minutes to look inside, and you may not be able to see everything. If you’re bidding online, you’ll be able to look at a high-resolution image. You can zoom in and thoroughly inspect everything. This makes it easier to guess what kind of profit you can make on the units.
There’s fewer units to choose from. Until online auctions become mainstream, there will be fewer auctions held online. This means that bidders have fewer units to choose from and will focus more energy on those units.

Right now, it’s in a seller’s best interests to put auctions up online. They earn more money for storage facilities and are quick and convenient to run when compared to live auctions. Buyers may believe that they can’t benefit from these pricier auctions.

However, this is not the case: Every reason for the higher bids is a double-edged sword. Bids on virtual auctions are high because they are convenient for both buyers and sellers.

As long as you practice smart bidding strategies – bidding only on what you can see, bidding within your budget and only bidding when you can make a profit – you don’t have to worry about what other bidders do.

In the long-term, as virtual auctions become more common-place, prices will begin to even out and buyers and sellers alike will be able to profit from these highly efficient auctions.

Please leave your insightful thoughts and opinions in the comment box below.

Cleaning Out Your Storage Unit

April 4, 2013

Storage Auctions 101

No matter how well you research a storage unit or how carefully you bid, you’re bound to find a lot of trash and useless items.

Once you win the unit, it’s your responsibility to have it fully emptied and swept clean within 24 to 48 hours. Failure to do so puts you in danger of being banned from future auctions and will earn you a black mark with the facility owner.

So before bidding on any unit, be prepared to do the clean-up necessary to get it in good shape. This requires you to carefully consider your unit and, when necessary, bring a partner to help you.

If you don’t have a business partner who helps with auctions and bidding, at least bring a few friends or able-bodied teenagers to help you unload the heavy items.

The first step to cleaning a storage unit occurs before the auction even starts. Look at the unit and appraise it honestly to see whether it’s worth bidding on or if it has too much trash. Signs of a unit that’s not worth your time include worn-down or torn furniture, items in bags rather than boxes, and obvious piles of paper, wrappers or other junk. If you see a unit that looks messy, avoid it. That will save you a lot of time when it comes to cleaning.

Once you actually have the unit, it’s time to sort through it and start quickly putting things into different groupings. To maximize efficiency, you’ll want five groups:

Items that are worth a decent amount of money and can sell well – in other words, the things you bought the unit hoping to re-sell.
Items that aren’t worth too much, but can be sold in bulk for a decent profit down the line. Examples might include glassware, dishes or DVDs.
Items that are apparently worthless but can be recycled for money. This includes anything made with aluminum or copper, such as electronics and metal tools.
Items that have no clear value but can be donated for a tax write-off, such as stuffed animals or toys.
Items that really are trash and cannot profit you in any way, like old papers. These you’ll want to have hauled away to the dump.

Be advised that this process is time-consuming, so if you’re buying a lot of units, you may quickly get burnt out. By focusing on a few units at a time and squeezing maximum profits from each one, though, you can set yourself up to be truly successful down the line.

Please leave your insightful opinions in the comment box below.

Why Do Storage Auctions Occur?

April 4, 2013

Storage Auctions 101

Before you attend your first storage auction, you’ll want to be prepared. By understanding how and why the auction occurs, you can prepare yourself for the type of items you’re most likely to find.

This in turn can help you budget for auctions and begin making plans for your budding resale business.

Storage auctions occur as a way for storage facilities to recover the costs associated with a delinquent storage unit. When a tenant abandons the unit, the storage facility has the right to auction off its contents as a way to earn back the unpaid rent.

The facility must give the tenant advanced notice and publicize the auction, all of which can lead to several months of missed rent for the facility; as long as a unit sells for more than the delinquent rent, the auction is a success from the storage unit’s point of view.

In addition to recovering the cost of lost rent, storage facilities use these auctions as a way to empty out the storage units in preparation for new renters. Even if the facility doesn’t earn back its money on every unit, having someone empty the units for them speeds up the process of moving in new customers. This is why storage facilities require units to be emptied and swept clean within a day or two of the auction, and why failing to do so will get you blacklisted from the facility.

Now that you understand why storage auctions happen from the storage facility’s point of view, it’s important to know why they occur from a renter’s point of view. There are multiple reasons a unit may be abandoned, and the reason for the abandonment will affect what type of items you find inside:

The renter may have decided the items inside were no longer worth storing and simply abandoned the unit. These units often do not have much worth bidding on inside.
The renter suffered financial hardship and was unable to pay off the lien on the unit. Depending on the situation, this may mean that good items can be found inside; in other cases, the renter may have been able to recover some of the best valuables before the unit went into default.
The renter went into prison or the hospital and is unable to pay the rent. Depending on the circumstances, this may mean that the unit is filled with valuable items, or it could simply have household goods or trash. It really depends on the original owner.
The renter passed away and his or her relatives were unaware of the storage unit or didn’t want to bother with it. In many cases, these are the most valuable units, especially if the tenant was elderly. These units are often the ones with antiques and rare collectibles.

In most cases, you won’t know the history of a storage unit before you bid on it.

Knowing the most likely causes of unit abandonment, however, will help prepare you for the items you’ll find inside. The vast majority of storage units will be filled with regular household items and memorabilia; a handful, though, will have valuable items that make the search worthwhile.

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Items to Avoid at Storage Auctions

April 3, 2013

Storage Auctions 101

When you’re first starting out with storage auctions, it can be hard to determine which items make a unit worthwhile.

It’s tempting to bid aggressively on every unit you come across just so you can win something, but that’s not a good strategy if you want to make money.

Your goal when bidding at a storage auction is always to look for items that you can quickly and easily re-sell for a profit, or items that you personally want for your own house. Anything else is just a waste of space and effort.

Depending on your interests and skills, the specific items you look for may differ from another buyer’s. If you’re very knowledgeable about comic books and action figures, for example, you might be able to value these items at a glance.

Others may overlook them. Additionally, if you know buyers with certain interests, you can cater your attention toward those interests. The more buyers you begin to meet through Craigslist, flea markets, yard sales and other venues, the deeper your network becomes.

All the same, some items are almost always bad news. If you see any of the following items in a unit, think twice before bidding. The odds are pretty good that you will end up with something difficult to dispose of and impossible to profit from:

Out-moded and over-sized technology, like industrial photocopiers
Big-screen rear-projection TVs and computer monitors
Anything that might contain human remains, such as a coffin or urn
Any materials that must be disposed of as hazardous waste, including partially empty paint cans
Used tires, especially those in poor shape

It’s easy to see a recurring theme in these items: Don’t buy things that are large and hold little value.

This seems obvious at first, but it can be surprisingly difficult to remember in practice. Before making a bid on any storage unit, try to think of an exit strategy for the items you’ll end up with. By having an idea how you’ll sell the things you obtain, you can protect yourself from having a yard filled with unwanted items.

Please leave your insightful opinion in the comment box below.

Online Storage Auction Site Offers Legal Alternative

March 28, 2013

Although online storage auctions are gaining in popularity, they are still considered illegal in certain states.

This is because the lien laws in those states have vague or outmoded language that requires the auction to take place at the storage facility or a “reasonably near public place.”

Although the Internet is arguably the most public place imaginable, the laws haven’t caught up with technology to conclude whether a virtual space can satisfy the legal requirements.

Many of our competitors simply ignore these laws and offer storage auctions in the restricted states anyway. Others opt to avoid online auctions in any state with ambiguous laws. We’ve decided to do something different, however – a legal alternative for states where storage auctions must be held in person.

What we suggest to storage facility owners in these states is to have the online auction run concurrently with the in-person auction. When you post the notice of the sale, be sure to mention OnlineStorageAuctions.com in the ad.

Open the online bidding early, and close it just before the in-person auction starts. Have the auctioneer open the in-person bidding at the high bid from online. If no one places a higher bid, the unit goes to the online bidder; if the in-person bidder makes the winning bid, he or she gets the unit instead.

It’s no secret that storage units sold online sell for 25% to 100% more than those held exclusively in person. By combining the two strategies, you can increase the amount you get for your units while staying in step with the law.

By advertising the online portion of the auction, you can ensure that more bidders opt for online bids, and the ensuing lower turn-out at the in-person auction will help things go quickly and smoothly. Best of all, since our service is completely free, you get to keep your money and deal directly with your bidders.

This ground-breaking alternative for self-storage auctions offers the convenience and high earnings of online auctions without the questionable legal issues faced by other services. Eventually, as online auctions become even more commonplace, the law may begin to catch up with technology and you can transition your facility to online-only storage auctions.

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Online Auction Bidding Techniques

March 1, 2013

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Virtual storage auctions can seem like new territory even for seasoned professionals. The format is different, and auctions can last a long time.

People who are comfortable with live auctions may not be too eager to make the move to digital, especially if they’re unfamiliar with internet auctions in general.

Fortunately, many of the strategies used in successful live auction bidding can translate to virtual auctions as well.

By understanding these methods – as well as a few internet-specific strategies – you can improve your odds of getting the unit you want at the right price:

Set a budget and stick to it. Before you bid on your first unit, you need to set a firm guideline for yourself about how much you can spend and don’t let yourself go over it. Be sure to leave a little bit of wiggle room in your budget for expenses like gas to drive to the unit you’ve won so you can clean it out. Also save money for any taxes you might need to pay on the merchandise you purchase.

Know the value of what you’re bidding on. Online auctions have one major advantage over live auctions: They tend to last for days, which gives you plenty of time to research the items you can see in the photos. Take your time searching for those items and determining how much you can reasonably resell them for. This will help you make an accurate bidding budget.

Lay low until the end of the auction. Because online auctions can last a long time, waiting to the end can save you money and prevent you from wasting time watching an auction for activity. Scope out the auction at the beginning, determine how much it’s worth, then come in during the last day to secure a high bid. The later you wait, the better your odds of getting a good deal. Just be careful: You can be outbid at the last minute by others with the same strategy.

Don’t get caught in a bidding war. It’s easy to let your pride get in the way when you’re bidding, especially if you’ve been watching the same auction for several days. It’s important not to get so emotionally invested that you over-spend, though. If somebody outbids you, don’t rush to re-up your bid. Instead, hold off as long as possible before placing your next bid. The only bid that counts is the one placed at the end of the auction. If bidding goes too high before the end, back away from the auction.

Don’t bid on anything you don’t want. When someone fails to pay the winning bid of an auction, the lot usually goes to the next-highest bidder. This continues if the second bidder doesn’t pay up. Fake bidding isn’t common in auctions, but it can happen. More often, people might back out after they realize that they bid way more than they’re willing to spend. Either way, it’s important to only bid on units that you’re willing to buy, even if you let yourself get out-bid, because you may still end up winning if the people above you back out. In other words, bidding up your competition can come back to bite you if they back out. Be smart and only bid on lots you’d like to win.

Whether you’re bidding online or in person, following these tips can help you save money at an auction while ensuring you get the units you really want.

They can also be applied to other types of auctions, like those held on eBay, so you can branch out your resale business further.

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Storage Wars Texas: Artist Jenny Grumbles

August 9, 2012

Entertainment

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With the second season of Storage Wars just around the corner many have wondered about the cast and who would join the furious bidding and the hopeful money-making auction hunters.

Jenny Grumbles is one of the new stars about to join the limelight. A&E has referred to her as bright, bubbly, and they’ve hinted at her intelligence. Who is Jenny Grumbles though? Where did she come from and how did she end up joining the cast of this popular show?

Artist Jenny Grumble

Growing up in southern California while spending her summers in Texas and Georgia, Grumbles is what you could call a southern girl. She has a knack for restoring old furniture and has one of those creative minds that just won’t rest.

Grumbles attended school in the Southern Methodist University where she ultimately received her degree in 2002 for Journalism and Studio Arts. Since then, she’s devoted a lot of her days to painting, founding the J. Grumbles Studio located in San Diego.

Grumbles is a popular artist that has been represented in several different galleries and shops including Atlanta, Newport Beach, Dallas, Laguna Niguel, Palm Springs, San Diego, and Balboa Island. She has her own shop as well in Dallas; Uptown Country Home.

Recognizing her painting passion way back in 1994, Grumbles has created her own impressionist style that has a focus on light and color and using loose brush strokes. She never uses black when she paints. She has done some commissioned work as well as paintings of children on the beach, floral masterpieces, and the inside of homes.

Claudia Hartley, from Arizona, is Grumble’s mentor and one of the ones that Grumble attributes her success to. Hartley is a renowned artist in her own right. Grumbles also gives credit to Anne Irwin, a gallery owner in Atlanta.

In 2001, Grumbles hit a milestone by having her first solo show in Atlanta. Since then, she has participated in several other shows including her debut: J.Grumbles Studio’s West Coast Premiere that took place in Newport Beach, California.

Grumbles is currently a member of both the California Art Club and the Impressionist Society of America.

Jenny Grumbles on Storage Wars Texas

Grumbles was originally sold a storage unit by a friend named Adam. Inside this storage unit, she found a bunch of old, broken furniture. Not to be dissuaded from the condition, Jenny bought the mess for $1,000. She revived the contents of the unit and ended up being able to sell the pieces for a total of $5,000.

Since then, Grumbles has been working on a mechanism for trying to buy and revitalize the contents of storage units. While she’s never been to an auction (yet), Grumbles has a plan. She’s going to snatch up the units that most buyers run from and then ‘up-cycle’ the materials that are within the unit into more merchandise she can sell for profit.

Grumbles is a store owner that considers herself to be handy, design-oriented, and definitely a business strategist. Look out Storage Wars Texas! This blonde, bubbly southern girl might just make some decent money!

Please leave your creative thoughts in the comment box below.

Storage Wars Texas: Mary Padian Joins Cast

August 8, 2012