Are you a Storage Auction Gambler?

Are you a storage auction gambler?

If you see a safe, gun case, jewelry box, etc., are you willing to pay more for the unit on the chance that there may be something valuable inside?

Nope, I tend to buy based on what I can see.

I might go a little higher than normal but never beyond the return that I can see from the merchandise that is in plain sight.

I will gamble a litte bit more but not much. For instance say there is a 10 x 10 unit 1/3 full and there is a small 18"-24" cube size floor safe in plain view from the door. I look at everything else in the room and set my high bid at $250. Since there is the unknown factor of the floor safe I might add another 20-25% to my high bid, so I might go $300-$325, maybe $350 if someone I don't care for is bidding. Doesn't really matter though cause typically that unit will sell for around $500-$600.

Point being, I generally will gamble a little bit, but there is always two or three people in the crowd willing to gamble a LOT! 

I don't really have the "gamblers" personality. I don't play the lottery, I don't go to casinos; but I can see how "gambling" on a unit with a safe in view could be just as exciting as going to a casino and playing slots. "Who Knows", the odds of finding valuables in a safe from a storage unit might be better then the house odds at the casino. 

I remember one time years ago back when flat screen tv's had real value like in the thousands i gambled on a unit thinking there was atv in the box, was happy to see it was in the box, the unit did have plenty of good stuff and would have amde a killing even without the tv.

normallly my rule of thumb is only pay for the value i can see, no guessing or hoping.

Has anyone ever bet the ranch on a storage unit?

My husband is more of the storage gambler than I am, sometimes it pays off and sometimes... umm... not.  We often split up and go to different places if same auction times.  Even with some of the losses, he has done pretty well with his 'gut' including one that I didn't want that he won for $55 3 months ago.  I have to give him credit, we have made about $2000 so far, and will continue to make money off of it for the next 6 months.  From the door all you could see was stacks of old newspaper that looked to be a hoarders unit.  Everyone groaned and walked off except for him and one other guy.  We found thousands of old books -1800s and early sports books- in the back under the piles of newspaper... one that brought $300 itself and a few others that brought a total of $850 on Ebay as a group.   

Nice score. Some of my best units were the ones nobody else wanted. 

I will tend to gamble on low priced lockers $200 and under, at that price it doesn't matter to me. If all I can see in a unit is a safe and nothing else intriguing I dont care. Almost allways they are empty and the unit brings too many bids. Now I will gamble if the unit has what I like to call the "uniqe factor". For example I purchased a unit last month, all you could see was a large fake flower arrangment about 3 foot wide and 2 foot tall covered in plastic and appeared to be from the 1960's, a framed picture of a creepy clown, 1950's childs high chair, a small old tackle box and 40 or so boxes most small to med size. What interested me was some of the boxes had written on them words like mysticism and hypnotation, also cameras and films.
Now everyone was making fun of the clown picture and ugly flowers but what they werent paying attention to is the odd table it was on. It was florescent green with a spiriling florescent orange stripe running up the center. So some guy ran me up to $430. Everyone was laughing at me for overpaying on junk. Well the ugly flowers everyone was laughing about, calling them a dump run was actually a stage prop for a magic act the flowers are made from feathers and the whole thing folds down into a tube, and low and behold a brand new one cost...drumroll please $3800 yes score, mine is worth about $8-900 used, and half the boxes were filled with magic trics ranging in value $10 - $200 each. Also in the back was a velvet painting chest high and about 3 feet wide, which I have on Ebay right now for $700 and have 7 watchers and over 130 views. There is some other cool stuff as well. So yes I will gamble sometimes but only if it is unusual.