It is funny to watch SW and read your posts... If you do this as a business, you should never pay more than you can make money reselling and the same goes for the other guy... There is no such thing as bidding someone up - just bidding what your willing to pay. I am relatively new to the storage auction scene but have been doing auctions and reselling for a decade. The auction houses love me because I will bid on ANYTHING I can make money on. And I bid until I can't make money. I don't care if I am bidding against a 'regular,' a 'whale," or the pregnant widow of 5 children. If you want it, you have to be willing to pay more than I am...
Sam
PS - I love when someone gets the idea of 'bidding me up.' I don't have any problem with staying at an auction all day bidding 100 times and walking away with nothing while those 'bidding me up' walk out with a substantial bill.
I disagree, some may think I am being a jerk, but I have purposely bid higher on a unit just to keep a newbie from winning it or getting it for a price cheap enough to make a good profit on it. From my point of view, the industry is already too competatitve, and the last thing I need is more competition. Letting newbies get good units on the cheap only encourages them to attend more auctions and bid on more units, and then tell their friends about it. The only thing I want newbs telling their friends is how much money they lost on buying a storage unit and not to try it themselves.
I had to deal with the same thing from the "old timers" for the first 6 to 8 months of going to auctions until they got use to seeing my face. I still see a certain group of "old timers" who like to run each other up. Part of me thinks they know that they tend to get inside information from the managers or employees, so when they see each other bidding on a unit they think the other "knows" what my be inside and bid it up. Just part of the game.