Storage Auctions
The Storage Locker => General Storage Auction Talk => Topic started by: DamnthisisFun on September 23, 2011, 11:33:44 PM
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today I was at an auction and there was two different units that I wanted. The first unit was a 5 x 10 with a few bins of dolls still in the box, and old records and some beat up old chairs. The only doll that you could see was an Nsync doll still on the box. I jump on my phone and its only valued at 3.99 on ebay. I was going to take a gamble on this unit anyway. I waited till on the stupid people were done bidding ( the people who open the bid at 50 cents, and their buddy who holler 4 dollars). I waited till it hit 30 then i jumped in. I was willing to take it all the way to 120. I get it to 70 and the auctioneer says "70 going twice" and then some new guy gets in on the action and jumps the bid to 125. I was pretty mad, so i took him all the way to 210 to finally dump it on him.
The second unit was a packed 10x10. I thought i had it won at 140, with the auctioneer once again saying "140 going twice", and then again some guy jumps in at the last second. Every counter offer i put in he just raised me by 5 dollars till finally I stopped at 290.
My question to you guys is do you pull a dave hester and just bid folks up?
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me never will i do that. i bid for me and me only. i found this out some time ago. if you are nice to the other bidders they are nice in return( for the most part). netting working is a big part of this. so being a dick will hurt you in the long run. but this is just my point of view.
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Bid really one guy up once and that was the only time. I had two things in my favor, 1. a timberland boox box and a spent gun round. Otherwise, unit was only clothes(spider infested POS clothes). If the guy made 3 bucks on his 23 spent, he was lucky.
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Oh thats me all day. But only cus i got a budget an these older cats droppin multiple grand on units that should be goin for half the price. Anyways cant act like ur on a budget.
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Of course if they coo im civil bit if u got that kinda face i dont like ima be on dat ass. Lol
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today I was at an auction and there was two different units that I wanted. The first unit was a 5 x 10 with a few bins of dolls still in the box, and old records and some beat up old chairs. The only doll that you could see was an Nsync doll still on the box. I jump on my phone and its only valued at 3.99 on ebay. I was going to take a gamble on this unit anyway. I waited till on the stupid people were done bidding ( the people who open the bid at 50 cents, and their buddy who holler 4 dollars). I waited till it hit 30 then i jumped in. I was willing to take it all the way to 120. I get it to 70 and the auctioneer says "70 going twice" and then some new guy gets in on the action and jumps the bid to 125. I was pretty mad, so i took him all the way to 210 to finally dump it on him.
The second unit was a packed 10x10. I thought i had it won at 140, with the auctioneer once again saying "140 going twice", and then again some guy jumps in at the last second. Every counter offer i put in he just raised me by 5 dollars till finally I stopped at 290.
My question to you guys is do you pull a dave hester and just bid folks up?
I have been accused of running up the bid, although I was just stopping at the price I felt comfortable with.
If I were in the situation you were in, I would have run them up. Probably higher then you did.
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It all depends on the situation. For the most part I don't run people up. The one time I really did run someone up was payback for the first unit I purchased. None of the regulars wanted it. It was a 5x5 with a few boxes, but a decent guitar showing with only a string missing. I could tell it wasn't a Walmart guitar so I bid. One of the regulars opened at $25, and I said $50. He was like it's yours. Then out of no where this fat chick with her cell phone sitting on her boob starts to bid. I was like wtf. I had put a max in my head of $200. So we are standing side by side (inside unit, small hall) and we get to $175 and I nod my head. Auction guy then goes sold and I step forward. She steps forward also saying it was her bid. I once again was like wtf. So this guy looks me in the eye and tells her - he got it for $185 and cracked a joke that he almost cut himself out of $10. She was pissed. I was a little also but not at the auction guy. Later in the day she is asking all of us how do we find these auctions and no one would give her a straight answer. So we come up to another unit. I'm not interested in it as it's lots of paper, some decoration, and mostly trash. She starts to bid and I ran up her $100 then walked away. It was one of those $10 type lockers.
Last monday I semi-ran up a new lady I hadn't seen but think she's done this before. We were both interested in mostly the same types of lockers. She got one just cuz I stopped at my max. Then I had to laugh when our Dave Hester guy ran her up a few more bucks. I call him Mr. Five or Mr. Chruch (he buys for a church ran thrift store). Many times he will bid $5s at the last count. So if the locker is about to be sold for $120 he goes "FIVE" for $125. He may do this once, or really start upping the bid if he is interested in it. Last monday the last unit of the day he was doing that to me. I turned to him and said "Mike stop running the bid up and you can have the furniture for $50". I don't deal in furniture and that is what he buys alot. So he was like really??? and gave me $50 on the spot. So my $220 unit cost me $180...and may be a bust. Will start a new post later with that whole story / pictures.
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I don't run up the bid and think it's kind of a dumb thing to do. I have never been into doing this but at least in the past when crowds were small you could sort of justify or say your making smoeone else spend more money so they maybe will run out of money by the end of the day leaving a few units for you.
Today the crowds are so large there's no shortage of people with money so your accomplishing nothing by taking more of one persons money because there's 30 other people with a pocket full of money as opposed to 3 or 4 like it used to be.
Also I dont get why you were mad, because someone else was also itnerestd in a unit? That's not a reason to run someone up. The ONLY time I would consider running someone up is if soemoen is buying every single unit all day long. I know there's no rules every man for himself but I think there's kind of an unspoken rule take a few units and then let others bid aand get some units. If your buying everything your going to piss people off and have people running you up.
I agree with what a fwe others have said though. You don't want to pay more for a unit so why make soemoene else pay more for a unit your not interested in and for no reason? What goes around comes around if you run ohters up people will run you up so your hurting yourself.
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Not something I would do. I do bid on units I'm not interested in to break the boredom if the units are sucking, but I bail early enough not to run it up.
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I would have to say i would never bid someone up unless that someone was being a pain in the ass. I wouldn't want to have a Dave Hester reputation.
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I would have to say i would never bid someone up unless that someone was being a pain in the ass. I wouldn't want to have a Dave Hester reputation.
Yup. I'm guilty of the same. If someone bids me up just to bid me up, they will own the item.
The trick to running someone up is knowing how to read people and making yourself unreadable. Once you get past what you want to pay for the item, you have to be darn sure you don't get hung with it.
Somehow I have gotten rather good at reading people. I do sales and retail and have been all my life. You have to know how to read someone to close a sale.
I have not done a storage locker auction yet. But use to do the farm auctions and estate auctions all the time when I lived out in gods country. I've also been to more wholesale auto auctions than I can count.
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I go in knowing what I am looking to put into the unit. If the other person feels they are running me, then I let them feel good for that moment...until I hit my limit and walk away. I have actually dumped a unit on a regular known for bidding people up $25/pop. So I let him hit me twice and when he finally thought I would go one more time I simply walked away....so he got stuck with the unit $75 more than he wanted to.
He may have acted as though he wanted the unit, but the people there knew he thought he was just giving me a run for my money until I walked away. I will always go to my limit on lockers, but it will definitely have to be a great unit to even consider putting that extra $50-75 into it. I may be a newbie, but I'm not an idiot....needless to say, he doesn't consider running me anymore.
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Don't think I have ever run anyone up on person. I try not to make enemies!
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Don't think I have ever run anyone up on person. I try not to make enemies!
Driving up a "newbie" is an educational process. They learn what a locker is really worth.
Driving up a "regular" (who has to buy them all) is a lesson too and can run them out of money for later lockers.
Neither of these things (in my opinion) is making enemies, and of course they are free to do it to me.
I'm not a poker player but over the years I've learned to read both of the buyers cited above.
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I won a locker the day before yesterday for $800 bucks. I wanted it and another guy wanted it.....it had some cool and valuable stuff in there. So he started at $200, I went to $300, and it went up in $50 increments until he finally stopped and I got it for $800. I was prepared to go higher, and I found out after the auction that he had exactly $1000 to spend.
So, was the guy "running me up?" I mean, dang, if he wasn't going to hang in to win it all the way to the end, why didn't he let me have it for $300? Sucker cost me an extra five bills! It cracks me up when some of these guys get all pissed because they want a certain locker, and somebody else bids against them. I wasn't mad at the guy, it's an AUCTION, that's kind of the point! If nobody was going to bid against me, I'd get them all for a dollar!
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Like The Teacher I have found good lockers I wanted at "almost any" price, but there comes that point when the lkr just isn't worth the price it's getting to.
I DO remember the time I was bidding against another regular who made a point of buying just about every lkr and was being a bit of a hog about it.
He and I were going at it in the $800 range and I was about done. He kept on so I decided to run him up a bit and I was still comfortable with the price, but just barely.
I took him on up and he quit bidding....the gavel was on "going, going,....." and I didn't really want it at that price, so SURVIVAL MODE kicked in.....I started walking toward the locker with a lock spinning in my hand and....IT WORKED....this jerk couldn't stand for me to beat him and he came in with another $50 and (to my relief) won the lkr.
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I have never had to run up a regular. Typically it's a respect thing, let them get good units for a fair price and they will let you get good units for a fair price. There are a couple of regulars who brag about running people up and I have seen them do it but so far they have not done it to me. If they do, the deal is off and they won't get a unit for reasonable price for a while.
Some of you may disagree with this premise, but I think running up newbies is almost mandatory. Like Movieman said, it teaches them the true value of the units and then they are less prone to bid wildly if they decide to do more auctions. My personal reason is I have a niche type of units I look for and the storage auction industry has become so competative this past year, I can't afford to let somebody get the type of units I like for a low price with a good return potential. Every newbie that makes a substantial profit on thier first couple of units will be back for more! I have to protect my territory, so you will pay what I am willing to pay for the unit plus a little extra to win it, but I guess in a way that is not really running them up because I will not bid up units I don't really want.
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CopiaVita.....
Interesting breakdown of the running up newbies vs. regulars.
Now what if one of those regulars was "over bidding" on 5 boxes of visible Easton Press books ? ;)
When you get right down to it, this aspect of our business is, like many others, something each of us has to assess for what works for him/her. Good to see all the opinions here. A newbie will have a different feel for "bidding up" than the longer-term buyers of course ! ;D
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I do all the time. There will be no deals when I'm around. If people want to watch the storage tv shows and think this is going to make them rich then I say lets play. People love to pay reatil and if I can help stimulate the ecconmy then I feel good that I did my part. JK. I do if they are new and are wasting my time cause they are tv show buyers and they are trying to mimic what they see on tv. If you look desperate then your going to pay. And those that are unemployed at are at the auction make them pay even more. You should be saving your money or looking for a job and not an a auction. This is not an answer to your money problems. If your out of work go get a pell grant and go back to school. There is work out there for those who want to work. Get an education.
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Competitive bidding
Auctions motivate buyers to perform. People often get caught up in the competitiveness of the bidding and many times this drives the price of items higher. To some it’s like a game, and they want to win at all costs. 9 times out of 10, an auction brings in the fair market value, if not more, for any item put across the auction block!
Exciting atmosphere
There’s no more exciting atmosphere than an auction. Crowds of people competing for property combined with that lively auction chant makes for some great entertainment and fun.
Auctions work well in all economic climates
People love auctions because they love sales. Statistics show that auctions remain a steady force in good and bad economies alike. When the economy is bad, the auction industry does not feel the impact as people still flock to auctions.