sealed bid auction...

Hi all me and my girlfriend will be going to a sealed bid auction next Saturday and I was unsure of the process of this so I asked the manager. She said u come in the office walk with her look at the unit and put a bud in an envelope and she will call u up to 12 hours later if you win.

Any tips or ideas/strategy on how to prevail at these types of auctions ?

She also asked me for my email and said that she would send me pictures of all the units ahead of time. Is that normal? Should I stay away from this place because that seems as though it would ne possible to tamper with them if they've taken pictures

On the picture issue Standard practice in our area, they don't email them though.

Nice about getting the pictures a head of time can see if worth your time. MO


Advice on the sealed bid. We have only been to one, told us at end no waiting.  We did not get a unit either.

After the fact thought about it and decided we bid on too many. Took our seed money divided it up on several units. Question was how many would we have bid on in a regular auction not as many as we turned in.  May have gotten a good one if only one bid. None of the regulars got one either.

So word of advice decide on which units you would like to have and bid what you feel it is worth, your maximum bid if a regular auction. 

Feel these kind of auction get the maximum out of the units, no cheap units.  IMO

We could of had one for $2, was an entertainment center, but we scratched it out and no one else bid on it. 

Hey when they send you the pics you could post them here and get ideas on price, granted not from your area.

Hope that helps and good luck.

I hate sealed bid / silent auctions.  I've lost the most money with one ($875) and gotten one of my best RoI with them ($32) made a few hundred on it.  For the most part due to it being a silent auction they give you longer to pay or most places take CC.  However, you can still over extend yourself by winning too many units or spending all your money.  It's just a gamble.

Now - if she will send you pictures ahead of time that is worth a box of chocolate.  You can take those pictures and study them.  Blow them up as much as possible and really look at things.  Even if it's a little grainy you can get an idea of what units you want to bid on and good idea of how much potential it has.  I'd love to get early pics even the night before an auction.

I hate sealed bid / silent auctions.  I've lost the most money with one ($875) and gotten one of my best RoI with them ($32) made a few hundred on it.  For the most part due to it being a silent auction they give you longer to pay or most places take CC.  However, you can still over extend yourself by winning too many units or spending all your money.  It's just a gamble.

Now - if she will send you pictures ahead of time that is worth a box of chocolate.  You can take those pictures and study them.  Blow them up as much as possible and really look at things.  Even if it's a little grainy you can get an idea of what units you want to bid on and good idea of how much potential it has.  I'd love to get early pics even the night before an auction.

Very true! But if you put your max on what you think you can get out of the unit and you dont win then you know you made a smart choice and the other person over bidded.

Either that or the storage facility owner just told you you were out bid and kept the unit for themselves. I'm not saying that this happens a lot but I'm sure it happens. Even with regular auctions, a storage facility manager could just have one of their friends place the highest bid, then sell the unit to them for less once they got back to the office. No one would ever know.