W-S, NC

New to storage unit auctions but I have been around auctions for more years than I want to fess up to.    Mostly antigue but I have attended estate, tool, heavy equipment, livestock, general and the local damaged freight on Monday nights.

My wife and I attended our first storage locker auctions yesterday. I like to listen to the auctioneer and get a feel for how they run the auction and chatter. There were six auctions at the first facility and two more at their second location around the block. My wife and I nailed almost every locker price and agreed on what they were worth to us. There were two that semi shocked us. One was a small 5x5 with plastic bags about three feet high. You could see most of them were filled with toys and childrens clothing. It went for $100. I had nailed it at $75 and it was ending at that but one of the bidders was getting tired of the $2.50 increments and the auctioneer milking the bids out of the other bidder so he jumped to $100. The other bidder bowed out.

The last locker was a 10x10 that was full with what one person behind me called a "college dorm" locker. You could see a couch on end, a bunk bed set, two stereo units, and plastic bags, boxes and suit cases. The bidding went fast and furious. It ended at $750. I didn't consider that to be way over for the unit but more than I would have paid.

The other lockers were so-so. My wife wanted the first one because it had a really nice tall white desk with a lot of drawers. There was also a large back screen projection TV and other funiture items. The unit went for $250. One locker had only a couch, love seat and a torn apart stove and it went for $35.

There were about 40 people at the auction. You could tell the noobs from the regulars. Nobody seemed to raise the bids just because or to pick on the noobs. So it was a pleasant first storage auction experience. The auctioneer is having an antique auction today with free hotdogs so we are heading up to it.

Unfortunately I work full time M-F so I can't attend the week day auctions in the area. Looking forward to this forum.

Reid

Welcome aboard.. the Auctions are fun.

New to storage unit auctions but I have been around auctions for more years than I want to fess up to.   
Reid

Be careful can become addicting.. LOL
Getting to now the players and such is fun We had nicknames for some. I think now we only have one nickname left. Know every bodies names now. One of our Whales has an auction house. He was stand offish but we earned some respect form him and another by bidding smart ect.
Enjoy the forum lots of good stories and advice.

Oh like your name same as my Brothers. 

The auctioneer from yesterday had an antigue/? auction today. I talked to him about yesterday to find out if that was normal for his storage unit auctions. He said pretty much. He commented on the last one. As the bids started flying the people started leaving. He yelled out to them "where are you going? The auction is still going". Everybody started laughing. He said the person who won the auction has three stores in differnt towns around W-S. My wife ended up buying a few items...$70....worth of items today.

Reid

Yeah I love when the price starts getting crazy and the regulars start walking off to leave and the gate is closed... LOL

Welcome and enjoy the forums.

Unfortunately I work full time M-F so I can't attend the week day auctions in the area. Looking forward to this forum.

Well, you can enjoy the forum anyway and for sure there are people who wish THEY were as unfortunate as you to be working full-time.

Welcome to the boards WARedBear.  Hope you and your wife have fun doing auctions.  One word of advice -- if you have a full time job don't quit it to do this.  You would just be shooting yourself in the foot so to speak.

I also am lucky enough to have a full-time job and do storage auctions on the side.  I just hit the auctions that I can and miss the rest.  Do take 1 day every month off just to hit a 7 facility caravan auction.

Good luck and good hunting to you.

Well, you can enjoy the forum anyway and for sure there are people who wish THEY were as unfortunate as you to be working full-time.

I would be one of those people!....Wish I was fortunate to have a job! The job market sucks in this area, but I think timing also has to do with it as this time of year is one of the hardest times to land a full time job...