How many lockers did you pass on before buying your first?

My first day out there was 8 units to bid on. The first two I just looked and watched everybody. Prices were not bad, but I did not see anything I liked. 3rd locker I went ahead and bidded on. Saw some old video camera stuff in it, and there was 2 old wood nightstands, one was taped up, so I could only imagine what was in there. Highest I bid on it was $65, it sold for $75. The rest I had no interest in to bid on, so I let them go. The very last unit, I really wanted. As soon as the door opened on a 10x30 full from the back to the front from the floor to the ceiling packed. From the door you could see tool boxes, about 30 of those Highlander Collector Swords, 2 lawnmowers, one being a riding one, lots of fishing gear. Now like I said I really wanted it, and I heard several people wanting it. But NO ONE, bidded on it passed the opening bid. As soon as the door raised, within seconds later someone shouted at $1,000. Well I did not bid for three reasons.
1. Obvisouly, some one was sending a message saying he was going to get this locker.
2. I only brought $800 with me.
3. I was still very new, so lot of the stuff I had no space for it, didnt know how I would get rid of that much stuff.

oh, I forgot to answer the question, lol. Anyway the next auction I went to I did not bid on, again stuff was going fairly cheap, but saw nothing that interested me.2 lockers and a car up for bid. First locker was very bare, nothing really in there but a mattress and dresser, which was not in good shape. Second locker was from what it looked like nothing but a Teachers place to store her school and art supplies for elementary students. Then the car. An 86' Jeep. Could see it had Xmas decorations in the back, looked like it would make more money selling out as parts then it would be for selling as is or trying to fix up to sell.

Next auction I went too, mind you that this is stretched out for a week and a half. It was part of a caravan. First two locations I did not see anything I wanted to bid on, plus prices were getting outrageous. I dropped out of the caravan to go take care of some personal stuff. Joined back with them only missing one location, which I kind of wished I went, since there was a locker that the owners could not get rid of, no body would take it, It was completely packed 10x10. I am guessing it looked really trashed. However since nobody took it, the owner decided to clean it out themselves (when I say owner I am talking about the staff at the facility, not the tenant) while going through it, they came across an antique violin. So even if I had gone, and even took it for $1 or $5 it would of made my day.

Anyway back to the story. So I missed that location, but was at the next location. 3 lockers up. First locker was full of old, and I mean old appliances, and several boxes of depends. I passed on that one. Next locker full of furniture, golf clubs, bags of clothes, several totes, and a compressor still in box. I bidded on that one, got it for $450. Next locker came up, I bidded on it, but I lost out on it.

So now I have this locker, my first locker I bought. There was alot, and I mean alot of personal stuff in there, this guy had half of his house in there, and part of his business. So you can imagine how much personal stuff was there. Have not gotten another unit with this much personal stuff. The boxed compressor, well, lets just say I saw the box wrong, it looked like it was never opened, but it was, it was laying down on the side that had been opened, and was filled with documents for this guys business. The first bits of furniture I see is not worth as much as I thought it did from looking in. So I am already thinking, great, this locker is a loser. But digging more and more into it. I got more and more excited. This guy liked to collect things. Sports memorobilia, alot of it signed. To bad some of it was ruined, one ball I knew for a fact was forged, and none of it had a COA. Yall have seen me talk about this stuff.

All in all, everything from my first locker was sold or donated. I did make a profit, I made all my money back in 2 weeks, slowly made a profit from it for a long while after it. Total for everything sold and gone out of my inventory was a little over $625. I learned alot from this first unit, and I will never forget it. Oh this is also the locker that I got my other locks from

First auction I went to. 3 lockers in. I bought it.

had about 400 feet of industrial shelving units in it. They area ALL still down in the basement of my business. Paid 100 bucks for them. They hold about 15,000 bucks worth of inventory for my non-locker related business. Over the past 7 years they have held about a million dollars worth of stuff. Great investment if you ask me

Went to a 5 unit auction the other day. Left owning ALL of them. I was the only one to show up. best 5 bucks I ever spent. No. I won't tell you where it was Last time 4 people showed up. I read the obit of one of them while checking out the public notices. not sure where the other 3 where.

Went to a 5 unit auction the other day. Left owning ALL of them. I was the only one to show up. best 5 bucks I ever spent.

"5 bucks"!!! That's friggin' hilarious.

"5 bucks"!!! That's friggin' hilarious.

didn't even go out to the units. just held it right there in the office. auctioneer waited almost half an hour past the start time before I said uhh.. how bout a buck a unit.

No one was happy with me, but I don't care. It was a bid and they could not turn it down.

3 of them went to the dump, one was all summer kids clothing with good names (it's getting ready to snow here) so I'll have to sit on that one, other was household stuff. Even at 5 bucks I am not going to get rich.

I have seen a total of around 60 lockers and yet to buy one, still felling things out. I'm taking to heart the saying around here "Buying is the easy part". I have done household auctions for close to 10 years and bought things that I liked or thought I could make a small profit on. As of now there are 5 auctions next week that have a total of 27 lockers but that always drops down as people pay up, so we shall see.

Most places around here have the blurp in the paper that they can refuse a bid.  I've yet to see it happen however.  Most locations just want the lockers cleaned out.  As one of the managers told me it cost them like $600 just to run the newspaper ad they must by law.  A buck a unit was great.  I'd of loved it.

Boxlot - don't get discouraged.  It's a little bit of a balancing act at first.  You don't want to spend to much or just not sure about your ability to sell xyz item so you don't bid.  But, due to not bidding you may be passing up some nice units.  What I did in June to pop my cherry so to speak was purchase a locker I wanted the stuff in for myself.  It was a small 5x5 indoor unit with about 1 and 1/2 truckloads of stuff.  Took me an hour to clean out w/ sweeping.  That same day I purchased my second unit due to my wife's prompting.  Again it was stuff she & (later my mother) wanted...plus it had a lockbox.  Even now most of the lockers I buy are ones I want an item or two out of.  Only 2 lockers have been on speculation.