Research

Hello everyone I am curious how one would research locker owners. I am considering purchasing lockers based on possible info on owners of the lockers.


example 1
John Doe
123 anytown dr
Old Westbury NY

example 2
Jane Doe
123 anytown dr
New Castle ny

Example: 1 lives in a community with avg income $100k plus

Example: 2 lives in a community with avg income $25k
Based on these examples one can potentially eliminate garbage lockers.


If any of this makes sense what would be the recomended programs for such info.

Thanks in advance for all who may respond to this question.

social media sites can help if their information is enough such that you can pin-point the person.  Linkedin helps if they are a profssional. 
Either way its still luck of the draw as to whether or not they will have any valuables in the locker.

Most of my listings are normally just the last name so hard to do research.  I mostly use the name to check the deceased, foreclosure, bankruptcy, and arrested listings also in the paper.  You can use the area the storage units are in as a small guide also.  Most people don't travel a large distance to a stroage facility.  They try to stay near the home and/or area they are moving to.

Personally I don't think it's worth the the trouble. Even if someone lives in a nice area who's to say their unit isn't just full of 10 year old patio furniture.

Also most of the auctions I go to tend to be in chicago or surrounding suburbs and you can really say oh that's a rich town thats a poor town because chicago as well as these burbs has places someone could buy for a million as well as places one could buy for 80k

I just go to the auctions and let the unit be my research. If I see magazines like Forbes, Watches, Money, etc I'm buying the unit

Yeah, I agree with rules. It's a waste of time trying to do research on an individual. Besides, what if your research turns out to be wrong and you end up overpaying for a unit.

Lets say your research indicates that the tenant owned a jewelry store, are you willing to risk your cash on a hunch?
Only bid on what you can see and you'll rarely lose money.

Read the public notices carefully. Sometimes you can get a good feeling about a unit based on the description of the contents.

Storage Hunters, it's pure fiction.

I think everyone should do some research.  Obviously don't bid on a unit that's supposed to be something.  Look for cues and traces that match your research. Not hard to turn people up through some quick searches.  Some notices even give out where people live and cursory inspections. 

Some auctioneers/property managers a lot of times forget to mention that the unit you just won was one of a couple/several by a tenant.  Woops!  Knowing small things like that can help a lot on how you budget for all their units rather than just one piece.

Time management is important in this business though.  If you got time do it.  But between all the logistics of buying/moving/selling, might be hard!

It's amazing how fast you can learn about people these days though.

I just did some research on about 12 people for next week's auction. I found a few of the people on Facebook. In a picture of one of the women, she had a 1980s working television in the background. If that particular unit has closed boxes and mystery...I know not to bid/gamble lol. Another woman was/is a nurse... I found one guy in the local paper archives who was waving a gun at police and got shot in the stomach back in April. I guess he died since his unit is now being auctioned off. Maybe he'll have guns in his locker (wishful thinking). The other people I either couldn't find at all or their names were way too common.

I do not spend time researching individuals. I factor the area of town the facility is in and whether it's a man or women that rented it. By far the biggest factor is what I see from the door. The personal papers from my last unit painted a very sad and financially desperate situation, yet yielded many great items for resale. Trust your eyes and bid accordingly.

Don't stereotype an auction. There are good units in bad areas and bad units in good areas. You never know what your going to get.

Well for me...it's mostly just a fun thing to do. I like doing background research/feeling like an investigator...and to find out what happened to the person and why they didn't pay on their unit. Around here, the cheap units are $50/month and the nicest units are $200/month...I would assume if you're paying $200/month for a climate controlled unit...it on average has nicer things than the $50/month unit over in the poor part of town. (Remember...I live in Mississippi...the poor part of town = slave houses that people still live in lol)

I see what you're saying about prices, but seeing as how people living in those "slave houses" are paying next to nothing or nothing at all, they're able to buy a ton of great stuff for themselves.  A ton of the upper scale areas will store the dumbest **** for the most ridiculous price.  I see this **** all the time in upper scale regions in GA.  People tend to pay those high prices to save memories rather than goods(pricey) a lot of the times.

I like doing background research/feeling like an investigator...

You sleuth.

Buy a cloak and a pipe...its cheaper.