Selling items at a auction house

Does anyone ever take stuff to a auction house to be auctioned off that you had purchased at a storage unit ?

If so how did it work for you.

I sell items at auction houses that are not going to do well on EBAY or are too large to ship, or too nice to sell at a garage sale or flea market. I have done pretty well most of the time but lately not so much. All three auction houses that I use are doing horrible lately. I had 35 items at one of them a couple weeks before Christmas and watched items sell for $5, $10, 15 that a few months ago would have been $25, $50, $75. It was horrible! I would have made more money selling the stuff at a garage sale. Finally left so I wouldn't have to watch it anymore. I will not be selling at the auction houses until I see things pick up. Maybe in the spring.

It's always a gamble.  Usually you will make a lot more money just selling on craigslist or ebay, but if you have a lot of stuff you want to move fast or a few particular items that would work with a specialty crowd, it can be the way to go.

I don't know what percentage you pay around your area, but up here, they take 35% right off the top.  So keep that in mind if you are trying to move something fast, you could put your item on craigslist and maybe discount it 20% but still pocket more than you would running it through an auction house.

Also, most auction houses don't want to sell on reserve, so if your $10,000.00 antique buffet with solid gold drawer pulls sells for 100 bucks, that's the way it goes! 

The auction house I used most recently takes 30%. One of the auction houses near me takes 50% up to $150.00 then drops to 30%. I made a deal with them once at 30% for all and did pretty well but will not use them again because of the 50% rate. So not fair. They get 50% from the consigner and then another 15% from the buyer. They are getting less and less good stuff since raising the rate so hopefully they will see the light eventually.

The auction house I used most recently takes 30%. One of the auction houses near me takes 50% up to $150.00 then drops to 30%. I made a deal with them once at 30% for all and did pretty well but will not use them again because of the 50% rate. So not fair. They get 50% from the consigner and then another 15% from the buyer. They are getting less and less good stuff since raising the rate so hopefully they will see the light eventually.

those rates are extreme for sure, auction house I have used in the past when I was in phoenix charged 30% at first there was no buyer premium but as they got bigger they started charging 10% to the buyer also