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Stories about Storage Auctions / Never in my life...
« on: September 11, 2012, 12:32:42 PM »
Tell me if you've ever heard of something similiar to this.
Went to an auction a week ago. The owner of the facility decided to save money and auction off the units himself. There were very few people in attendance, so I figured I would get a few cheap units. It turned out to be a disaster.
First, the owner started each unit at $1,000. He then painstakingly went down in increments of a hundred. The units were filled with junk, but it gets better, as he had already went into each unit the night before and wrote all of the contents down on a piece of paper, so when we were looking in the units he read it off. Rumor was that he let people in early to cherry pick the good items on a piece by piece basis. He wrote every bid on a piece of paper, which made the bidding process EXTREMELY slow. And, of course, there was that one guy there bidding ridiculous amounts on garbage.
It gets better.
I did win one unit. The owner let everyone know beforehand that they discovered a gun in the unit and it was being held by the local police department to get checked out. I have purchased units before with guns, waited for them to get checked out, and done very well with that. I had no problem bidding up to $300 for a pistol and calling the rest of the unit a consolation prize.
The guy blowing through his cash had spent $600 on a unit filled with tupperware, so I don't think he wanted to chance several hundred on a unit that no one knew if the gun could be taken or not. Needless to say I won the unit for $300. This didn't go over very well with the storage facility owner, and it was a precursor to what happened two units later.
The last unit, well what ended up being the last unit, was a huge unit filled to the gills with stuff. The owner at this point had stopped reading from his list, as he figured out he was giving out too much info. (I was going to make a play for an earlier unit with a toolbox but he read that there were no tools in the box, duh!) There was a baby grand piano, a ton of antique furniture, and probably enough merchandise to fill a few trailers.
He started the bid at $4,000.
He then went to 2k, of course during this all he was ridiculing everyone in attendance, as he had done the entire auction. Saying things like, "Come on you know this stuff is worth more, sheesh" "You guys are even close to what this stuff is worth" Well someone gave him an offer to open it at $1,000 (which I considered to be too much) and the owner says, "hold on I have to make a call" he then proceeds to pull out his cell phone, call someone, and then hang up. He looks at the crowd and says,
"Yah we aren't going to sell this one today, you aren't even close to where this needs to be."
People were a bit upset. There was no discussion of there being a reserve. After this locker, he decided to stop the auction altogether and not sell the rest of the remaining lockers.
Of course after the auction the guy that won like 5 lockers was cleaning out a locker next to mine. His dad says, "Yah, my son just got into this a few weeks ago. He's going to go bid. He bought this 20 foot trailer and he's just buying merchandise right now. He's going to start a store pretty soon. He's been researching this stuff for a few months now. I ask, "Researching?" Yah, he's been watching those shows on television and digging around on the internet. Oh....boy..... He then proceeded to tell me what everything in my locker was worth. He notices my shirt that has the name of my store on it and asks, "oh, you have a store, have you done this before?" I reply with, "Yes, we have two locations, and I've done this a time or two." That didnt' seem to stop him from throwing out advice on old jeans because he knew they were worth money from an episode he saw on storage wars. Ugh.
Anyone ever deal with a storage facility owner like this one before?
Went to an auction a week ago. The owner of the facility decided to save money and auction off the units himself. There were very few people in attendance, so I figured I would get a few cheap units. It turned out to be a disaster.
First, the owner started each unit at $1,000. He then painstakingly went down in increments of a hundred. The units were filled with junk, but it gets better, as he had already went into each unit the night before and wrote all of the contents down on a piece of paper, so when we were looking in the units he read it off. Rumor was that he let people in early to cherry pick the good items on a piece by piece basis. He wrote every bid on a piece of paper, which made the bidding process EXTREMELY slow. And, of course, there was that one guy there bidding ridiculous amounts on garbage.
It gets better.
I did win one unit. The owner let everyone know beforehand that they discovered a gun in the unit and it was being held by the local police department to get checked out. I have purchased units before with guns, waited for them to get checked out, and done very well with that. I had no problem bidding up to $300 for a pistol and calling the rest of the unit a consolation prize.
The guy blowing through his cash had spent $600 on a unit filled with tupperware, so I don't think he wanted to chance several hundred on a unit that no one knew if the gun could be taken or not. Needless to say I won the unit for $300. This didn't go over very well with the storage facility owner, and it was a precursor to what happened two units later.
The last unit, well what ended up being the last unit, was a huge unit filled to the gills with stuff. The owner at this point had stopped reading from his list, as he figured out he was giving out too much info. (I was going to make a play for an earlier unit with a toolbox but he read that there were no tools in the box, duh!) There was a baby grand piano, a ton of antique furniture, and probably enough merchandise to fill a few trailers.
He started the bid at $4,000.
He then went to 2k, of course during this all he was ridiculing everyone in attendance, as he had done the entire auction. Saying things like, "Come on you know this stuff is worth more, sheesh" "You guys are even close to what this stuff is worth" Well someone gave him an offer to open it at $1,000 (which I considered to be too much) and the owner says, "hold on I have to make a call" he then proceeds to pull out his cell phone, call someone, and then hang up. He looks at the crowd and says,
"Yah we aren't going to sell this one today, you aren't even close to where this needs to be."
People were a bit upset. There was no discussion of there being a reserve. After this locker, he decided to stop the auction altogether and not sell the rest of the remaining lockers.
Of course after the auction the guy that won like 5 lockers was cleaning out a locker next to mine. His dad says, "Yah, my son just got into this a few weeks ago. He's going to go bid. He bought this 20 foot trailer and he's just buying merchandise right now. He's going to start a store pretty soon. He's been researching this stuff for a few months now. I ask, "Researching?" Yah, he's been watching those shows on television and digging around on the internet. Oh....boy..... He then proceeded to tell me what everything in my locker was worth. He notices my shirt that has the name of my store on it and asks, "oh, you have a store, have you done this before?" I reply with, "Yes, we have two locations, and I've done this a time or two." That didnt' seem to stop him from throwing out advice on old jeans because he knew they were worth money from an episode he saw on storage wars. Ugh.
Anyone ever deal with a storage facility owner like this one before?
