1. Yes it is common, but not manditory for the facility to list the inventory. I believe some facilities do this in hopes of creating more interest and higher bidding.

2. It may depend on the lien laws in your state, but the way I understand the law in my state is the owner can take possesion of the contents and dispose of them however they wish once they have fulfilled thier legal obligations. So if a facility owner bids on his or her own units at auction in my state that is a red flag to stay away from that facility. They are probably trying to run up the bidding. I have seen auctioneers bid on units, whether or not they know what is in the units is a big question. I have never seen them go after an obviously great unit, usually the marginal units that are going pretty cheap so they know it's probably a good buy.

As far as storage facilities that cherry pick the good stuff out of units, you will find out about these places fairly quickly once you get on the auction trail. Just hang around the regulars and you will hear about the facilities they stay away from, and as you start going to different auctions make a mental note of the auctions that never seem to have the regulars show up. that is a good indication that those units have been picked of the good stuff.

lol, Your going to go into a pissing contest with a 12 yr old just so you can get the unit he/she is going for even if it aint worth that value?

jrossjr79, It was a little bit tongue & cheek, but to expand on this statement, in my area it has become soo competative as of late that hypothetically if a 12 year old was bidding on a nice unit that I thought was worth the risk, then yes, I would take a gamble on over paying to win the unit. Last thing we need is Granny & Grampy Warbucks feeding thier grandkids slush money to play storage auctions!

That being said there are a few teenagers in my area who are the kids of seasoned auction veterans and they are already pretty savvy. They are going to be very formidable competition in a few years if they stick with the auction business.

[quote author=Bandit link=topic=1511.msg7562#msg7562 date=1312518543                                                                                                                                                                                                                Now why did You have to go and give away Our Business Plan .  
  Bandit
[/quote]

Sorry, forgot it was a public forum, my bad 

Well, although a lot of auctioneers don't allow children to attend, there is nothing stopping them legally from bidding on a unit. The only agreement you are making when you buy a unit is that you will have it cleaned out within a certain amount of time.

I know one young man who attends auctions with his mother, I think he is 12. He is allowed to select his own units, bid on them himself (with his own hard earned money) and he is responsible for loading and selling the merchandise. His mother allows him to do this in order to teach him how to be responsible with money. I don't call that a waste.

I'm afraid I will have to disagree with you on  this one. The auctions are a legal proceeding, officially known as property lien auctions. I do not believe a minor is LEGALLY allowed to purchase the contents of a storage unit at auction. Just like a minor cannot purchase a home at a foreclosure sale. The mother, is acting as her minor childs agent. She my allow him to clean out the units and sell the merchandise but she is fully responsible for what ever happens.

That is how I understand it, if I am wrong I would be surprised.

Yikes, I sounds like the more well known and better advertised auctions are going to be slammed in the coming months,  but I bet we can still get away with some good deals at the little known facilities. I will have to see how this theory pans out over the next couple of months.

terrorbow the truth most of the new people only last a month or two. after that they have lost so much money they stop going. you can't put all your eggs in storage auction. you will lose money that way. well for the next few years anyway.  think out side of the box.

Problem with my area is the new ones who only last a month or two keep getting replaced by other newbies with more money. It seems to be getting more competative in my area. I am one of those who carry the 5-10k, but I have not been willing to drop big money just to make sure I when the locker. With that being said, with all the new competition, and going home empty handed last week, I just might have to show these newbies how deep my pockets are! Not because I want to get in a pissing contents and try to show people up, I just need to start getting more inventory.

You're in Ga right?  What run was that?  I'm glad I didn't get out there yesterday.  Also glad they have some smaller auctions up my way, Gainesville, Cleveland area..

Metro Chattanooga, some of the auctions were in north Georgia others in Tennessee. You might see me in the Gainesville/Cleveland area sometime.

Went to a large corporate storage auction run yesterday and ohh my. I re-read my post from earlier in the month and it looks like the current trend is large corporate auctions=new faces/big money spent; small independent auctions = less people, less regulars/more resonable bidding.

A trend I have noticed and seems to be continueing is the changing demographics of storage auctions. Last fall the crowd was predominately "working class", yesterday it was quite apparent storage auctions have gone mainstream and attracted the attention of your average "middle class and upper class" American. It looked like a crowd of people had just left Macy's or a country club, not kidding! New trucks, new SUVs, Lexus' in the parking lot. They were'nt just window shopping either.

Here are the particulars:
Regulars = 5-8 depending on location, Newbies = 40-60 depending on location.
Total units up for auction 28; # won by regulars 2-5 (can't say I know ALL the regulars), # won by newbies 23-27.
Average price of a 5 x 10, around $225
Average price of a 10 x 10 around $600
Top locker of the day 10 x 30 $1375 (I went to $1200 on this unit)
Insane locker of the day 10 x 15 3/4 full Walmart brand clothes, baby stuff, baby & kid's toys, movies (all used of course) $825!

Needless to say, I did'nt win anything. Things appear to be like Movieman said, a continual wave of new faces who drop a bunch of money, get burned, don't show up again, but then a new wave arrives to replace them and they do the same thing over again. Gotta find away to compete against this never ending hoard of "shoppers".