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Messages - blaknite

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31
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Would you buy a locker obviously used as a living space by a "homeless" person ?
« on: August 22, 2013, 12:23:03 AM »
I passed on one recently.  When the door went up, the unit manager said "that bag over on the side is not included in the auction."  A quick glance revealed a whole gift bag of prescription bottles.  The only other thing I remember is that the makeshift bed was a truck seat.  Walked away before looking too hard...

Would I ever buy one?  Probably not.  Bottom line is I'm after profit.  The odds on a man who's living in a storage unit having anything I can make a profit on are very slim.

32
Vehicles at Storage Auctions / Re: RV's & Motorhomes
« on: July 24, 2013, 05:03:09 PM »
What do you suppose an RV would be worth as scrap?

33
Weird & Wacky Finds / Re: Opened the box and .... Awww Noooo!
« on: July 22, 2013, 10:24:30 PM »
Quote from: Travis on July 21, 2013, 12:01:17 PM
You're lucky.

My worst find was a collection of adult DVDs focused on women 70 plus.

I once had to clean out a car from a man who passed away.  His trunk was full of magazines of women with Abnormally freakishly large breasts.  (Some of them had wheeled carts to push them around...)  They went straight in to the trash.  I regret having thrown them out today.  Darn sure that collection would have fetched a pretty penny from some sick-o.

34
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: What is your favorite storage auction?
« on: July 18, 2013, 03:35:32 AM »
Online has its pros and cons. 

Pros
You don't have to go out and waste time you can bid from anywhere.
More time to look and make a solid buying decision.
Advantage goes to the tech savvy.  (old timers will have a harder time zooming in photos etc.)

Cons:
You're NOT EVER going to get that awesome unit for under $200 online because nobody showed up.  Attendance is way over what it would be for a live auction. 
You can't see anything the unit manager didn't want you to see.  (Think cockroaches. One of the worst units I ever bought...)
No chance to hear the gossip or learn new tricks from the old timers on the trail.  Same goes for having a friendly chat with the unit manager and getting a good (or bad) tip.

Reality is that in order for one man to be rich another must be poor.  There will always be the same amount of work done each day. Your station in life is a question of who does more work for less money and who does less work for more.  People flock to storage auctions because they see an opportunity to get more with less.

Online auctions level the playing field between buyers and tip the scales towards the unit managers benefit.  This is a positive if you're new to the game and you're finding it hard to win against the old hands.  Once you've been around a while you'll find the live auctions are better because things aren't as fair and balanced.  If you want fair you should get a job.  What we're looking for is a chance to take advantage of others weakness to get ahead.  (you see something they didn't.  You see an opportunity to run someone up.  You have more money in your pocket when the killer unit comes up. etc.)

35
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Gold in Electronics
« on: July 16, 2013, 03:57:39 AM »
I'll have a truckload by the time I eventually get to sorting the electronics boards and recycling them.  For now they get pulled and piled in totes, stacked at the back of the shed.  I take the cases off as steel scrap and recycle it separately.  Must just be the kind of units I buy, but I end up with a truckload of steel quite often.

36
Storage Facilities / Re: Reasons people lose their storage unit
« on: July 16, 2013, 03:51:59 AM »
This was one of the first questions that I had to wrap my mind around before I could ever bid on a unit. 

Based on what I've seen it breaks down about like this:
Tenant moved out, took only what they felt was important, and left cleanup to the facility. 70%.  (bad units)
Drugs / Jail 20% (some good some bad)
Job loss / Miscommunication about who needed to pay for the unit / divorce / Death 10%.  (mostly good units)

Not every unit follows the pattern though.  I got one from a guy who died.  10x20 packed full of expensive looking boxes.  The kind you pay for not the kind you get for free from the grocer.  The boxes were full of 50 years worth of scrapbooks and Christmas lights.

37
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Tracking Your Profits
« on: July 14, 2013, 02:36:35 AM »
Quote
just way to much work with the nickel and diming type items trying to track it all

I can see your point there.  Depends mostly on your business model.  I buy units as a hobby, about one a month. There's not a lot to get mixed up since I don't buy again until I have space.  I learned that lesson the hard way on my very first unit.  Got a damn good unit and destroyed half the merchandise piling it on the back patio under tarps.  Once somethings hung around long enough that I forget what unit it came out of its usually on the way to the landfill anyway.  I do keep one page on my spreadsheet for stuff I can't remember what unit I got it from though.

38
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Gold in Electronics
« on: July 14, 2013, 02:23:32 AM »
Any electronics I can't sell, I'm piling up to eventually scrap.  I don't bother hunting for gold in them though.  Stuff like cpu chips and memory can be sold at a higher rate, but pretty much all your circuit boards can be sold by the pound.  Just have to find the right scrap yard.

39
Storage Facilities / Re: New way for locker renters to pay their bills !
« on: July 11, 2013, 09:20:24 PM »
I've seen a similar system installed at a facility here locally.  Funny thing is they always have 10+ a month going for auction.  Not a very big place either.  I think the manager there just prefers to sell peoples stuff to having to chase after them for payment.

40
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: What do you all do with the clothes you find?
« on: July 11, 2013, 09:07:25 PM »
At the moment I pretty much give away any clothing I get that doesn't look like it would fetch $10 plus on ebay.  Seems a waste but I really don't have a good location for yard sales.  3 hours in the sun, one person stops...  I have been kicking around an idea that might move them for some profit though.  I was thinking to build them up in boxes on a pallet, then auction the whole pallet on ebay.  Even if the clothes go for nothing I might be able to find a regular buyer who owns a thrift store that wants them.

41
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Tracking Your Profits
« on: July 11, 2013, 08:55:28 PM »
I have tracked my income / costs down the penny in a spreadsheet since day one.  I pay my taxes listed as hobby income on my tax forms.  There are both positives and negatives to tracking it. 

One negative is that once I reach the point of "break even" on a unit the drive to move this crap breaks down.  Another is I find myself considering taking less for something than its worth because I've already made my money back.  Mostly a mindset thing I guess.

A positive is I can see which units "actually" made money.  I remember one particular unit I bought, I was sure I'd make a killing on ebay with lots of small shippable items in good condition.  (books / dvd's mostly)  After a serious evaluation I discovered that USPS made a killing, ebay and paypal collected a fair sum, and I spent three months working to get my money back.   Its changed my perspective on what I bid on.  Ebay is great if I got something rare its going to be hard to find a buyer for.  I don't bid on things with intent to sell on ebay now.  I use ebay when its the best method to sell something I otherwise ended up with.

42
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Manager looked through my locker before I bought it??
« on: July 11, 2013, 08:21:48 PM »
While I don't question there is lots of dishonest managers, This, sounds to me less like foul play and more like poor judgement.  The tenant probably took what they wanted then instead of cleaning out their unit abandoned it.   The unit manager took advantage of the auction process to clean out a unit that he would have otherwise had to trash.  This unit went to you for $25 because EVERYONE else could see that it wasn't worth that much.  The guy who bid 20 was probably just gambling.

43
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: 4 degrees of seperation
« on: July 11, 2013, 08:15:01 PM »
Perhaps I'm a mean spirited voyeur, but I actually look at the legals to see if a name I know pops up... Never actually got one though.  I don't buy all that many units.  One a month or a little less.

44
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Great Finds?
« on: June 27, 2013, 02:20:40 AM »
I've been buying units for about two years now, average about one a month as a hobby.  (I've got a real job or I'd do a lot more)  I've never hit a big score.  My dad wanted to give it a try so I brought him to an auction.  He went 150 on a unit full of dirty old mattresses I wouldn't have bid on at all.  I gritted my teeth as he just kept bidding up on this garbage...   I headed off to work after the auction.  He had 5k in hand when I got back to help him after work.  (He sold a box full of gold jewelry at a pawn shop before he even finished cleaning out the unit...) 

45
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Researching Auctions Prior to Going
« on: June 27, 2013, 02:01:46 AM »
Being somewhat of a hack with computers, researching the units prior to the auction seemed like second nature to me.  I did it at first quite a bit.  Going to live auctions and talking to folks, I quickly found that the old pros don't bother.  The more time I spend doing auctions stuff the more I realize the value of my time and researching auctions doesn't pay.  (with one exception)  I usually print a list of the units that had legal posted and take it to the auction.  If the legal says there were 20 units and there's 22 when you get there, don't bid on the other two. 

The only way a facility gets extra units to auction is something shady.  (private sale, staged, unit full of abandoned trash from cleaning the facility, etc)   The only thing you'll buy in these units is an education.

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