1st facility on Friday:

2 units, down from 6, 35 ~ 40 in attendance.

1st unit: Older model lawn tractor, MTD 42" flat tire, looked well used, large tool box, misc garden tools. Went for $900.

2nd unit: The only thing in this unit (12' X 20') was an outdoor patio chair.....actually two chairs with a table in the center with a hole for an umbrella ( all one piece) Looked to be black brushed aluminum. Went for $125.

These both seemed WAY overpriced and were bought by new folks.

2nd facility on Friday:

4 units, down from 8, 20 ~25 in attendance.

All 4 very similar "household" units...small furniture, cloths, boxes and totes and all went for between $600 & $900.

Went to 2 yard sales today with my trusty bookscouter APP and picked up 24 books for $6, they are already packed and ready to be shipped for a grand total sellback of $72.35.....I love this thing!

Thought I would share this site with everyone here....I use it almost exclusively to find local, and some not so local, auctions in my neck of the woods.

Not sure how many states are included but I think there are a dozen or so.

http://mypublicnotices.com/PublicNotice.asp

Click on your state, in the drop-downs I select "Today" as I try and visit daily, choose "Auction & Sale", Keyword: "Storage" and select "All Newspapers", click search....small drop-down select "Complete Notices".

It even has a "Print Selected Notices" feature to make your day!

Hope some of you can get as much use out of this as I do.....saves an incredible amount of time & effort.

Went to two facilities yesterday, same company. Silent bidding (more on this later)

First location advertised 6 units....was down to one at auction time. 20 or so in the crowd... half noobs, half regulars. Cut the lock, threw open the door and there stood one broken beach chair and an old pillow. Pass.

Second location advertised 18 units....still had 14 at auction time. Same kind of crowd, lost a few, picked up a few.

I ended up bidding on 6 of the 14, smaller, inside units, obvious quality or neatly packed mysteries....I have a bit of the gambler in me and neatly stacked & packed closed boxes and totes sometimes get me going. Bid prices ranged from mid $200 range to upper $400 range.

.....now about the silent bidding aspect. Everyone gets a bid sheet with all the units listed and has until the end of the auction to fill them out and hand them in.

THEN....they are sent off to the corporate headquarters in Texas to be tallied up and winners decided. This takes anywhere from 10 to 15 BUSINESS days. This is the only company I have ever dealt with that does their auctions this way.

Has anyone else ever run into this kind of policy? It has many downsides to it but the one upside is, so many folks around here hate it, that the crowds stay relatively small.

It took me a while to get used to not needing to have any cash on me and lugging a fist full of locks around.....and the wait can be torture, especially if you have upcoming actions prior to hearing back from Texas. All in all though I have had some profitable units from this chain and have continued to return.

Thoughts?