My best unit to date

My best unit to date was from an unlikely auction. It was at a moving company on a Saturday, and there were a LOT of people there. They broke down all the units except for 4. I didn't bid on anything until the 4 units. The first 2 seemed to go for well more than they should have. The 3rd and 4th units were the ones I was going to bid on. The 3rd a large table, covered. I was pretty sure it was a conference table, which it was. There were also what seemed to be older high-end executive chairs, they didn't look to be in great condition. In the back you could see some baby strollers, car seats. The bidding started at around 100..125, guy shot it up to 200. Going once, going twice.... I jumped in last second at 225$... the auctioner was really quick, I didn't mean to almost lose it like that. He gave a few seconds.. sold. I was pretty happy at that point, but still was unsure as it was tough to tell the condition of the chairs.

The chairs ended up being very high quality and all in pretty good to good shape. I sold them for 80$, 70$, 60$ and kept the 4th for my office. The chairs and table were all Lazboy and very nice but older. The table has sat in my garage for a while now. I listed it for 300$ and had someone come 2 days later and would have taken it if it were a tiny bit smaller. I finally sold it for 150$ just to get it out of here as I had already done well on the unit.

Thebaby strollers and car seats ended up being where the real money came from. I sold the two strollers for 70$ and 50$. I had 2 Orbit car seats, stroller seats that I sold together to a guy for 250$. I sold another car seat for 75$ and have another that I will get around 50$ for. I also have some decorative items that I am going to sell at flea market and will prob get around 20$ for.

I have made 475$ profit so far and have a really nice office chair. Once the rest sells, I should be at 550$ profit. It was not anything crazy, but it was great for a day's work and I was able to empty in 1 trip with my Jeep and my firned's truck.

It is crazy how much these car seats and strollers are and how much you can sell them for used.

Cool! I am happy for you. It is always nice to make a good profit.

I hope this gave you the spark to go on and explore the world of storage auctions.

My best unit, is really a tie. One for being the most profitable, the other because of what I found. First locker ever, the one I got my locks in . Had two big totes full of Signed Sports Memorbilia, sadly because people dont buy them that much no more and some were damaged I didnt make much money off of them. I made total $400 profit, which is a little bit less than double what I put into it. Paid $450 for the lkr, and got $850 for everything, I think I might even have some stuff from it still.

The most profitable, the lkr looked ****ty as hell, but I decided to take a gamble, something told me this was a good lkr, just because the tenants were hounding abotu bnot selling their locker, taht they are on their way. Which come to find out they were not coming till the next day. Anyway, I paid $180 for it. I made that with a box that had several game systems in it. 2 PS 2 controllers, NES 64 with no power cables, gameboy, xbox game, Nintendo DS, and Gameboyadvance. Everything else was pure profit. Box of jewerly that I sold of as scrap gold and silver made $200 with that, a lawn chair that I kept, a whole bunch of baby furniture that I sold off for an additional $250. Cant remember everything in that unit that I did good on, but those were the big ticket items.

This qualifies as one of my best. Got it in February, 2005 at a government auction online.
Cost was $400 and I picked it up locally at a federal storage area just 15 miles away.



Item             Quantity   Total sale price
U.S. Locks          72       $     288
Flags (U.S.)        18       $     450
Paint Pan/roller   48       $     155
Imation Drives    24       $     387
Chainsaw files   11,256  $   3,156
      
total                      $   4,436
      


Looking back at it now I made at least one mistake on this one. The padlocks were stamped U.S. and I sold them at the flea for $4 each. Collectors would have paid more on eBay I think.

The flags were U.S. Diplomatic kind flown on front fenders of the big black limos the government types use. Sold a few at flea, but most on eBay.

The paint pans were just that and included one roller handle and roller. New shrink-wrapped.

Old-school (now) Imation SuperDisk drives (data storage); new in boxes. Good deal !

The biggie. Chainsaw files and one size up from what a consumer chain saw uses, but they went like gangbusters and I still have 4 cases left ! I sell them at $1 each now (or 12 for $9) but then I was wholesale-ing them out by boxes of 12 or cases of 12 (144 files).  The total from my spreadsheet in 2005 showed I had sold 11,256 (938 dozen) of them for $3,156 ($3.36 per dozen).

Grand total was $4,436 or 10 times the money on the $400 investment.  

I recently bid on another gov auction and would have been happy at around $600 for what it had, but it went for $1100 so the profit was too thin for me to pursue it.

how do the online government auctions work?

how do the online government auctions work?

You open an account with the gov agency you want to deal with. You use a credit card for payment. When you see an auction you want to bid on, you bid on it. You are able to see "cloaked" names for the other bidders and you can see how you are doing.

If you want to place a maxiumum bid of $500 (or any amount) you can do that and the agency will only bump the bid by a certain amount (say $10) to put you in the lead. If the other person has also done this "proxy" type of approach then his bids will automatically go up against yours. This way you don't have to watch the bidding every day (or hour). When it gets close to the bid closing time, you want to start watching. Auctions usually run for a week.

They do have a thing that protects them a bit.  As closing time come they have a 10 minute window in which they will CONTINUE to take bids. In other words if you are the winning bidder at closing time with say $475 they give a 10 minute window for others to bid. If your high bid was $1000 and someone outbid your $475 by the $10 jump, they would go in at $485 and your auto-bid (proxy) would trump them at $495; this could go on for awhile with 10 minute leeways until one of you used up your auto-bid max.

Now to the question that some will ask (and I will not answer...maybe someone else will); WHAT ARE THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES THAT DO AUCTIONS?

I won't answer that because unlike the auctions in our different states that I can not attend, ANYONE can compete in an internet auction and thus BECOME COMPETITION. Despite the fact that the kind of item I like to buy only comes up once a year (or less) to provide info on where the auctions are is providing the competition with info and in business that would not be a good idea.  DO SOME RESEARCH and you will find info on government auctions.

Lol, I am already one of your direct comps . Been doing those online govt auctions longer than I have been doing storage auctions.

Most of the stuff I go for is rare collectible stuff or computer and IT stuff. Every now and then tools. But like modern tech gadgets, they go up in price farely quickly.

What I want to do is get into police autcions in person.

Lol, I am already one of your direct comps . Been doing those online govt auctions longer than I have been doing storage auctions.

Be glad you didn't get the 1,000 dozen chain saw files I got. You would have had to drive from TX to CA...shipping them to you would have been VERY EXPENSIVE from a weight standpoint ! 

Be glad you didn't get the 1,000 dozen chain saw files I got. You would have had to drive from TX to CA...shipping them to you would have been VERY EXPENSIVE from a weight standpoint ! 

lol, thats why most of the stuff I go for in the state of Texas, within a 3 - 4 hour drive from San Antonio. Most I have seen is they want you to come in person to pick up anyway.

lol, thats why most of the stuff I go for in the state of Texas, within a 3 - 4 hour drive from San Antonio. Most I have seen is they want you to come in person to pick up anyway.

Yes, MOST would be picked up locally, but I once got a batch from Denver which they sent me, and as I recall they even paid for it...don't know how that happened, but it was only one box about 18" square.

Yes, MOST would be picked up locally, but I once got a batch from Denver which they sent me, and as I recall they even paid for it...don't know how that happened, but it was only one box about 18" square.

I see some of them that will ship it to you, always wanting to charge freight. But wow, never seen one were they will ship it to you and THEY pay for it.

I see some of them that will ship it to you, always wanting to charge freight. But wow, never seen one were they will ship it to you and THEY pay for it.

I know, can't remember the details of that shipment; it was about 4 years ago. I just don't remember doing anything with them regarding ME paying for the shipment...giving them credit card info, etc. Maybe they could just absorb that since it couldn't have been more than $15 or so. Anyway, got the package and was happy my friend in Denver didn't have to pick it up in downtown Denver and then go to the trouble of shipping it to me.