Sealed Bid Auctions

In the last 10 years there was only one place in my area that sold with sealed bids and those were done by the manager and regional manager. 

Then the TV shows hit and in the 2nd year of that phenomenon they went to a regular auctioneer and eventually even ended up with the Dotson company.

Does anyone still see sealed bids in their area?

The last bastion of sealed bid auctions finally went the way of the dodo bird, and signed up with storage battles. I never did participate in sealed bid auctions, because I don't like gambling my money on blind bets. So, this is a welcomed change.

Not sure how this is different than you bidding at a regular auction. Wouldn't you just write down what you would be willing to pay based on what you saw ?

The regulars in my area really liked the sealed bids. We all knew each other and pretty much what each would go for. It was not uncommon to "lose" a locker by just $25 or so. Once I "won" by just a $2 margin.

By in large we did well at that place. Now it's just another auction.

Only one in my area still. That is where I scored my unit of a life time and four others. I just have to remember to take plenty of cash when I go to this one.

Security Self Storage has dozens of locations in Texas which still have sealed bid auctions.

I'm hoping they'll start listing their auctions on OnlineStorageAuctions.com. It would make their facility manager's job so much easier since they wouldn't have to show the unit to everyone who stops by.

Give them another six months to a year and I'm sure they will.

Not sure how this is different than you bidding at a regular auction. Wouldn't you just write down what you would be willing to pay based on what you saw ?

My apologies. I thought you were talking about closed lockers. The facility I was talking about did sealed bid, closed door sales. They expected us to make educated decisions based on a description by the management only.

The facility I was talking about did sealed bid, closed door sales. They expected us to make educated decisions based on a description by the management only.

Now THAT is a rarity ! I've only heard of it once in 10 years and the place was of course privately owned, in the worst section of town and known for its garbage lockers for those brave enough to try.

An educated guess based on what a manager said?  You KNOW how reliable that would be.

This is a similar facility. Although it was once in a bad part of town. Now that part of town has gone through a revitalization and is attracting some big money. Therefore, the stuff in there is much nicer. They saw how they're losing money each auction by doing closed door sealed bid auctions..

one facility in my area still does this. these are my favorite types of auctions

Two places locally still do this.  One of them only let's you bid whole dollar amounts, but the other place lets you bid cents on the end.  I have won more than one locker by less than a buck!  One day, I won three lockers, and two of them I beat out the same guy by .88 cents and .72 cents!  He still whines about that every time I see him.....lol.

The one locker I ended up with for a whopping $301.88 and I made over 3k on it.  He bid $301.00.  Most of the regulars coming to these two auctions have been going there so long, it's amazing how many times you'll have ten different people bidding within 10 bucks of each other. 

That's funny. I do the same thing except I assume others are doing the same thing I am so I usually step it up a bit. For example, if I want to bid $300, I'll assume someone will bid $301.00, possibly even $310, so I'll bid $311. This works especially well with online storage auctions.