Posted: 10/26/2010 2:45:22 PM EDT
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I am kinda curious about storage unit auctions...Has anyone gone to one or ever bought units?
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ive been to them before, and gotten stuff. you will either luck out, and find one that a bar owned that was full of beer and pool tables, or get a bunch of junk and cheesy holiday decorations. i even gave some of the decorations back to a family after reading a classified ad they posted about them.
my grandfather tell stories about buying whole buildings worth of stuff for 10 cents. |
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I did it once. Turned out pretty good. Got a really nice steel desk/locker that's worth about $100. A couple of old CB's that turned out to be in demand, dumped them on eBay for ~$200. The rest was mostly junk. I paid $7 for the locker, then had to rent a u-haul to get it all home (it was unplanned and I was ~2 hours from home). U-haul ran me ~$100. So, I made $100 and got something decent out of it.
I don't think I'd want to try making a living out of it. |
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Quoted: I did it once. Turned out pretty good. Got a really nice steel desk/locker that's worth about $100. A couple of old CB's that turned out to be in demand, dumped them on eBay for ~$200. The rest was mostly junk. I paid $7 for the locker, then had to rent a u-haul to get it all home (it was unplanned and I was ~2 hours from home). U-haul ran me ~$100. So, I made $100 and got something decent out of it. I don't think I'd want to try making a living out of it. Won't get one for $7 round here. I wouldn't bother. |
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I tried it out once after someone I knew came by my house on a 1976 CB550. I asked where he got it and said a storage unit auction. I looked in the paper and attended one. I bid on a unit and it had old furniture and boxes of junk. I had paid to haul away someone elses shit. I was not impressed. After talking to an old timer who does it for side money. He claimed that getting something good was a 50/50 shot. Out here they will not tell you what the contents of the unit are. It is a blind auction and you'll pay around $50-$75 bucks.
You may get lucky and end up will cool stuff like motorcycles or some packrats trash. YMMV |
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I tried it out once after someone I knew came by my house on a 1976 CB550. I asked where he got it and said a storage unit auction. I looked in the paper and attended one. I bid on a unit and it had old furniture and boxes of junk. I had paid to haul away someone elses shit. I was not impressed. After talking to an old timer who does it for side money. He claimed that getting something good was a 50/50 shot. Out here they will not tell you what the contents of the unit are. It is a blind auction and you'll pay around $50-$75 bucks. You may get lucky and end up will cool stuff like motorcycles or some packrats trash. YMMV How does it work if you get a bike? How does the title transfer? What if it is a car? I think I will try it a few times for giggles. |
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I did this for a few months to make some extra money.
I won two units. One for 10 bucks the other for 40. After everything was said and done I walked away with 870 bucks. Here is what I learned: You can't enter the unit during bidding.....the auctioneer lets you look inside without crossing the threshold of the door. Once everyone has looked the bidding starts. You better have a trailer and a truck or some good friends who do....you have 24 hours to clear the unit and trust me, you will be moving some nasty old sofas, mattresses, etc. Be prepared to go through EVERYTHING. Every page of the old paperbacks, every old box and stack of nasty clothes. Some of the most valuable things I found was stuck as bookmarks in books or hidden and forgotten. I always made a pile of personal things....pictures, trophies, journals, etc. You will find alot of this and I didn't have the heart to toss it so I tried to get that stuff back to the owners. The auctioner has friends and they follow him around and get preferential treatment....this really pissed me off. It won't take long for you to pick up on it. Some storage places go through the stuff before hand and take out the good stuff.....I noticed this when the boxes and other things seemed too neat or all stacked by the front door. I saw some units auction for over 800 bucks and I had no idea what the bidders thought they saw in there but I do know that the good bidders stay away from units that have alot of old nasty furniture and beds, etc.....they don't want to bother moving all that stuff. I would have like to stayed with it but I don't own a trailer and it just about killed me trying to dump all the junk. Don't be scared of snakes and rats, cause you'll find them. I saw one unit full of boxes go for several hundred dollars and then the bidder discovered that they were all empty. There are a few techniques to it. Good luck. |
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I've never understood why they have to auction the entire contents off the way they do? is there some reason behind this? they are by law required to give the owners several written and verbal warnings. It's been awhile but I think its three months of no payments and several warnings then the business takes ownership. Why they don't ebay all the stuff themselves....I don't know. |
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I've never understood why they have to auction the entire contents off the way they do? is there some reason behind this? They don't want to deal with disposal costs. This way, they get a few bucks and an empty unit. so it's by choice, it's not that they have to do it that way? |
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I've never understood why they have to auction the entire contents off the way they do? is there some reason behind this? To recover the back rent in the most economical way possible. Most of the units the people let go are full of total junk. Hiring someone to go through them costs money. It's easier to just auction it off and require the winner to completely clean it out. |
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I've never understood why they have to auction the entire contents off the way they do? is there some reason behind this? They don't want to deal with disposal costs. This way, they get a few bucks and an empty unit. so it's by choice, it's not that they have to do it that way? Not certain. But if I was them, that would be my choice. I would cherry pick them a little first. 
ETA: The rules likely vary a ton state-to-state. |
| Odd, around here they seem to be "no-peek" bids, so you have no idea what is in the unit. Unfortunately this also means the owner usually has a few croanies that he lets know which ones are worth bidding on. If you're joe blow you'll wind up with the units full of trash/rotting furniture. We were lucky enough to get one unit with several full rolling tool cabinets, classic car parts, and a running 3-wheeler, weight set, etc. |
I friend of my manages a storage unit place. one unit has a 73 charger. the person goes 4-5 months without paying rent and every time she calls me to tell me that they are going to empty the unit the guy pays up. so far its been three times i could have had that car for <$500 
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| My friend's dad made a semi-career out of it. He would go to storage unit auctions, buy a ton of stuff and then flip it. He seemed to do ok with it and always had a lot of junk for sale. At one point, he found a ticking device in one of the storage units he had bought, called the police, and their bomb squad determined it was a bomb. Apparently someone had booby-trapped their storage unit in case it went to auction. So I guess there's some good and bad that goes with buying an unknown room full of crap at auction. |
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I tried it out once after someone I knew came by my house on a 1976 CB550. I asked where he got it and said a storage unit auction. I looked in the paper and attended one. I bid on a unit and it had old furniture and boxes of junk. I had paid to haul away someone elses shit. I was not impressed. After talking to an old timer who does it for side money. He claimed that getting something good was a 50/50 shot. Out here they will not tell you what the contents of the unit are. It is a blind auction and you'll pay around $50-$75 bucks. You may get lucky and end up will cool stuff like motorcycles or some packrats trash. YMMV How does it work if you get a bike? How does the title transfer? What if it is a car? I think I will try it a few times for giggles. I'm sure it varies from state to state. First you have to go to DMV and do a title search. If there is no lien holder ( bank, loan company ) You can file for a lien sale or duplicate title. It is a time consuming process that takes a couple months of filing the right paper work. But once the paper work is filed the DMV will issue a title within a few weeks. Tow truck and autoshops usually can assist in the paperwork process if you know someone who works there. Or at the minium get to started on the right track. |
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Quoted: My friend's dad made a semi-career out of it. He would go to storage unit auctions, buy a ton of stuff and then flip it. He seemed to do ok with it and always had a lot of junk for sale. At one point, he found a ticking device in one of the storage units he had bought, called the police, and their bomb squad determined it was a bomb. Apparently someone had booby-trapped their storage unit in case it went to auction. So I guess there's some good and bad that goes with buying an unknown room full of crap at auction.  WTF MAN. |
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My friend's dad made a semi-career out of it. He would go to storage unit auctions, buy a ton of stuff and then flip it. He seemed to do ok with it and always had a lot of junk for sale. At one point, he found a ticking device in one of the storage units he had bought, called the police, and their bomb squad determined it was a bomb. Apparently someone had booby-trapped their storage unit in case it went to auction. So I guess there's some good and bad that goes with buying an unknown room full of crap at auction. WTF MAN.
So, he went to the trouble of purchasing bomb components and assembling a bomb, but wouldn't make the payments on the unit? Really? Really? |
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do you just show up and bid at the bidding time or do you have to register ahead of time? And how much time does it take. I thought about trying it once, but I don't want to be there all day long. The one I went to, you just showed up, signed in, and bid. It was clear that I was an "outsider". All the other bidders knew each other and did it for a living. I was there helping a friend. His girlfriend was going through a divorce (don't ask - long story). Her husband was court ordered to maintain the storage unit and represented that he was. Until she got a letter saying the unit was up for auction. It had all kinds of family memories from her childhood, good furniture, etc etc. My friend was trying to bid for it and win. It went over $1k (it was a huge unit with really nice stuff) and all he wanted to get was the memory stuff. He talked to the winning bidder and she got back all her personal stuff. |
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My friend's dad made a semi-career out of it. He would go to storage unit auctions, buy a ton of stuff and then flip it. He seemed to do ok with it and always had a lot of junk for sale. At one point, he found a ticking device in one of the storage units he had bought, called the police, and their bomb squad determined it was a bomb. Apparently someone had booby-trapped their storage unit in case it went to auction. So I guess there's some good and bad that goes with buying an unknown room full of crap at auction. WTF MAN.
So, he went to the trouble of purchasing bomb components and assembling a bomb, but wouldn't make the payments on the unit? Really? Really? As crazy as it sounds, I don't have a hard time believing it. Some people are nuts, some people just don't have any sense. I spend enough time in peoples homes to know exactly how screwed up the priorities of some of the people around us are. |
A few years ago, I got a call from a storage unit place about the unit of the pharmaceutical rep I had recently replaced. They told me if I didn't come get the stuff that they were going to auction it. I drove three hours down to get the stuff. It was basically two pickup loads of outdated pharmaceutical product literature (brochures, studies, etc) and a couple of Christmas items (wrapping paper and decorations iirc). It was all crap. So, I essentially cleaned out the unit for free.
Bottom line, if you had bid on that unit, you would have been pissed! |
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I owned a 1000 unit facility, this is the best reply one can make, I added some stuff in blue:
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I did this for a few months to make some extra money. I won two units. One for 10 bucks the other for 40. After everything was said and done I walked away with 870 bucks. Here is what I learned: You can't enter the unit during bidding.....the auctioneer lets you look inside without crossing the threshold of the door. Once everyone has looked the bidding starts. You better have a trailer and a truck or some good friends who do....you have 24 hours to clear the unit and trust me, you will be moving some nasty old sofas, mattresses, etc. Most places will let you pro-rate a few days if you need. Be prepared to go through EVERYTHING. Every page of the old paperbacks, every old box and stack of nasty clothes. Some of the most valuable things I found was stuck as bookmarks in books or hidden and forgotten. Check every single thing!!! I always made a pile of personal things....pictures, trophies, journals, etc. You will find alot of this and I didn't have the heart to toss it so I tried to get that stuff back to the owners. Try to do this, it's state law in WA and the right thing to do. The auctioner has friends and they follow him around and get preferential treatment....this really pissed me off. It won't take long for you to pick up on it. Mayby, I could not stand most of our "freinds" they act budy budy but get nothing extra from us. Some storage places go through the stuff before hand and take out the good stuff.....I noticed this when the boxes and other things seemed too neat or all stacked by the front door. Again in Wa every unit must be inventoried. No we don't take anything out of them. Serously, we would hae piles and piles of "junk" if we did; we want YOU to see and have the good stuff so you will keep coming back and getting our space freed up! I saw some units auction for over 800 bucks and I had no idea what the bidders thought they saw in there but I do know that the good bidders stay away from units that have alot of old nasty furniture and beds, etc.....they don't want to bother moving all that stuff. Ask, often I would deal with matresses because a unit that would have sold other wise might not I would have like to stayed with it but I don't own a trailer and it just about killed me trying to dump all the junk. Want free units? Ask at the end, if the don't sell we would take it alllll to the dump. If they did not sell we would give them away just to avoid that. Don't be scared of snakes and rats, cause you'll find them. I saw one unit full of boxes go for several hundred dollars and then the bidder discovered that they were all empty. I can't tell you how mny times we have cut locks off a unit thats 100+ days behing to find a bag of old McD's in it. They get sent to collections anyway. There are a few techniques to it. Good luck. |
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So, he went to the trouble of purchasing bomb components and assembling a bomb, but wouldn't make the payments on the unit? Really? Really? As crazy as it sounds, I don't have a hard time believing it. Some people are nuts, some people just don't have any sense. I spend enough time in peoples homes to know exactly how screwed up the priorities of some of the people around us are.[/div] I don't know if it was a serious bomb, or some kind of IED made of simple household items. But it was ticking, and the bomb squad was called. And I don't think they put a bomb there because they were missing payments. I always assumed they just put it there to stop intruders/trespassers and it ended up going to auction, but they never removed it. It made the local news, but that's been 8-10 years ago. I was in high school at the time. My friend's dad was on the news explaining why he called the cops and his reaction to it. I don't know if it was some kind of booby trap for something illegal like drugs or weapons either, but he did eventually get to pick up the stuff out of the unit. |
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I did great on one.
A few years back I was in charge of cleaning our unit. (out of town contractor needed storage) During lunch break I saw the flyer for the auction in the window of the office so I stuck around. Only 2 other people showed up and the auction was a closed door auction so I bought one for $40 and it was full to the roof of wire. (from #12 to 350mcm on the reels) I made over $4500 in scrap. (stripped out the big stuff and kept a good bit of the #10 and #12) 
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