Thread: Went to a storage auction.

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I went to 1 of those auctions.. 1 person had a few 10x20's full of stuff and stopped paying on all of them.. when it came time for auction. he was trying to get all of his stuff back ( for free ). then he was bidding, and won 1 of the units back.. but refused to pay, so it had to get re-auctioned.. we got 1 of them for like $100. and kept some furniture.. there was a beat up lawn tractor in the mix that we sold for $100, and did a lawn sale on the other stuff.

The way this one was run was that a bunch of people showed up at 9AM Saturday, and the owners of the storage place took all of us around to the various units that were being sold off. They had 7 units this time. They would open the door of a unit and let you briefly look in to see if there was anything that caught your eye. On some you could walk inside, but weren't allowed to open anything or touch anything. After that they would say "does anyone have an opening bid?" and it started from there like a normal auction. Some units had a minimum, like the motorcycle one. (It may have been a shovel head now that you mention it, I know squat about bikes)

The rules were, all the stuff had to be gone by Sunday evening, so my Son Don helped me Sunday morning load my stuff and get it to the shop. There really wasn't a lot of good stuff in the one I bought, but I viewed it more as fun than a money maker. The worst thing was my unit had 6 -80 pound bags of concrete that had hardened from age. Those went into the dumpster.

Some units had some really nice stuff from what we could see, and I think there were some fleamarket type buyers there bidding on those units. A couple went in the $ 800 range, but those had what looked to be some salable stuff in them. I think I'll go to the next one just to see what I score.

Don

Sounds like fun. I won an ebay auction for a bronze Remington statue that a guy got from one of these blind storage auctions. He got a good deal, and so did I. I love it when you get a good deal.

State laws regarding the foreclosure of rental units varies; here is a beginning web link to laws: http://www.storagelaws.net/

Some states require payment in cash only, some allow the default occupant to redeem his stuff right up to the start of bidding, some states allow visual inspection but no touching of the goods, some states have a procedure to get a title to vehicles purchased from storage units....it is important to note the variance in state law.

On the TV show "Pawn Stars", the wrecker driver scored a real cobra body/chassis from a storage unit and got it in trade for hauling it off!!!! Not a bad haul from a foreclosure.

Mike in Tucson

Good info Mike, I wondered why our situation up here differed from some of the others.

On that "real" Cobra body/chassis, that was a pretty neat deal. But, based on the numbers they were tossing around, and the way they "restored" it with vinyl seats and so on, I'd bet it was one of the "real" continuation, series 3000 cobras rather than the genuine '60s era stuff.

Yep, he really scored on that Cobra body. I think the Pawn Shop gave him $ 50-60,000 for it and it was worth something like $ 100,000.00.

A few months ago I bought that Camaro ex-drag car. Got it for $ 400 and I tallied up about $ 3,000 in engine and transmission parts that were in it. Like I mentioned, I really feel bad for the poor folks who are losing their stuff, but someone is going to buy it, so it might as well be us. Plus, the storage business has a right to cut their losses on non paying units too.

Don