Tags: About Self Storage Unit Auctions, Making money with storage unit auctions, What I got out of a self storage auction unit
I am often asked where are the best places to go for the really good stuff at storage unit auctions. Honestly I cannot tell you. I have gotten great units in bad neighborhoods and crap from the rich side of town plus the converse is true, you can get a killer unit in a rich neighborhood….however expect a crowd!
You just have to go to the auctions and see what is up, there is no magic formula for finding the good rooms. The magic is in knowing what you are bidding on. Everything sells it is a matter of price!
I got the love of my life in a regular neighborhood on a regular fall day with about twenty people at the auction. The selling season was in full swing and everyone needed inventory.
This spot had over 30 units going for auction I brought the truck, two stacks and had some Mexicans on stand by. I was buying no matter the cost the place was even close to my bank if I need more loot. So I was locked and loaded.
I bought the first eight units and the folks were bitching and whining, this was a business not a popularity contest. After that the units fell off and went from okay to downright junky, then the people started rushing in to pay off they units, ( they only sold 22) I was glad I pulled the trigger early!
The next to the last unit was just a bunch of boxes, no one was interested, I bid $25.00 I had to comeback anyway. No one else bid and I locked it down.
It was funny how this was the last unit we loaded and it paid for all nine units and made a hugh profit! I actually put the boxes to the side and worked on the furniture which was selling like crack!
Oh how I remember the day that I saw her! She was fine! Perfectly proportioned, dimpled face, bee stung red lips and dark brown hair, so dark you would think it was black. I think it was love at first sight…..once I saw what the bidding was up to in the morning!
I know you are saying what the hell?
I got a box of authentic and mint condition number one thru three Barbies dolls by Mattel! With a ton of Barbie clothing! Roman Holiday and Easter Parade the rarest of all Barbie outfits!
Being new to the auction world of ebay, I took a ton of pictures and put all of the items up as a bulk lot. There must have been over 30 images in that auction, really clear and crisp! See my book on how to make your auction pop!
This was a crash course in real collectibles, the Barbie community is huge! I really the first email I got vividly “ I will give you $750.00 for everything you have!” I was like WHOA Baby, this stuff was only $25.00 as my pudgy little fingers start to type a reply. I remember the first time someone may me an offer on eBay and I took it. I lost over $300.00 on that so called offer.
I withdrew my fingers from the keyboard and thought about it, if this person is offering this much for this stuff it has got to be worth at least double if not three times as much.
I politely told the lady I was going to let the auction ride.
Note- 9 times out of 10 if you accept an offer on eBay for an item you have up for auction you are going to lose money! The only exception to this is if you have a BIN and you priced it right, so even with an offer you are making what you want to make on that item!
Later on that day I got an offer for $1500.00 so I knew I was right about the price, so I decided to just wait and see the auction was set for seven days and we were at $1850.00 on the first day!
The offers kept coming, (I think they thought I was an idiot) the Roman Holiday outfit alone was bringing $1850-2200.00 on eBay at the time! I could barely contain my enthusiasm!
Each day like a crack head I watched the bidding climb and climb on day four it stalled at $4300.00 and stayed there until Sunday just with five minutes left to go in the auction.
On eBay you have ballers and chippers, the chippers put in dollar bids and keep inching the bid up ( they are deathly afraid of paying to much) whereas the ballers just swing for the fences hundred dollar bids or even a thousand.
If you never felt the excitement of watching an item you got at a auction for peanuts being bid up by the thousands you have missed something exciting, it is like an orgasm you get to feel and spend!
With 1:30 left on the auction the bidding stalled again at $5445.00 I was giddy with excitement! I was good yo!
But if you know eBay, it ain’t over until it is over! At the :45 second mark a baller popped it for $5200.00 I almost wet my pants! At the last second the lady who offered $750 for all of this pristine and lovely Barbie collection won the auction for $8850.00!
Do you think she was trying to stick me for my paper? She paid in seconds as a courtesy I set it overnight, why not she paid for it!
5 Ways Self Storage Units Are More Sad Museums Than Savvy Solutions
Posted October 5, 2009 – 05:00 by Max Wong in Personal Finance, General Tips
Photo: millicent_bystander / Flickr
This week I did an intervention on Sarah, one of my dearest friends. It wasn’t the first time. Over the last few years I have unsuccessfully attempted to get her to seek help for a problem that has cost her conservatively $48,000 and put financial and emotional stress on her family.
This week, after over five years of trying to manage her problem, she finally hit rock bottom. She once again had to borrow money from her family — this time to pay for her daughter’s healthcare. Sarah had $800 of the $900 doctor bill in the bank, but she’d already earmarked that money for the horrible monkey on her back. Sarah has a substance abuse problem — but not with drugs. Sarah has a problem with self storage.
Sarah used to have financial stability. But five years ago she made a major life change when she decided, at age 40, to adopt a child and become a single parent. Sarah sold her beautiful 3000 square foot home so she could afford to quit her high-powered job and be a stay at home mom until her daughter could start pre-school. She moved into a 1200 square foot apartment in a good school district. This was all part of a good, long term plan.
Unfortunately, she then made what became possibly the worst financial decision of her entire life: She put the 1800 square feet worth of possessions that didn’t fit into the apartment into self storage.
Using a technique that drug dealers use to reel in future customers, the storage company offered Sarah, the first time user, free product to ensure her loyalty. Convinced that she would be able to sell, donate or otherwise dispose of her extra stuff during the “First 30 Days Free Rent” period that her storage company offers to all new customers, Sarah moved her designer guest room furniture, her Christmas decorations, her art collection, etc into four of the cheapest storage units available.
“I’m just going to use this as a staging area to get organized,” she told me at that point in time. “That way, I’ll have four weeks to figure stuff out and won’t have to make any financial decisions about what to get rid of under duress.”
She never moved out.
Although she has plenty of very valuable things in storage, as we surveyed the contents of one of Sarah’s units earlier this week, she finally did the math. Even if she pulled everything out of the unit and set it on fire in the parking lot, it would still be a better financial decision than keeping it in storage for another month. 5 years x $200 a month per unit x 4 units = $48000. And that total doesn’t even account for the money spent on gasoline to get her to and from her storage or all the late fees she’s paid on other bills because she chose to pay her storage bill on time so her stuff wouldn’t be seized for non-payment. The phone company can turn off your service, but the storage company can auction off your dream diary, fake IDs, and herpes medication to the highest bidder.
Although Sarah’s situation may be the worst that I know of personally, she’s hardly alone. According to the Self Storage Association, 50% of storage unit renters are storing what won’t fit into their homes. 1 out of every 11 Americans rents storage.
Watching Sarah’s horrible journey has made me realize that, although self storage (like easy credit), can be beneficial to a percentage of the population, it’s a pact with Satan for many folks who don’t have an iron fist over their finances or excellent time management skills. Quite simply, it’s bad on several fronts.
Self storage is a bad investment.
I called four different storage companies with units in my area of Los Angeles. The cheapest price for the smallest storage space, a 5 x 5 unit, in my neighborhood is $67 per month. The first month costs just a mere $1, but that’s not counting the one time only $22 “Administration Fee” that they’ll also tack onto the first 30 days.
Although all those numbers sound doable financially, if I rented this space, I’d be out a whopping $760 in the first 12 months, all to rent a space that’s the size of my laundry room. In other words, stuff that isn’t functional enough to put in my house and use every day would become more and more expensive with each passing year.
(On a side note, I had to hang up on three out of the four storage sales reps because I was getting such a hard sell, that they continued to demand my personal information even after I’d told them that their rental prices were beyond my budget.)
Self storage can lead to overconsumption.
Self storage is like diet food for material goods. It fools the mind by fooling the eye. If your clutter isn’t visible in your house, do you really have a spending problem?
The first self storage facilities were built in Texas in the late 1960’s. It took 25 years to build the first one BILLION square feet of storage. But it took just eight years (1998-2005) to add the second billion. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average 1960’s home was 1200 square feet. In 2004 the average home had ballooned to almost twice that size to 2330 square feet.
Bigger houses are harder to fill up, which may explain why Americans buy twice the number of consumer goods than the citizens of any other first world nation. (Okay, so we’re a geographically huge country, but if we’ve got such big homes, why do we need an additional billion square feet of storage space?) The environmental cost of creating, transporting and finally housing two billion square feet of unused possessions is mindboggling.
Wow…$750 offer…she must have known what a great lot you had on your hands and figured you didn’t know just how valuable it was.
…I’m wondering if I should try to unload some Beanie Babies from my childhood…though I doubt I’d receive a figure close to yours, I do have some jewels in the bunch.
I have actually bought four LARGE units that ONE person, not a family but one person lost due to not being able to pay $800.00 per month on all of them. Good stuff too, he would have been better off selling the stuff, but old habits die hard!
She thought I was a fool, she even admitted as much….she was hoping can’t blame her for that. Even paying that much she STILL made money. The Barbie Community is deep, loyal and will pay for the real deal!
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by glendon007: Barbie is My Favorite Chic! http://is.gd/9fRjc…