Storage Locker Auctions!

There are well over 60,000 storage facilities in the United States and more being built every day. Each of these storage facilities have multipul individual units that they rent out. People like you and me rent these units to store things that we don't have room for in our homes.

What kind of things? That's what makes biding on storage lockers fun! You never know what someone might be storing. Someone may have moved and rented a storage unit to keep boxes of packed belongings in until they have time to bring them to the new home or because the new house doesn't have the space. Maybe they have a four-wheeler or a motorcycle but no garage to keep it in. There is no way of knowing what you might find in that locker.

Can you make money buying storage lockers? If you're careful, yes! If you buy a locker for a couple of hundred dollars and find a coin collection or a motorcycle hiding in the back, you'll make money. If you buy a locker for a couple of hundred dollars and find twenty boxes of trash, you'll be more careful the next time.

Like most things, it can be a crap shoot, but if you're careful and don't get carried away with your bidding, you can usually make your money back. If you're smart, you should be able to make a little money. If you're lucky, you might find that treasure that you're looking for.

A little research can help you find the good lockers. If you can find a little information about the person who rented the locker, you'll have a better idea of what might be in the locker.

You can usually figure that if the person renting the locker has been layed off or is out of work, he will default on his locker rent. But you can also figure that he knew this was coming and has removed anything worthwhile from the unit. What's left is usually junk!

My idea of a "good locker" went up for sale when a person that I knew found himself in a bad spot. He was just devorced and had been layed off at work. With a job offer in Texas, he rented a storage locker for all of his belongings and headed to Texas, figuring on coming back for his stuff once he was settled.

He continued to send the rent for the locker but with-in a year, he found himself out of work once more due to layoffs. With jobs being scarce, he soon found out that he could no longer afford to send rent money for the storage locker, nor could he afford to go back and get his belongings. He knew that his things would soon be auctioned off but there was nothing that he could do about it.

The person who won this locker would no doubt say that he found his treasure. There was an extensive model train collection worth a few thousand dollars, a state of the art computer system ( built by the renter of the unit who was some-what of an expert with computers and lasers) and many other items that you and I would love to find.

The point is that there are many different reasons that storage lockers are abandoned.

People move and never return.

People rent units that their relatives don't know about so if they should pass away, the locker is forgotten or there are no relatives to claim it.

The locker may hold items that have been stolen and the renter could have been sent to prison.

There have even been lockers that were set up as meth labs.

Do your home-work! Find out what you can about the person renting the locker. If the locker was abandoned because someone lost their job, the "goodies" are probably gone. Otherwise, there's a chance that you might find something good.

If you want to bid on good storage lockers, you'll want to sharpen your skills of observation. You only get a few minutes to see what's inside the locker before the bidding starts. and there are a few things that you'll want to look for.

1. Look for dust! If there's a lot of dust the locker has been sitting there un-disturbed for quite some time and could hold collectable items.

However, if there are fresh footprints or other fresh marks in the dust, it probably means that the items have been gone through recently. In that case, most of the valuable stuff is probably gone so only bid if there are items that you want.

2. It's easy to decide to bid if there's a motorcycle or safe sitting right inside the door but sometimes all you see is a stack of boxes or bags. Look for little parts of items sticking out from under tarps, blankets or piles! You may catch site of a bit of handle-bar under a cover or the corner of a safe or trunk sticking out from behind a stack of garbage bags.

Maybe you're the only one to see these things, in which case you might want to bid a little more.

3. Look for boxes or crates that someone has taken the time to box neatly or securely. This could mean that the boxes hold something important or extra nice. Not many people worry about how well junk is packaged.

4. If the locker holds a car or or motor vehicle of any type, avoid bidding on it unless you know what you might be getting into. The owner of the facility needs to find out if the vehicle has any liens or other reasons for not selling it, but even if it turns out to be alright to sell the vehicle, you may have a few problems getting through the needed paperwork of getting it transfered to you. Check out the laws in your state before bidding on lockers containing vehicles!

The type of storage locker auctions that you are looking for are those that have the renters lock on the unit, and that have units that have not been opened by anyone prior to the auction. Auctions that have no minimum bid and high bid takes it.

If you thought that all storage locker auctions were done this way, you will want to contact the storage facility or the auctioneer ahead of time to check it out. You can bet that any items of value have been removed if the owners, managers or anyone else has been allowed into the locker prior to the auction.

Hard to believe? I spoke with the owner of a storage facility about an up-coming auction just a few days ago. This was to be a "sealed bid" auction. He informed me that he had to get $750 for a locker because that was what was owed on it. Any lower bids would be discarded. He went on to tell me that there was an older chest of drawers in the locker that a local antique dealer had valued at $250. If anyone wanted to purchase this chest of drawers ahead of time, he could lower the minimum bid to $500.

I decided right there that I didn't need to attend this auction. The owner had already searched the locker and was taking or selling off anything of value before the auction. With a minimum bid of $500, you would be buying a whole lot of trash!

Before attending any storage locker auctions, check out what type of auction it is and what the rules are! There is no sense in wasting your time and money to attend an auction where the lockers have already been looted or the minimum bid is so high that you would have to find a box of gold jewelry to get your money back.

Storage Treasures is a website where auctioneers and storage facilities can list their up-coming auctions.

While their are a lot of visitors, the site is in the growing process and needs your listings to grow into one of the best storage locker auction webs sites on the internet. Why not stop by and register now? Just click on the banner!

This site also has a lot of information on storage locker auction rules and hints on bidding.

There are a few things that you should keep in mind when bidding on a storage locker. Most are just common sense but it never hurts to have them pointed out.

1. First and for-most, keep your cool! There is something about an auction that causes people to throw their common sense out the window. Once you place a bid, you get hooked on wanting that locker. When someone else bids, it's almost as if you've been challenged and it makes you want the locker even more.

Don't let that happen! Decide what you want to pay for the storage unit when you get your look inside. Stick to that amount. If someone bids higher, let it go. Don't let yourself be pulled into a bidding war.

2. Get there a little early and try to make friends with the other bidders. If they like you, they're less likely to try to bid you up just to make you pay more for the locker. Yes! It's true. If someone doesn't like you or realizes that you're a "newbie", they might bid on the locker even if they don't want it. If they don't like you, it's just to be nasty. If you're a "newbie", they want to scare away the competition.

3. Once you bid, you're stuck! If you change your mind, you can usually retract your bid as long as the auctioneer has not said "sold". However, once the auctioneer has said "sold", it's yours.

Just remember, if you have a habit of retracting your bids, the auctioneers may start looking the other way when you try to bid. Usually, when someone retracts their bid, the auctioneer has to start from the beginning again. Not only does this waste time, but the locker will probably sell cheaper and the auctioneer will make a smaller commission.

4. Make sure that you have enough cash in your pocket! Most storage locker auctions require immediate payment in cash. No writting checks or running to the bank.

While the tv shows make it look easy, turning your storage locker "finds" into money is not always that simple. On tv, there's always an expert waiting for the buyers to bring in there items for an appraisal or to sell. Unless you know a lot more "experts" then I do, you might be holding your items for quite some time or selling far cheaper then those sold on tv shows.

Most dealers that you find will try to buy your treasures as cheap as possible. Remember, the dealers that you see on the television have a camera staring them in the face. If they try to low-ball the value, they would be getting hundreds of letters refuting their prices. Also, what might be worth a hundred dollars in California, might only be worth twenty in the midwest.

When you put your top bid on a locker, remember that a snowmobile might be worth ten or fifteen thousand new, but when you try to sell it you'll end up with only a fraction of that. Place your bids accordingly!