My personal experiences with bidding on storage lockers. What to be aware of when treasure hunting storage lockers.

There is nothing easy about storage locker auctions and you can find yourself upside down…

I have been hunting storage units for over a decade. When I started, auctions were not on-line and you went in person. More and more, storage companies are relying on web based companies to list their lockers. This can be good or bad. Pictures do not always show the true condition of a locker. On the other hand, you can see a lot of lockers without waisting time driving around.

There are still locations who utilize an auctioneer for their auctions. When you go to a live auction, you usually have to be registered with the company to bid and the majority only accept cash.

How it works…

The auctioneer or employee of the storage unit opens the locker door and you can look inside the unit. You are NOT allowed to enter or touch anything in the unit. Typically a line of bidders file past the unit and once everyone has had a chance to look into the locker, the auction starts. The bids can move fast and you have little time to decide how far you are willing to go.

On-line auctions…

Registering on a website is required. Once you have an account, you can search the site for lockers. I search based on a specific area I am willing to travel. I have a method for how and why I bid but that is a personal preference.

Storage units listed on an on-line auction have photos of the contents you can view before you bid. Bidding is done in increments.

You also have more risk with on-line auctions. There is always the chance that someone has staged the unit and you can’t always see that from pictures.

Some important information regarding on-line auction bidding…

If you are not a business, you will also pay sales tax.

How I decide what amount I am going to bid… I personally choose a price I am willing to pay and NEVER bid beyond that price. The way I look at it is how much am I willing to spend (lose) and what value is actually visible?  It is too easy to get into a bidding war with someone only to have a locker dumped on you for way more than it is worth so always bid within your budget.

When bidding is important. Some people bid early and some try to bid in the last few seconds. They call the latter sniping and it does not work. Web based auctions got wise to this and the ones I use add more time at the end of the auction if it receives a bid within the last several minutes.

Rules…

Make sure you are aware of the rules regarding the auction you are bidding on. When you pay for a locker, most require a deposit to ensure you clean out everything. The winner MUST remove every item out of the locker from the property. You are required to return personal items belonging to the original owner of the unit (photos etc.) to the storage unit office.

Some things to consider…

Where are you taking the items? Do you have a place to store, sort and most importantly discard of trash and broken items?  Often times, a storage unit looks good from the pictures but it ends up being full of garbage. The owner took the best stuff before losing it. Now you are stuck cleaning out someone else’s trash at your expense. I won a locker once that literally was trash. It was a total loss.

Beware, you can’t just dump the stuff you don’t want at any business dumpster. That is illegal and you could get in trouble.

Don’t expect to get rich with buying lockers. People you are bidding against have been doing it for years and have methods of dealing with the items. Many even have second hand stores. Also remember, I great looking item is USED and you may not get the money you would expect from it when trying to sell it.

Selling items on line can get costly. I stopped using Ebay long ago. It is ok for buyers but they are not seller friendly. They have too many fees and they will be the ones making money on the items you are selling and you will probably be lucky to break even. There are other sites that work better for local sales.

Don’t forget you can donate unwanted stuff (not all items) at local donation centers and the up side to that is you get a donation receipt for your taxes.

Don’t forget that you are not getting paid for your time, gas and energy when it comes to storage unit treasure hunting. Be careful because you me get more than you bargained for.

I once won a locker that had over 3000 golf clubs and thought I would make a ton of money. It was so labor intensive that I spent way too much time on this locker. I had to rent the space for a month to have a place to sort them. Golf club handles get sticky when they age. Many were garbage because of that. I was able to sell some sets to friends (bargain prices) and tried going to a swapmeet (cost money). Sold some to Play It Again Sports. In the end I barely broke even minus time and gas. Threw away so many bad clubs. The moral of the story is be careful what you bid for…lol

Finally, There are illegal substances and other dangerous items found in storage units so BEWARE if you decide to try this adventure!!!

NOTE: This info is from my personal experiences and was created by me for information only