Anyone watch storage wars?

[muleman]

I had seen ads for it and caught part of a show once or twice. Today I caught an entire segment and it was unreal. I could not help but think of JoeC riding herd on a mad crowd like that buying stuff pretty much unseen except how full the units are. Kind of like pawn stars and antique roadshow combined.

 

[joec]

Well as someone in the storage business and have been for a while I hate the show and have never seen it.

Now I will start my rant.

First off some background on how and why auctions happen. Each state has different laws as it applies to self storage. Now that we are in Kentucky the rules are different than they where in Florida. Florida you had to be 3 months behind before you could start lien proceedings. Here in Kentucky it is 45 days. Florida requires you run two ads in the local paper 30 days and send a certified letter also before actually auctioning a unit and must it must be a public auction. Now Kentucky requires a certified letter 15 days before you enforce you lien as one ad in the paper 5 to 7 days before the lien is to be enforced. At this point is where Kentucky has a lot of leeway in how we sell it. It is the option of the company in this case me to dispose of it however I like. I can give it away, dump it, sell it however I please as it is ours after 45 days. Now my wife and I sell people usually after they are over a 100 days behind and then if we haven't been contacted and made some kind of arrangement. At any rate we use the public auction method.

Now since this show has started instead of getting the usual 5 to 10 vendors that buy these units we are getting 15 to 50 calls a day asking when our next auction is. We also have gotten up to 60 people for 2 units up to sell since the show started.

Now our rules are simple you buy the whole space, you only get to look in from out side and pay in cash if you win the bid. You are then, based on the size of the space given from 24 hours up to 5 days to remove all of the contents. We do ask if you find personal things like photographs, documents then leave them in the space and we will keep them, notify the person that lost the space that we have some personal effects. We will keep this up to 6 months before it goes into our dumpster.

Now besides the number of people, and we rarely have more than 4 a month as we average about 15 per year which is a bit hectic. Many of these people come out buy a space then pick and choose and leave the rest in the space. Now this is in spite of we spell out the rules before hand. We have been forced to charge a $200 deposit now due to this and we have to check the space before it is returned. This deposit is over what ever they paid for the space by the way. After having to rent 2 30 yard industrial dumpster to clean out 3 10x30 spaces we started the deposit system something that was required before the show.

Now in closing this out. If you expect to make real money doing this be sure you are in a place like Miami, West Palm Beach, NYC, LA etc as Lexington is for the most part dirt poor with junk in their spaces. Oh and we lose money on every unit as only one in 8 years was a few bucks more that owed. I've seen little come out of these space worth much more than a few hundred bucks. Now the 2 places in Florida often drew major money and often had real items of value but a completely more affluent clientèle to say the least.

rant over

 

[Doc]

I've seen a similar show called something like "Auction Hunters". One of the guys is a big bald dude with tattoos on his head. The stuff they scoop is unreal. They make it look so good. They do announce that the ones on the show are the auctions that paid off, where they get plenty of others that don't have the good stuff. Course they also have the contacts and know who might be interested in all the special stuff they find. They find so much good stuff one would think they are salting the mine so to speak.

From an outsiders point of view I would think shows like this would help your auctions Joe and that you would have more of a chance to make money on the auctions. If you are not making money then maybe you should have the auction closer to the 45 day limit which is allowed for you. I would also think you could help arrange things so that some of the more desirable stuff shows and folks might bid more for the units. While Lexington is no Miami, NY or LA still I've never thought of it as dirt poor. You got some folks there with mula for sure.

 

[joec]

I've seen a similar show called something like "Auction Hunters". One of the guys is a big bald dude with tattoos on his head. The stuff they scoop is unreal. They make it look so good. They do announce that the ones on the show are the auctions that paid off, where they get plenty of others that don't have the good stuff. Course they also have the contacts and know who might be interested in all the special stuff they find. They find so much good stuff one would think they are salting the mine so to speak.

From an outsiders point of view I would think shows like this would help your auctions Joe and that you would have more of a chance to make money on the auctions. If you are not making money then maybe you should have the auction closer to the 45 day limit which is allowed for you. I would also think you could help arrange things so that some of the more desirable stuff shows and folks might bid more for the units. While Lexington is no Miami, NY or LA still I've never thought of it as dirt poor. You got some folks there with mula for sure.

It isn't the money as a matter of fact it is about the same amounts bid now as used to get from our steady vendors. The problem is most of these people are here to watch and rarely participate basically getting in the way.

Now the idea for this is to get the space cleaned out and get it back on the market quickly with out more expense than necessary. Now when we do sell we don't have a lot each month.

Now we send probably 8 to 15 letters every month telling people we are going to sell. The letter also has a date (end of business 2 days before the auction) to either make arrangements or pay in guaranteed funds. As I said we only sold 15 units last year as we have found we actually get paid in full by giving more time other than the 45 day deal. Those places are selling as many as using the 45 day method sell more in a month than we do in year this. We also don't have to deal with as many people who lost their stuff. Not selling and getting paid is always more money than lost in the process. We can't make a profit by law other than the rent owed, late fees and lien charge ($85) we have to see that the money is returned to the original owner a period of time or put in an escrow account for. It isn't like we can keep it.