What is a Storage Facility Auction?

You may have heard the buzz lately about people attending storage auctions and buying a bin or winning a unit and making some money in the process. Perhaps you’ve even seen one of the myriad of shows on cable TV lately about people spending a few dollars and turning it into thousands from one lucky auction win.

Chances are good that unless you are independently wealthy this has piqued your interest. So what are these storage facility auctions?

When a storage facility rents a locker or unit to the tenant they do so with the agreement that a predetermined amount of rent will be paid each and every month. If the tenant fails to pay that rent then the unit and its contents can be seized and sold in a lien auction. In fact, lien auctions are exactly what this used to be called.

Storage facility auctions – or lien sales – are a golden opportunity for you to pick up some cool stuff at pennies on the dollar. When you attend a storage facility auction you will often find both new and used items that you can bid on and win very inexpensively.

A storage facility auction will be run either by a licensed auctioneer or by the facility manager. They will cut open the lock on a unit with rental arrears and all the attendees will get to peer inside the unit and see what there is to find. The auctioneer will then open up the bidding either on the entire unit’s contents or on individual contains from the unit.

When you attend your first storage facility auction you need to know that you will have to register prior to the beginning of the auction to bid with a photo identification. You will have to have cash to pay for any units that you win. And you will have to fully clean out any units that you win. Sometimes you will also be required to pay a cleaning deposit that will be refunded once the facility manager checks that the unit has been completely cleaned out.

These storage unit auctions can be a great opportunity to pick up items for yourself or items to resell for pennies on the dollar.

Many people are creating part time and full time jobs attending and bidding at storage facility auctions and then re-selling the items that they win.