Buying Storage Units At Auction | Storage Auction Pirate Shares His Tips & Tricks

what is going on everybody this is Jason thrift trader thanks for joining us tonight a live show with an exclusive interview with storage auction pirate for those of you that know who I am and what I do I've been a reseller on eBay for 11 years and just recently started buying storage auctions just as a way to acquire inventory and this is the third week in a row that I've had successful storage auction buyers youtubers on the show to talk and discuss about their tips and tricks on what they look for when they're buying storage units so tonight we have Michael also more better known as storage auction pirate with us tonight Michael do you mind taking a moment and introducing yourself oh yeah my name is Michael and I am the storage option pirate I've been buying storage units for a long time now and I have a YouTube channel where I basically show how I do it my whole little story my side of the business that's awesome Michael good to have you brother good to have you let me take a second and say hello to everybody in the chat we've got hustling the hustlers here Locker nuts hey Kathy Johnson Manuel Manuel Manuel I'm sorry if I'm butchering that I'm trying I'm trying fortunate adventures Anita Phillips what the Hales is in the chat a guys they were on last week awesome awesome couple those guys Rock let's see Mary Harris is in the chat salt the salt princess Donatella ooh chats going crazy Curious George is in here what is George deer up Margaret Mims you guys are amazing Gary Barnes thank you so much for coming in here tonight it is a pleasure it is absolutely a pleasure Michael if you don't mind just tell us a little bit about your family like do you have sons daughters what's going on there well I actually have two children of my my daughter she's 17 she's actually the salt princess the one who just said hello there in the comments and I have a 15 year old son I have full custody of them so they're pretty much with me seven days a week seven nights a week I'm a single father have been the true words of being a single father and by myself so I have a full plate between a storage business the YouTube and parenting is basically a non-stop roller coaster for me well I can imagine man I've got two daughters of my own and they're three and seven years old and man they give me a run for my money oh yeah the good Lord thought you'd be funny and give me a house full of women so now I got it I got that to deal with cool Michael so how long how long have you been buying storage units is that really kind of where you get the majority of the stuff that you sell oh yes I have been buying storage units for pretty much about ten years now and that is literally all I have done for ten years is my revenue whatever you my job has been full-time ever since the very first thing I bought I pretty much quit my previous job after my first storage purchase so you quit weight you quit your job after the first purchase your first purchase of a storage unit is that right basically yeah I was a furniture mover for 15 years and I made money on the side by taking home kind of free stuff when he would move somebody they usually have a good will pile and they would donated like yeah I'm good why just give it to me and I would sell there on the weekends for extra money and in the Bay Area when the big housing market crashed people weren't moving as much and I wasn't getting free stuff and I was like not able to go to market and one day I came back to my moving company and Dan Dotson who does storage wars he was hosting an actual option at my moving company and it was everything spread out in the yard and stuff and I decided attendant because I do not a sell stuff and I end up selling a pile of furniture with what he called a CD player in the middle of it and I bought it for a buck one dollar and that I was that CD play was really an Aragon Hampton I sold it for 600 bucks and I pretty much quit my career right then and there because I was like I the amount of time that it took me to take that one dollar to 600 what it usually took me and the moving business to make that I was like it's a no-brainer oh yeah yeah a lot of people don't realize if you invest your money right reselling it'll give you much better dividends than even a stock market ever could think of doing oh yes I totally agree with that that's awesome so so you've been self-employed for ten years now since since you've been buying storage units basically self-employed in every way is that it's I do make a little bit of money like I'll do picking and stuff like that flea market stores garage sales occasionally but 99% of my money is all storage units then reselling that flea market in the Internet that's that's that's crazy that is that's cool that's crazy cool you know I'm uh I'm self-employed myself I've been buying I've been a reseller on eBay for 11 years having been self-employed that entire time just recently back in I've been self-employed for a couple years in prior years but just went back to self-employment at the beginning of this year and I'm enjoying it it's it's a blast but you know I've been reselling for 11 years on eBay in for the past 10 years usually where I would get stuff for resale is like garage sales thrift stores places like that but recently I've started buying storage units and I got it I gotta say it's a it's probably the single most fun way of acquiring inventory to resell because for me you know going through a storage unit you get to learn you get to learn about someone else's past someone else's life you know just going through the storage unit and I think that that's really kind of interesting to me what would you say Mike is is one of your favorite things about buying storage units well like you are saying I like to find out the story it's fun to me kind of piece together because you you generally most storage units unless it's like somebody's business or something of that nature you tend to find out somebody's whole life like you see from when they were orange oh the time they lost that storage unit that they had sitting there and that's always an interesting because I myself have been in that position when I was a kid we ended up losing everything on storage and I know the whole process and I like I like studying but it really is a thrill opening a box like I I think that's why I end up calling myself a pirate in the beginning of my channel because I'm hunting treasure like I look at it like a job and I obviously need to make money and feed my children and put a roof over the head but sometimes it becomes real things become real edgy because I tend to go crazy buying storage units so I bought and a lot of the wrong ones because I'm kind of a gambler at times in this business if you're a gambler it's very dangerous because I got bought in units just to see inside I buy units just literally see inside of a box if I see a 10 by 30 there's one trunk there oh I don't stop until I have that trunk and it's costing me a lot of money and oh that is awesome yeah you know personally me I like to gamble I'm a gambler I love poker I've been playing poker for a long time and I think that's that might be one of the reasons why I enjoy buying storage units so much because it is a gamble you never know like you know buying a storage unit full of boxes you never know what you're gonna get right it's like a box of chocolates but you know it it's a it's it's a wild ride it has been for me I've only bought six storage units how many how many storage units would you say you've bought um Scooby will be really hard for me to truly give a number but I speculated somewhere between like about a thousand and twelve hundred units probably Wow okay so here you know anybody that thinks that I was a pro you got to think again because this guy has got nine hundred and ninety four more storage units on me okay so so this guy that this guy knows what's up he's been doing it for a long time ten years you've bought a thout coaster a thousand storage units in ten years I mean that's a how do you move all that stuff so quickly I mean I look at it mathematically I had to it because I know I buy at least about generally about ten units a month which is about 120 a year times ten years it puts me over there so I figure it has to be at least a thousand but I spent like I said 15 years in the moving business and before I was actually doing that as a full-time career for 15 years I spent my entire childhood in the moving business my dad took me on the road when I was like six weeks over on a move job to Oregon so it's like I moving things is like a natural habit to me like I literally that's what I do best is sadly and my eyes as I move things really well so I could I could physically move a 10 by 30 by myself in like a day if I have to load it all in the truck and darn near unload it back of my warehouse if I have to but I try not to do everything by myself as it's very back-breaking oh yeah I can imagine you know moving a couch by yourself is not an easy task I can imagine so that's crazy Michael well do you where do you store the stuff I mean what kind of what kind of storage situation do you have with this stuff I mean you usually rent out the storage unit or or do you just pull it all out of the storage unit and go straight to the to the flea market with it how do you liquidate a lot of this stuff I take each unit differently because some units to me like are not worth at all coming back to my storage unit or eat some sweets aren't worth going to flea market there's some of you much more the right to the dumps with once you get them and the way after you open up the boxes but I personally have a thousand square foot storage unit at public storage in my town I pay about 466 a month for it right now which is extremely cheap in my area because the average 10 by 30 around here rents for about 350 a month but I am how I've got this 30 by 30 that is on deal for 466 that's what I've been storing in that's crazy that's crazy so where do you where do you sell a lot of your stuff like I guess you you sell on eBay as well there right I you sell on eBay I've been slacking on it for a while I think this I go in spurts and the best times I ever have in this business are the years where I'm heavy on eBay and the years where I slack off of you kind of when things start to fall apart because I'm rushing everything at the flea market taking half of what it's worth things that are not pretty wise to do when you're buying storage units full time yeah and so the thing is like okay so you sell on eBay and you also sell at the flea market is there anywhere else that you might sell um well friends there's a couple ways I try to have a couple garage sales a year but that's just like doing a flea market but I like Craigslist that's always been my favorite Craigslist I tried offer up a little bit and let go and stuff but I don't really have luck on those websites compared to Craigslist I I have somewhat left and Craigslist that's my favorite for the internet and bigger pieces like dressers dining tables things of that bigger tools but I want to let it sit for a minute and it's not good enough for eBay but too good for the flea market gotcha got sure that's it's always good to have several avenues to sell your stuff and the cool thing you were telling me earlier before we went live is that in your area you've got like five six or seven flea markets that are open seven days a week literally I could like the Oakland flea market which is like about a 30-minute drive for me that's open seven days a week stopped in which is which one I go to is open Mondays Wednesdays Thursdays then there's also other stocked and flea markets that are Friday Saturday and Sunday there's two other flea markets there I mean there's a I can't even count how many are Saturday and Sunday flea markets I can go to within hours at least about eight to ten and then there's the several that are open during the week like I can go to it I can drive a hour and a half away to a Tuesday market that's pretty good I could drive to Santa Cruz for an hour and a half away that's a great Friday market it's just it's there's a lot of markets around you hey that that that definitely has to work in your favor because for me like we have I have two flea markets but they're only open Friday Saturday and Sunday so I mean both of them and so if I want to get rid of something that's not a Bay or something I either have to put it all in a pile in my driveway take a picture of it try to get rid of it on Facebook marketplace or or just stack it up somewhere and wait for a good weekend to have a garage sale that's that's yeah or donate it so those are really the only ways that I have available to me to get rid of stuff and that's really cool that you have at least an avenue such as a flea market any day of the week that you choose oh that's pretty cool that's pretty cool so where do you usually go to buy storage units um I go all over in my area there's there's so many facilities on a day to day basis I generally almost 99.9% of time is live auctions I I rarely do online auctions I have tried storage traders many times but I'm pretty forgetful I get so wrapped up in life I have the time I forget that storage treasures exist and I can go on there and browse and I don't like personally I don't like auctions that everybody can see like real people out here hunting like when you're cutting storage units you want to be where nobody's at you want to be what nobody's seeing for the luck of it the chance that there's gonna be few people there when on storage traders anytime there's a good unit it's automatically going far higher than it's worth because everybody and their mothers see that they want to come from six hours away to pick that unit up and I don't like that aspect because if the ego comes into play in those last few minutes you know like I want to I watched Jeremy's video he always says in the last five minutes that's when people bidding is true you watch that and if people's egos kick in and $3,000 more than you want to pay later someone's win the unit's it's not worth it because there's so many units available there's usually another day you're gonna find a similar unit for like half the money in person yeah I'm sure it being you know in California where you are there's probably storage unit auctions going you know ending every single day even online versus you could probably go to a live storage auction any day you want to is alright we are blessed in the Bay Area for the fact that there is an overwhelming amount of people therefore there's a overwhelming amount of storage facilities therefore it's like a total abundance of the unit's every day like in my area there is like one there's at least I think four to five auctioneer services not like individual companies and those companies are putting our options five days a week somewhere within about an hour to an hour and a half of me talks all five of those facilities are those auctioneers are going daily is so good there's probably an average and I think of 15 to 50 facilities in a day I could choose from but with public storage who does their own options and you have your things like security public storage they do their in-house options as well with their district managers do it so there's there's an abundance of opportunity but there's also a tons of buyers in my hair it's just like supply and demand has so many buyers in this area is ridiculous that is that is absolutely that's that's cool I've I've actually never I've actually been to California I've actually been to say San Francisco once and that's a beautiful city man it really is it's beautiful I think it was 50 60 degrees year-round out there um well San Francisco can get pretty cold compared to where I'm at inland a little bit more bit it's been like 3540 in the morning around here which to me is freezing cold to some people they're like that's so warm but to me like my bones hurt 40 degrees I'm like I'm more of a 1 a 65 70 type of weather but yeah I know exactly what you're talking about man living here in Oklahoma it gets it's weird like the weather here in Oklahoma there's a saying you know if you don't like the weather here in Oklahoma wait five minutes because it's going to be entirely different you know it's it gets bone-chilling cold in the wintertime we get below below freezing and we'll have ice storms and then a spring we're gonna have tornadoes and in the summer it's going to be so hot and humid you can't even sit outside in the shade without sweating so I mean it's just how it is we get all four seasons here I I don't like humidity myself that's my least favorite favorite atmosphere to deal with is you need dude I'm telling you like here it could be like a nice calm 70 great 70 degree day but if it's humid you're gonna be sweating not not even lifting a finger just sitting outside sweating I just I say you stand on the porch breathing and you're sweating and I can't handle that yeah yeah there's no doubt about that so uh just out of curiosity what would you say is the single most expensive item that you've ever sold out of a storage unit um the single most expensive item I've ever sold was I cannot remember the name of it for the life of me but I bought a storage unit with my old partner and his wife we kind of like a three-way split and it was a wood shopping unit like we had a forklift and all the big tools big band saws table saws and there was one machine in there that I sold for $26,000 it clicked a little laminate edge on the side of like a particle board bookshelf you know or something like here that little just ripped that went across the edge it was about a hundred and fifty eight thousand dollar machine put it on eBay some guy in Canada bought it took a backup their refurbished it I think he sold it for about 50 grand Wow so you sold that on eBay was it a large piece of equipment it was it was huge I would say it was over ten feet because it wouldn't fit across the flatbed trailer sideways I had to do a long ways but luckily that unit came with a forklift so it just worked out that we were able to load it well and I just slapped it on eBay out of like I like to fish for things sometimes that's what you kind of use eBay for you get something crazy just put up there for a number and there was actually interest and this guy's job was he was a huge I want the right where I want to say commercial machinery type guy so he did he just bought and sold stuff like his own auction and yeah that's that's really cool so you sold a huge 10-foot piece of machinery on eBay and I guess I suppose it went did it go Freight or did you guys did the buyer arrange the shipping how did the shipping work because I'm kind of curious about that yeah well I had him arrange everything because it was that's what he did for a living like he had trucking services you just regularly pick things up because when you're shipped when you're buying and selling huge equipment you kind of already have people to deal with it but it's not too hard to find a freight service to just ship bigger things he just sent him right on out and they backed in the storage facility we worked lifted it out loaded it up and then rented a flatbed to move our forklift to our storage unit that's cool because at that point in time you got to test out the forklift and made sure it worked out pretty good too that was a neat unit it was so easy it was only like eight things and I actually bought that unit the month before for like 5200 and public storage cancelled to bid because and sometimes they have this over thousand role where if it goes over a thousand they stop and then they get clearance and then they have to option next month and the next month we bought it for 3,200 bucks we even got we got a like nineteen hundred dollars less or something like that wow that's that's wild that's wild so uh what what would you say is your favorite find out of a storage unit not anything you know it doesn't have to be expensive or anything but what would you say is like probably your most favorite find out of the storage unit well I'm gonna have to say that's the safe that I had at twenty six thousand dollars and I don't think I've ever had a feeling in my life other than my two children being born it has given me more single joy for that period day like I've been chasing that drag and has actually kind of been a downfall to my business for the last several years as I'm chasing that dragon of trying I can't I feel like I'm stuck at 26,000 by both of my best items are 26,000 and I can't peak that number and it's kind of like I buy so many units thinking that's gonna have the $27,000 I don't mean it and I don't with a bunch of crap that's that's that's crazy that is absolutely crazy I mean alright so a lot of my viewers a lot of my subscribers they're there eBay sellers that go to thrift stores and and and you know did a lot of how of what I used to do in acquiring stuff but I mean here's the thing like guys can you imagine it's like it'd be like walking into a thrift store and buying some dudes blazer jacket okay taking it home and in the inside pocket finding $26,000 I mean or buying a couch in finding $26,000 that's crazy that is absolutely crazy so was it just what where was the safe do you remember it like yesterday was the safe like a certain area of the of the storage unit like how much did you pay for the storage unit where was the safe from the storage unit um to be honest when I bought the unit I didn't see a safe apparently some other people that were bidding on the unit there were there that day they said they saw the safe but I really don't think they did because when I pulled it out of the unit it was like under like a bath rug or something tucked behind a chair but realistically the unit was a five by seven or a five by eight I didn't like it at all I really would have never bought it on a normal day because it looked like it looked like a what I was profiled it as was an older guy had like a chair a bunch of boxes and books it was like gifts to his family garden from the dollar store so if I didn't like it at a cheap bike in the front but I was first in line looking at the unit and there was an what I called newbie at the option he was a new guy he I think he watched storage wars he thought he had a great job with a lot of money and he wanted to start coming the auctions and bullying everybody who's out there doing this like as a living and he used to carry this nice little black bag like he had like a hundred grand in and he walked around in the suit at the auction and just real cocky attitude and he was shining his light in my eyes as I was looking at the unit and I solely bought the unit just because I wasn't gonna let him have it like 100 percent I would have never bought it but he pissed me off shining his light my so I wasn't gonna stop I won the unit for $800 $800 for 26,000 and all you got to do is crack the safe yeah that's crazy what was was it just year did you buy it with a partner how did that work out um I actually had a partner at the time he was not there when I opened the video but if you are to say but if you listened that video the kid's mom was with me like all sokolsky that was my partner and I would kept calling him like I called him like I texted him right away asked to show up in a statement I think it's not like three grand and then I'm looking through the mail it I think we got six grand and then like 12 texts later I might we've got $26,000 because like I've never really seen too much large piles of money so I wasn't like it caught me off guard like I wasn't sure how much was in there at first thought that was all ones and he put like it was like 3,000 with just ones on the outside so like you'll be thrown off if you looked at it right away or someone's hard to explain but it'd be all 20s and just a one on each side that's that's that's that's wild that's absolutely wild so okay $26,000 in a safe I'm certain if you've bought a thousand storage units you've probably ran across many safes a bunch of safes in that time period right like I said that units become a curse because every time I see a say but trunk something with the lock I've been chasing that dragon I've lost more than I made in that unit trying to beat it you know like I can't even explain it I want every unit with a safe or anything lock because I want I feel like it's in there again and yeah yes that is very dangerous yeah I can I can imagine you know being coming from a background you know a lot of people don't know this about me but one of my past jobs I was a blackjack dealer at a casino and I dealt blackjack for two years of my life it was probably one of the most fun jobs I ever had and something I realized was when someone wins a lot of money at one time it it's almost like they they kind of something clicks in their brain where they forget about the losses and always focus on the wins and it just kind of keeps them keeps them going but that you know the thing with the thing with storage units is if you buy right if you buy right it's kind of it it could be kind of difficult to lose on a storage unit would you say well I kind of count how many I've lost on and I've lost on 33 units so far in all the storage but that doesn't mean that some several the units had much profit like if I spent all this mount of money and I just made like a hundred bucks I consider that not a loss but if it takes you three weeks to get to that hundred that's still a loss in my eyes because I wasted so much time trying to get ahead and time is more valuable than that little bit of money you could have bought ten more units with better better probabilities and my worst loss ever I thought was gonna be a gold mine was a forty eight foot container and full of nothing but brandy boxes it was a exercise equipment it was like this little wing thing you go like this back and forth called the win-win dough show injector or something I lost fifty six hundred dollars on that like one hundred and eight dollars after about four months oh my gosh well I mean you know if 33 units is all you've lost on I'd say you're doing a fine job at this gambling business I can tell you that right now so guys if you're not subscribed we've got 95 people watching thank you so much for being here guys and if you're not subscribed to storage auction pirate Melissa w's put it in the chat I've also put it in the chat let me put it in the chat right now is definitely go subscribe to this channel this this is amazing if you guys have any interest at all in buying storage units to resell the contents to make profit to possibly even become your own boss work from home whatever or maybe a little extra income and pay off the house early whatever your intent is definitely subscribe to the subscribe to storage auction pirate because this guy's got like he said close to a thousand units under his belt this guy knows the business better than almost anybody so uh Michael now we've established you live in California we've established that the cost of living there is outrageous we've also established that or we haven't established but what would you say is kind of an average cost of buying these storage units an auction where you live that is a hard one to really it's hard to get an average because there it's this all over the board but units in my area go for a dollar which is literally there might be a car battery in there somebody's gonna recycle it for seven bucks or it's got a couple bags of clothes that look obviously dirty but I've seen units recently go up to seventy one hundred dollars that's the most expensive unit I've seen in the last like ninety days probably it was a 10 20 or 10 by 25 like ten feet taller boxes yeah yeah that's that's wild I mean I haven't been in the business long enough to really establish a good idea as to what the going rate is here but my most expensive unit that I've bought was only like six hundred dollars that's including one month's rent and including the 10% fee cuz I bought it online and in the taxes and all of that so I mean I haven't been you know I didn't gamble another like five six grand on it you know I haven't done that yet but I don't think around here I don't think they really go for that much but again it all depends on what you see so it's crazy what they what they can go for my the most expensive I personally bought was with my good buddy the storage doctor we bought two units twice last year same owners had two units and we spent 7400 twice last year on two different sets of units and that's my personal the most expensive units I bought but they spent took so long to make money it's they're not in my opinion expensive units aren't worth because you're gonna spend generally weeks to a month plus just to get back to even and I like a storage unit where you come in and you find one item that pays for it and everything else is profit that is like the best strategy in my expensive units you tend to be you lose so much time that you devalue and what you're getting doesn't exist because I don't explain that huh you lose a lot of time you have to sit there and market everything post etc etc and you miss being at more options getting better deals with a lot higher profit margin and affection kind of time yeah so so what would you that kind of brings us to another another question do you really kind of focus on do you value how do you value a storage unit when you're looking at one the the couple of minutes that you have to really analyze and profile a storage unit what are you looking for this is the hardest thing for me to ever explain is hawai and how I buy a storage unit and I don't think that I don't even think about units at the time I I feel like I have this weird intuition to what storage unit I spent like I said pretty much most of my childhood and half of my natural adult life moving furniture and I'm a kind of person who studies people so when I spent 15 years packing people in and out of their homes there every aspect of their life from the dresser to under their bed to their closet I'm in their storage units I kind of like what I look at a storage unit I picture the person I like I see the person who owned that unit and I get an energy more than I do look at this like each item I don't like look and be like that's 100 that's 200 I go for what my gut thinks the intent are it's it's so hard to explain but that's not something I suggest the average person do because it's very risky and if you're not comfortable with living with your life on the edge it's not wise to run your business that way yeah I can understand that so so really you just kind of go with your gut feeling I mean is there just like maybe like one thing you might see and it clicks in your head like hey that's most normal people don't have that or it really depends on what kind of unit is there said there's different kinds of units there's a unit you look at and you're like you know I'm gonna make this there's units where you're like that has a lot of intent there's units where you're like I wouldn't buy it for a dollar I mean there's so many different kinds of storages so it really it varies but I bought a unit before we're like I didn't really see nothing in the unit but I had to have it I bought a unit one time was a 5x5 I paid 1,200 bucks for it there was only like 14 boxes or something or twelve boxes but my my left me was shaking like I've never had a shake and I feel like my body kind of has like a precious metal detector and it was just a partner Skye was like I'm buying this he's like whatever I bought it for 1,200 bucks and we scrapped like 3,200 and silver we sold a painting for 6200 or $6,000 out of there it was weird it's like my body felt what was in there and I can't explain how that to anybody oh man I I know what you mean though I really do like I don't know I feel a little spoiled in the storage auction busy like I said I've only bought six storage units and I plan on continuing this for a long time but I've got to overcome some struggles that I'm having now they're they're not financial they're they're just the simplicity of like I'm trying to figure out what's the fastest way to like sort through this stuff figure out what's worth money what's not worth money because like I said the past 10 years all I've dealt with was mostly clothing shoes and accessories and now you go and buy a storage unit and you have everything under the Sun potential that you're looking at and and now you have to value this stuff and coming from somebody that you know I ran across my last storage unit I got really fortunate I found like I paid $600 for the storage unit I found 50 a little over 8 ounces of gold it ended up being mostly 14-karat gold sold the gold for about 55 a little over $5,500 like that just two minutes from me and 25 boxes of comics and some of them are like Bronze Age Bronze Age comics I've got like the first four of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and several other key issues and this person was obviously just a collector you know and I got lucky I really did but I had a feeling like in the middle of the storage unit was this bronze statue I'm actually gonna get it real quick because I want to show you this thing I know this this dude was staring at me in the middle of the storage unit and he just said buy me whatever it takes by me and I was just I looked I took one look at that and I was like you know most people don't have this kind of thing and it just dawned on me like I have to have this unit and it turned out all right I would definitely gamble on anything I see bronzing because bronze gives good intent it's just some of you has a bronze statue granted doesn't mean it's a valuable one it's just that you have to pick and choose what you're willing to gamble on what you feel comfortable with you know sure I mean I think you know something that Jeremy said during his interview is and Wade as well you know they like seeing things that aren't necessarily for survival they want to see expended expensive what's the word I'm looking for expendable income like items that people buy just for just for the sake of having because at that point the sky is the limit what's inside that storage unit so I thought those like keeping up with the Joneses lockers people who just they have to have something better than their neighbor or the person that worked with and that everything's just off the off the hook over to pray over the top you know like those are far and few between of my eyes sometimes where I'm at there's a lot of units but they're a lot of garbage tweeker units people who just did a dump run you go to public storage you got the dollar special so 452 bucks after paperwork you got him by 30 foot a month people fill them up full of trash walk away save themselves and dollars in dump fees so it yeah and I guess by law you know they have to auction off every single storage unit regardless of what's in it if someone owes you know back back rent they have to auction it off is alright pretty much anybody once they go into lien it has to be option unless the auctioneer feels comfortable no one's gonna bid if it looks like if it's like palate and an empty box obviously not going to auction it for legality reasons but they'll take a photo of it and do their little thing they have to and I see that a lot of public storage but the most companies they will have one of the options services try to auction it off and then accurate if it doesn't then it's their job to dispose of it because that sound like a public storage like when you go to the auction it's got a no bid they have to have three of us who sign in actually sign that it didn't sell as like a backup make sure to prove that they did attempt to sell it okay yeah that make that makes a lot of sense so do you usually sort through the unit there at the storage unit throw all the trash in the trash and kind of sort what you're going to what you're going to keep to resell online versus what you're going to sell you know at the at the flea market where do you typically sort this stuff most of the time I routes the boxes at the storage facility and I kind of do my filming and everything there but I don't really take things to dump till after I've gone to the flea market my flea market is the one I go to in Stockton I have guys that actually clean up for me at the end of the day so like my trash generally I unload and then when I'm ready to go I just close a trailer and drive off and they clean clean up everything from there and everything sells there for the most part I have dollar sales like I'm a quick sell like when I go to the market I show up at five I unload I put some good stuff over here most of stuff goes in a pile and then by like nine ten o'clock in the morning I'm everything a dollar then free and then I drive off and people will gobble up they and people need stuff I like I like to it's either you need to make money in this business but if you want to find more boxes you want to look through stuff and it's more about sometimes the hunt to you which is what's again really risky if you want to make money to do what I do my way but I'm trying to get to the next unit and I like helping people I feel like giving stuff away to people who are actually gonna use it not necessary to resell it but they they might need a new couch that no one else is gonna buy or they might need a new set of cups whatever whatever the thing is I like getting up to other people because I feel that helps bring me good energy because there is a lot of negative energy behind this job we do a lot of people look down on it like we've stolen people's stuff you know how dare you do that and then there's the factor that somewhere in the world was that person's a little sad from it and that youth energy gets to the universe and I am very weird about energy so I try to do anything I can to make myself feel comfortable with that yeah that makes a lot of sense I mean you know at the end of the day the only way that that you're gonna you know the more storage units you buy the more chances that you have of really kind of striking 26,000 dollars in a safe is all right so in the only way to buy a bunch of storage units is to liquidate as you go along and if you don't you know sometimes if you want like for instance what I'm dealing with right now this storage unit that I bought there's just like there's quite a bit of decent stuff and for me to sell it all you know for you know on online I have to I have to make room for it and as it stands right now I'm looking at probably at least a couple more weeks before I even buy another storage unit and I'm already itching to buy one it's just a matter of time and and space so that's a that's really really cool so guys in the chat do you type I'm gonna pull a Wade's venture here okay guys type 1 if you've ever bought a storage unit in auction type 2 if you never have I'm kind of curious and while we're doing that if you guys have any questions for storage auction pirate now would be the time to ask them and here we go that's weird one okay I'm sure a bunch you guys have bought storage unit auctions that's weird kind of a mixed bag in it yeah zero awesome yeah it is a mixed bag about 5050 it looks like that's crazy one too many manual said that's funny I noticed a few people asked like it might the background on the unit with the safe in it and in my opinion that unit the person passed away it seemed like somebody who went and went to work they cashed a check and money was in sequences like five bills would be in a sequence they'd be kind of fresh like he cashed the check out from the bank set it there and it was weird but it seemed like somebody to save that money never wanted to use a bank that would make sense to me I can't imagine well I say I can't imagine someone defaulting on a storage unit with twenty six thousand dollars sitting right inside of it but again you know the thing is is with this my most recent storage unit the person the person that owned the storage unit is is still living and I had spoken to the manager at the facility and they just told me they told me that that she simply she just didn't pay and it's kind of a kind of a sad deal honestly this is where this the nature of this business there's two sides to it you have people that absolutely absolutely despise you know people that purchase storage unit auctions like you were saying and and Jeremy what the hell's had had made mention to me that there's there's a lot of people that have lost things in a storage unit auction and they just don't they don't like what we do but at the end of the day it's going to be auctioned off regardless and someone is going to buy it it's not really you know it's not it's not our fault at this point you know and you have to realize at the end of the day it's either someone else is going to buy it and just or-or-or it's gonna get thrown in the trash and at the end of the day we're gonna find a good loving home for all of this stuff someone that's going to use it and a lot of the personal belongings do get taken back to the to the facility and handed over to the rightful owner of that stuff so I mean it's it's it's kind of a double-edged sword you know it's good for us it's good business at the end of the day the storage unit is the storage unit company is in this business to make money and if somebody doesn't pay up they have to recoup they have to recoup their losses somehow someway so that's just how it goes oh yeah definitely I kind of looked at from a cold aspect myself but if people didn't have too much of a consumer mentality they probably wouldn't have a storage unit they lost in the first place that's why storage does exist because the average person has too much stuff they don't know how to let go of it maybe somebody passed away and they kind of feel like oh and that's he died if I throw her stuff away I don't care or somebody's somebody died and they had to sell the house and usually the kids don't want the stuff so they put it in a storage unit so they can create myself a house or people are so down in their luck that like they don't have a home and they're exhausting their resources that they have to help save everything to keep $1,500 and stuff in a storage unit after paying it for four years and coming out with a pocket $9,000 on you know $1,800 and stuff it's yes in my opinion they probably shouldn't exist on the level they do because people have just too much stuff but then again without that we wouldn't have a job right now so right I mean at the end of the day when it's someone and when it's someone's rainy day at someone else's sunny day and and we've all been there you know I know I have I've been so I've been this close to foreclosure in like in in my life and I've I mean I'll be the first to tell not I'm not ashamed of it I'll be the first to tell you I filed bankruptcy in the past I mean and that's that's where it is you know when you live when you live by paycheck to paycheck okay and then something happens and you lose your job or you get laid off or you know whatever it be and you are relying on that paycheck to make your bills happen guess what there's gonna be bills you simply can't play anymore it just happens it happens to all of us if it doesn't happen to you you're fortunate you're lucky in and count your blessings because it happens it happens to a lot of us at one point or another in our lives we will we will see the day when we can't make two ends of a rope meet together it just happens that whoa that's very scary too in a business like the storage business because you can very easily dig yourself into a hole when you run your own business you need to be on top of things and like me I started off at the bottom of this business like I said my answer one of the questions here somebody asked how much my first unit was like I started this business on a $1 unit I was in a bad place then I was low behind on bills etc etc and I quit my job to do this with the gamble and I went it got kind of successful slowly and then I kind of messed up a little bit and then I started again after I lost some things and I built it up and then I found that safe we open up a business and I ended up 35 grand in the hole from that opening up the store basically after finding that 26 grand so then I had to work my way back up paying off all that debt and it goes up and down if you don't work on it it's a scary job if you're not on top of it that's all I could say because I'm in a kind of a crunch myself right now because I kind of have been slacking in certain areas of this job and I brought it on myself basically by not doing things to the best of my ability lately yeah I mean sometimes you know this community this reselling community is huge and a lot of times I'm most productive when I've got people like-minded people like coworkers around me you know it kind of creates a bit of a lean on me type deal where you know we we hold each other accountable and that's a that's something in this business in this line of work when you're self-employed there's nobody you know there's nobody telling you that you got to get up and do this and do this and do this today it's really self motivation is the only way to get it done and that's something that you want to be self-employed if if the I'll tell you what my family and my bills motivate the heck out of me it's either I do it or nobody's gonna do it so it is all all the weights on your shoulders and if you don't motivate yourself like I said like like I saw I kind of ran my business the last years I was very unmotivated due to things going on in my life personal matters with an ex and so forth and I kind of really didn't focus on my job enough and I'm really financially paying the price from not doing exactly what I know I should be doing and just being like this alright we'll worry about another day and then in this business if you don't have like this is not just like a side job or you don't have like kind of like that nice little retirement for you get started if it's everything and you started with next to nothing and you you got to be on top of it it's not for the weak at heart you have to really hustle oh yeah yeah that's that's a definite fact so alright guys let's see if if anybody does anybody well actually somebody in the chat had asked how long have you been a vegan where you are you vegetarian I didn't even see that question oh yeah I I've been a vegetarian for the most part again since January and then like last year I I didn't do it though like the last five months of the year but the first seven months of the year I was complete vegetarian I kind of go back and forth but I tried to eat me I don't really it's not very healthy for us these days the way that it's raised and the corn that goes in it I clean stuff work it's the one of the lead causes of cancer and diabetes so I just kind of try to stay away and I seem to feel better from doing that yeah yeah that's what I was gonna ask is you know is is it are you seen any changes like are you are you what so what's the purpose is it just to stay healthy I mean is it have you lost weight recently I mean what what made you change well I'm not gonna lie the reason why I originally became vegetarian was kind of do impress a girl that was what got me doing it she's like I'm a vegetarian she showed me a video like ooh I'm gonna do that too so let's see if I can impress you it didn't work but nonetheless I felt better after doing it so I started do I like I also I won't drink like dairy milk I only drink like almond milk and stuff and I noticed a lot of health wise I feel better and when I went back to eating meat same thing I started to feel I don't feel this good I just I I'm not a vegan I'm only a vegetarian I call eat the eggs I'll eat dairy milk if I have to like absolutely I call pest milk because there's so much pus inside of a gallon of milk and almond milk stuff like that I love no don't say that don't say those things man I had a I had pulled pulled barbecued chicken sandwiches tonight and they were great I trick I do things to kind of circumvent like I use something called nopales it's a cactus and it has a very interesting texture like if I cut it in like a little piece like a hamburger patty basically I feel like I'm eating a hamburger taste just like it I'll cut it up like asada for tacos I'll use it in all the manners at which that I would normally use meat but I put in a poly sin there okay is that similar to like is it anything like what what am I trying to think of I forget it I can't remember it's a it's a vegetable that they use a lot and in vegetarian food to like replace meats jackfruit is one they use a lot of that's already Cuffy a lot of people use cauliflower is very big like I tried to eat soy because I found out after becoming a vegetarian I was working out kind of heavily at the time for a man soy is bad because it lowers your testosterone which helps give you replenish your muscle and I was like an all soy diet and I started one like why am I still weak so I tried to get any soya not the healthiest thing for a guy as a vegetarian yeah but that's what that's what I was I was looking for was the word soy and so um you know what I think Michael I think we should maybe screen share on to storage treasures and we'll take a few a few zip codes from the chat and maybe do a little soul-searching on storage treasures comm what do you think brother I'm gonna give that a try I think I can handle there okay yeah just a we'll just screen share and then you can go to storage treasures and I will I will give you some zips here's a here's a couple already actually I have the screen share button now yeah just hit the screen share and then I'll lock it on your screen see you and and then is it working now yep all right okay cool so we've got let me scroll up here the very first zip is seven three one one five this is a little close to home seven three one one fifty Cent yep alright this is from frontier flipper he's a home base ER for me and he would take we just pointed like 25 miles and then we'll just yeah we can do 25 miles on this one the next one will do 100 miles because it was requested all right the first one here is a 10 by 10 and just kind of you know Michael it's just uh I guess think out loud when you're looking at these things yeah I'm trying to think of some deed and say about this you know but I personally would not buy a unit like this on your if I was at the auction I'd have to be absolutely out of merchandise and just want to make some money for that day I would buy it then but if I was just if I was really trying to think I'm gonna make money I don't see nothing of real value okay the standard step and you see coat hangers you see laundry detergent you see garbage can you see bags with cheap dolls like this just looks like a lot of low-end items to me looks very minimal intent okay let's go back to the search results and see if if you can just scan through there and pick one that you think might be interested that might be interesting to you if there are any yeah yeah if there's not if there's not anything that may interest you maybe will increase the mileage this one yes this one intrigues me slightly because I like dust and I see dust doesn't scream lots of great things in the front but I like things with file cabinets I like I like dust and I see dust and I almost see rat poop on the bottom there not quite but that's one of my things in part Yuna's rat poo because it means a lot a lot who's been sitting for a long time well so why do you like dust is that the same razor uh basically yeah you can almost tell the age of a unit sitting there by by the level of dust and I want something that hasn't been touched and looked in that's why personally for me my favorite units to buy are a dead people because for one they don't come back to complain about their unit and who they most likely haven't been in the unit's to pull something out and I don't feel the energy is this bad on something when the person doesn't exist anymore for somebody who's sitting there crying wishing that they had one more chance at their storage yeah I mean that's you know okay you guys I know that that might sound a little harsh but at the end of the day I mean it's reality when we die all of our belongings unless our family wants them and takes care of them all of our belongings are going to be gone you know at the end of the day it's all material and we can't take it with us to the other side so this you know reminds me of somebody who does some type of work like they were doing woodworking or something you see what looks like a moldy floorboards or something there you see like a work but you see the past load staple gun there the file cabinet the tool type things there you see a sake so that like even though the safes open I would still have to buy that to live in that safe whereas I say I'm pretty sure it's a safe right there on top of the file cabinet oh yeah yeah no you can see that it's open but I I couldn't walk away from that I would have to buy that for some amount of money if it wasn't super ridiculous now this says normally and unit manager special does that mean anything at all oh that right there tells me I wouldn't buy it then I didn't even notice that I didn't see it until Eric tell me what's in there I would have called him up and let me tell me what was in the safe that you already went in it Yeah right see that okay and these are ending in what 15 hours tomorrow 3:00 as well you know 15 hours I'm sorry I screwed up already yeah no no you're fine all of those these are within like rock-throwing distance of me almost okay this type of you know this this looks like it's weekly unit it looks like it's been staged if you want my honest opinion um I guess I can potentially see that could you see like hey we got a file cabinet but the drawers but no file cabinet yeah this looks almond a meticulously laid out I don't know that's strange it's hard to say this is what I call it Tweaker you tweakers like putting their things and just random boxes this this is exactly what I think that would be you see speakers that don't look like they work you see part of this I don't know that's what it is screams to me but I could see where it could potentially be staged because I bought a unit the other day where I swear I don't know who did it but I think somebody put a whole front half of somebody stuff in the front of what was a business in the back so it's range happen at auctions that's not something I would buy it all and I see it a hundred bucks like that personally I would not really I would not buy that I'm curious to know if this is another okay no that's not another manager special that's that's interesting but see how the very front of it it's all it's all like meticulously laid out it just looks it's so interesting to me why they like the radio looks like he hey no he's doing something anyone listen to some music he's sir I know it's hard to sing yeah yeah looks like a little cool cigarette sign or something right there on the left when the handle may be wrong then why I've seen that I think the word cool [Music] Oh see the flea market ain't the A's right there the a-frames in the back corner there those are the little eight frames you put up and you put your plywood across to make it yeah yeah for sure could be a cellar sawhorses yeah they're like softwares that's the word I'm looking for on a wax did he bring frontier this is frontier flippers zipcode he said I had to implant the buying bug because you said you weren't buying for a couple weeks yeah that's funny I didn't zip them sure yeah let's do that if you don't see anything there just right off the top that you think that might pique your interest that you would want to look into we can move on to another zet this one that kind of looks almost intriguing with things 25 days away oh dang it's already at $310 - that has some slight intrigue to it he like anything has a front load washer and dryer in it I mean you can depending on where you are with the supply and demand that could be anywhere from 100 to 400 bucks based on condition and brand and everything because there are some low-end front washers but I I like having nice items I tend to stay away from units where do people have children because I have children and I know what it's like when you have children you don't always get to spend it on a lot of toys you spend on the children so when I look at a unit if person has like you see the baby boxes of diapers and all the stuff I tend to believe that people don't have a lot of treasure in those units because the average person is spending their money taking care of their kids so they're not having a whole bunch of fancy gadgets unless they're one of those we said earlier like keeping up with the Joneses type but I tend to stay away from children units with a lot of children's stuff because that's just the way I see it yeah and and coming from you know another guy with kids especially young kids I can tell you one of my biggest mistakes in life was buying a brand-new living room furniture set my or having children that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life because my $3,000 couch said is now worthless because it's just plumb ruined that's so true but like for example when I see something like this I'm usually intrigued by things like this because I automatically presume elderly people and elderly people have old stuff and that's one of my signs I like when I look at a unit I prefer to buy an elderly person versus a younger person so I generally presume you see stuff like that it's an elderly person but it doesn't mean doesn't necessarily mean that's true somebody could have just heard their leg or their hip or something but you want to like when your profile you try to picture what the person actually sure sure alright let's uh let's try different zip code when the person requests that we do a hundred mile radius the zip code is three four four two nine three four four two nine yes sir three four four two nine a hundred miles where are we at here that's uh looks like Florida or no Disneyworld all right what do we got here a 10 by 15 for 200 already does that say 50 minutes to go 50 minutes is that what that says we should all team up and buy it now everybody I think I said 50 minutes I'm not sure yes it does 8:59 p.m. Oh is a princess house that's always nice looks like an older radio there I have I swear on everything that is my exact nightstand that blue rough thing right there I have that nightstand next to my bed I got it out of a unit with Alex we bought a couple months ago I would have to buy that just because I only have one and I need a matching one ah that's funny a bit I bet you don't there's no there's a lot of things that you use around the house on a daily that you don't have to buy anymore because you just get stuff out of storage lockers oh I haven't bought a bar of soap in five years I don't buy plastic bags I don't buy aluminum foil all sorts of things that I can potentially save as being the mother inside of me stores all these things up I gotta give a quick shout out to Jay craft because Jay craft bowl-o-rama in the chat yes it is a great show idea because the gentleman came up with it he asked me one day privately is like hey why don't why don't we go live on my show and and and and we go through storage unit auctions together live and I we did that and the cool thing was I thought it was such a good idea that I started doing you know on my show as well and this is a is an amazing idea I think a lot of people benefit from this especially coming from guys with experienced us just talking through it really gives a lot of people ideas on what they can look for to really score on a storage unit if they ever decide to buy one and Jay thank you so much for the $2 superjet thank you so much he said you're cheating on me with another thrifter I see well it's good to have a variety of opinions in this business there's no there's so many different ways to do it and everybody somebody's gonna appreciate one person's strategy more the other because that's the way they're gonna want to do it that style so we help have different opinions absolutely absolutely I don't usually like lean units with this one for the right price would be worth money because it seems like there's a lot of brand new clothes and it's only at a hundred and forty dollars with two days and twenty two hours to go now what does it mean when it says it's a private seller I mean someone obviously staged the unit to sell the unit and all of its contents does that mean anything to us well you don't have to necessarily believe it they staged it I mean that's a good presumption but it could just be their actual storage unit and they're tired of paying on it but I know that recently somebody and my storage business showed me a unit they had where I was at that they bought a bunch of units and then put some of the stuff there to make it look all fancy like I'm selling it on stored in treasures and I kind of like got pissed off because you know there's an even though some of its my competition they're out there doing it he's like he was it's kind of crooked like you you had set everything up you know it's kind of crappy I can't go ahead and bid and try to make money that upsets me when somebody does that and that's what a lot of these non lien units manager specials could potentially be is somebody who knows exactly what's in there to make it look nice and then you get sucked into it you just basically waste a lot of time and money well they're off laughing to the bank and that's not cool yep yep but this one has potential to me because you see like mannequins you see the little these little things here where they were under the clothes that's like mannequin somebody was a seller that almost looks like a flea market seller though because you see those are the little half ones that people have you name on their tents yeah there's a bunch of them too I guess I guess staged wouldn't be the right word what I meant was like you know positioned everything in the storage unit is really what I meant for the resale yeah that's that's interesting that money as I see this as a possible flea market bin or somebody who's doing a portable sales like and they have it just set up for easy put in their truck put out of their truck without damaging it because I know the only time I've really seen these type of these type of mannequins are when I'm walking by the flea market and somebody has that little half body hanging from the top of their canopies that's what it reminds me of yeah yeah that makes sense they're really low-end mannequin pieces but yeah that's not a bad deal for somebody if it stays under 140 bucks there's a lot of money teammate on I feel whenever they have these thing can you see where I'm pointing where with these have the photos with the doors close I feel like whatever they have them like that they're automatically means the unit sucks and that's why they don't want to show you a photo because they're scared if you look at it you're just going to waste your time I'm gonna chew it from looking at the ones with the doors off I got you that's actually that looks like a pretty nice little dresser right in the front I mean this is your box oh that's a jewelry box yeah okay just a tall jewelry box that's interesting and we'll just decide to open up and then the top opens up and a little that's a no-brainer you have to gamble on jewelry boxes sure the right price you can't what is the price on that 264 12 by 12 doesn't look like great but it looks full and if you're looking for inventory I see a lot of just regular the problem with I see in storage units is everybody's selling the same thing if you go in every house in America everybody has the same thing they got a couch a dining table of living room set dishes bedroom stuff like so when you buy and sell stuff at these storages everybody's selling the same stuff and you really want to monitor what it is you're gonna be selling on that you're the guy selling the basic cups the basic picture the flea market you're gonna be overlooked by somebody having the little nicer one like a pure work Peter one versus a target so I always see it's hard to get out of getting all these regular items like this like your like your pictures and your little pots and pans there but everybody is in the same in this country has the same stuff in the house just a little different brand and I it's hard to do when you're selling the same things every day like you buy a unit you sell it all and then you get the same type of stuff over and over you really want to be picky of the condition ever you want to I had the wonder why this thing somebody ever told me when I looked at a unit and it was a friend of mine candy actually one time and he said it it kind of registered in my brain and he said the most important thing he would ever look at in a storage unit is the three things that people use the most on a daily basis and that was what their mattress looks like what their kitchen or what their eating utensils look like and what their shoes look like and if you look at those things and how people took care of those if they didn't take care of those three things they probably didn't care about their life as much and well taken care of ten-to-one their stuff is at least clean and well taken care of if their shoes aren't just torn up if they're see how you can see the front of jewelry box there I would definitely buy this unit right here just for to say that there's a jewelry box and nothing else but I see they've got they've got the drawers taped shut like they're stuffed up in it yeah and you know it doesn't look like they've been tampered with it looks like it's still sealed you could see the plastic on the bottom the bottom towards a could still melt the to it and not cut something in there though how many people bought in storage units for a lot of money and there's absolutely nothing in that jewelry box oh yeah I mean it's a gamble it really is I mean I guess for me you know from what I've learned is you really want to kind of pry and kind of monetize what you can see with your bare eyes and make that somewhat like at least a close limit to your bid you know I would I would probably go at least $700 on nothing Union if it was me and I'm standing in front of it and I could smell what the unit smells like and I see that it's a 12 by 12 which is a I usually go a minimum of like 10 dollars a square foot but I don't think this is that super quality so I probably wouldn't go a thousand 1,200 I have a weird ways of looking at storage units by cubic volume stuff but I would at least spend 700 on that unit at least all right guys in the chat I just shared Jake crafts balarama youtube he has graciously like I said he graciously gave me the idea for this this this gig this type of show and I feel like it's only necessary and only right for me to give him a good shout out Jay Kraft is pretty much the news person and the note the mr. know of everything eBay related ecommerce related on all the changes that they that they go through between the spring seller update and update information and all that so this guy Jake crafts a great dude he's a good friend of mine and he's always up to date on all the spiffy when it comes to resale so definitely check his channel out and subscribe to him what are we looking at here this is an interesting little unit I don't see like tons of boxes but I'm intrigued that the furniture looks quality so the possibility of what's inside of the boxes makes it better except I don't particle boards one of my turn offs right off the bat I don't like part of the word yeah pepper sell but it is a nice-looking particle board bed frame there you see the little spindle the little try leg table bases there for the dining table you see you it looks like nicer dining chairs you don't see scuffs all over the legs you don't see spill marks all over the seat you see some nice high heels there no stiletto just chillin part of a rug like I say remember the thing about the mattresses see how the mattress looks clean doesn't look stained it doesn't look like somebody urinated on and it doesn't look like it's been sitting in the house for 50 years that's always a good sign you see cleans if you see clean mattresses in a you know like they look nice and there's other stuff you know I would almost always try to buy the unit because it's when people take care of the thing they sleep on taking care of everything yeah something else said I think people would be interested in hearing is one thing that I look for is in like really full units like I like seeing units that are packed to the brim me because that tells me a couple of things it tells me that well of course you're gonna get a lot of inventory good or bad you're gonna get a lot of whatever's in there and for one secondly you can rest assured if it's that packed full and it's not just like tossed in there odds are highly likely that the owner of that storage unit did not go through and get the things that they felt were valuable before defaulting yeah that is very true the more fool it is the less chance they have and one like when you see a unit that's got a aisle down the middle of it that's better chances that somebody was easily to go in there and grab what they wanted yep yep okay let's go to another let's do another zip code here I like my favorite thing to do on store traded I like to go look at like the top seven units that are going on in the country okay yeah oh you could do you can go where's the top seven up let's do that on the main page when you first go in I'm not sure let me let me just do a check but usually on the bottom of the first page they might have done away a fitara oh what's hot I saw something options I always like to go and look at what people are going crazy over and it's been going on ever every like I've seen this unit before really yeah look at that I've seen this Munich a few times it always pays up I mean I see Louis Vuitton and I see a lot of just this is a collector unit it's pretty obvious there probably is actually an athlete's unit chances are okay it's in be surprised there's some nice football that I would never in a million years spend 75 when running you know like this because honestly when I looked at it I feel like somebody has like eight good things and then make a ton of money because it's all in the front and they staged it yeah well I mean it does I would you say it would you assume that this is staged I wouldn't assume it would but you have to have a natural real I don't trust anything that I can't sit in front of and smell sure and that's what I call when I look at the storage unit it's like smelling the unit okay those look like real Louie though because you could sell where the dish the discoloration of the of the leather there and that could be how big is this unit in my 20s it motives and roll make negatives and relax of camera stuff that's film probably huh that's a decent unit but I said I like to look at these units like this that are bitter on the top list it's kind of like it's interesting to see what people are willing to gamble on it kind of helps you sometimes want to make a big gamble I would not go 7,500 on that unit and it's not even done so about 21 days to go uh JK said he smells the unit Jeremy eats a unit that's the that's true [Laughter] that's hilarious I'll tell you what what is what kind of case is that is thank you guitar case yeah it looks like kind of yeah maybe like a classical guitar case or something one would hope is that could give soon or something alright that's open for oh yeah some of those vintage Gibson's go for a lot of money is that is that work or just okay it looks like somebody's selling art there's a lot of pieces art it's not just somebody putting all those pieces on the wall they're creating art it's very common storage units to get an artists unit Wow and those do not ever seem to work out too well because it's usually not a very famous artist you're getting but yeah but did you have another zip code of mine you want to try yeah six four zero six three six four zero six three let me get six four zero sixty and just doesn't matter how many miles ah here we go where are we at where is this in Missouri in this city North Dakota or Maryland I can't sue does Kansas City Missouri okay Kansas City Missouri all right I like little units because they're easy I used to buy all lots of big units but I start is there's so much bigger stuff and bigger units and little units if you can get them at a good price they tend to have a faster quicker reward this faster to move saves you a lot of time yep if you get the right ones or chopped for treasure be late what's this unit $10 like if I would buy this unit for ten bucks just because I feel there's got to be at least fifty to a hundred bucks in there and if I bought like five of those in a day that becomes a decent flea market load but I wouldn't go crazy I wouldn't spend like fifty or seventy-five bucks on a unit like that because there's so many units that look just like this but I'd almost buy any unit in the world for ten bucks yeah oh yeah absolutely have you just out of curiosity have you ever purchased a storage unit that to most people would look like just bags of trash I do it all the time I even some days I'll buy that unit for four grand and I'll buy the work the unit that nobody wanted like I do it on purpose because a lot of people copy me and my area a lot of people think because I'm bidding I'm like I know it's in there I I don't know where I feel like people they want to either outdo me or they want to know why I'm doing it so I'll buy they have a no sale I'll turn around and give them a dollar for it just so people can't figure it out what the heck I'm doing laughs if you bought that for a dollar I'll make me neither but whenever you can't you you have to feel that thrill people up there saying that you could probably take all the all the the aluminum cans out of that trashy storage unit and make more than a dollar from it so it's very possible like I've never lost on a daughter you I've never in my entire business that any of my losses come from a dollar you know or a five-door unit this unit here looks like a stager like a complete stager they were just had a business and that's what I see after that artist's house cut type decor stuff in boxes and things use a stager but in a lot of staging units in my in my storage career they're never really huge items of profit in there but if you get them right it's all just sellable household stuff that people want to decor decorate their house with but for some reason I feel like it's a staging type unit could be wrong like staging houses for sale and stuff yeah that's what I just when I get off the bat when I see the front of this unit I see like this items that would go around the house and that's the boxes of they're fake they're fake little plants and vases that they set up when they stage your home with I can't tell without seeing deeper into the unit just looks like like that looks like a table underneath those like that's wrapped up with the sort of the shrink wrap around it and there's a pad there and then you got your pet it just seems like to me what I see the staging some business and they just go everything in storage actually there's like a pod or a container doesn't even look like a storage unit yeah I've actually there was a unit that ended a couple of days ago that looked a lot like that I actually I was watching it because I wasn't for certain I thought about buying it but there was a lot of a whole lot of home decor and I just don't I don't think that home decor is something that it really merits a lot of money so I gotta buy a you know like this free eat I would easily spend 508 by nineteen like this because you're gonna get at least two full trailer loads and you see nothing as sellable stuff I mean it doesn't seem like I don't see like hey there's a thousand dollar item but I see five ten fifteen twenty twenty-five dollar bills there's several of them so I would definitely buy you know like this for the right price probably if I said five hundred which means I probably get sucked into bidding about 750 because I tend to hang on to a unit more than I probably should have when I'm bidding yeah guys when you're buying storage units from storage treasures calm you have to also remember that you have depending on if you're a pro member or not on storage treasures you're gonna have either a ten percent for member or 15% for non-member fee and then also you'll have a deposit of course that deposit gets you get refunded after you clean out the unit as long as you clean it out within the specified time frame also you know if you're not tax-exempt you'll also have the taxes on top of that so for me I'm not tax exempt so I pay taxes on the purchase of this store these storage units so I'm looking at twenty percent more on top of on top of my final bid so but if you're buying like more than one unit a month on there or you're buying expensive units you should have the extra the extra discount on the buyer's premium it's worth it to save that 5% if you're buying any amount of units on a regular basis there oh yeah oh absolutely like a decent little unit for eight for a eight by ten but like for me in my area like if I was a Saudis crop positive flea market um realistically I'm only getting ten bucks apiece tops for those sure that's the way my market works I got supplying a man world's both ways and there's a lot of people selling these same things they're trying to get fair amount of money notes in the Box doesn't work unless I'm putting it on eBay I generally wouldn't ship a crock-pot on eBay granted I probably should because I'd make more money but that's a type of thing that I just take to the market and I sell really really fast to get out buy another one because like I said I want to look I want to look in that trunk right there that's type of thing like now I'm going to buy that unit I see the trunk and trunks are definitely on my list of turn ons eight-by-ten I would easily probably spend two or three hundred on that unit just because I want to see in that trunk and not because I really like anything else in this unit but I feel like trunks are like poor man sakes and you just never know what that trunk was it was a military trunk was it mom's sewing step trunk was it grandma's I'm keeping my silver and jewelry in the trunk definitely would buy that yep that's a that's a pretty pack unit looks like brick for eight by ten and looks like it's probably that's the last war although it's hard to save it if he's looking yeah pretty sure just one wall at the back like the TV goes and probably touches the wall and that cabinets against the back wall maybe another look another layer oh I guess I would spend two or three hundred on that just because a trunk but I'm not really impressed with all the other things that kind of golf ball them it's pretty cool though kind of thing golf ball pattern different suitcases are clean looking but suitcases are only like that's like a $10 sale at my flea market this number okay we're gonna do what uh what's it for where we own that just now six four zero six three let's do nine four five three one ninety four five three one yeah this will probably be our last zip of the night that must have been my good friend hustling the hustlers you typed that zip coding like but I'll bet mummy if that's his area don't mean treating units buyers here this is all by me actually receive leg personally for me like this is actually in my area within driving distance but I don't like this facility because I have bad vibes about them in my experience of when they used to be a live auction that's how this type of unit this is looks like totally like somebody did a dump run and took a bunch of stuff and decide pay there but look at that all that hazardous chemicals which is basically a negative if you don't have a place to drop them oh yeah for sure one tool in the front right there of some form looks like maybe Duvall it looks like he like a saw like a scroll saw almost I'm not really a tool guy that's one of my least favorite things I sell to flea market because I feel like everybody at the flea market is trying to sell tools and I try my best to sell something that not everybody has in in their booth because that's what's gonna draw people to want to buy your stuff more I have to buy this you know right off the bat it's a three by ten with almost nothing in it but there's a safe and the safes are automatically gonna drive the price of that unit up yeah I'm sure what what is a probably the current price and how long does it have this is a three by 10 which is like one of the most smallest possible unit so anything ss3 buy anything in a storage unit small at 210 bucks it's 30 square foot it's a 210 how how long does it have to go 13 hours these are all ending tomorrow oh but it looks very businesslike you see the bankers boxes what kind of throws me off like the skill saw next to a safe like that like I would I would by this for a cheap price but I think this is already over what I would pay but this is a type of price as you see in my area like I said this this town is like 30 minutes from me right here Oakley yeah you know I actually lucked out there were a whole bunch of banker boxes in my most recent storage unit unfortunately it wasn't a whole bunch of paperwork banker boxes actually make for really good storage boxes time yeah oh yeah you I've done some good units with banker's box but if you look at these every one of these boxes and here it looks like total nothing in there not shocked it's going for the price it is you don't even see nothing in the holes there oh I do that top one at least yeah there's stuff in there you could say it now what that stuff is like a shirt and a part of a three-ring binder to me it's kind of like the way my eyes see it yeah either the shirt and then like the metal part that holds like paper and a binder units a lot that's am I gonna high is that you still got 13 hours left so you know that's gonna go for money and like I said this place to me is I don't trust that facility and here we go with their non lien unit manager special that's at already 90 bucks that's not too bad for a lien special I will buy a manager special because I always believe that not everybody knows what they're looking for so you can get lucky in a unit that's a manager special because they're generally naturally looking for gold and silver you know they're not looking for things that we know are valuable but the average person doesn't per se so I will buy a manager special for cheap like this unit right here like I see like a my flea market that washer and dryer is 40 bucks that little basketball thing is like five bucks you start adding up that you got that unit for what is it at now ninety like I would pay a hundred bucks for this in person even though I knew it was a manager special I just see all things that I can liquidate garbage cans close I can I can have a dollar sale with this damn near and and do and make money if it's to the right price I'll buy this for like a hundred bucks so I wouldn't spend a lot more of it yeah it's like I've had rocks they're like you're gonna be in you're gonna be intrigued by it because it has an iPad box there yeah I'd seen now I'm under the impression that manager specials are really just a conglomeration of several other units that have went up for auction but never sold on aside we're still on the same facility and now we're on the what I see is their second manager special and that kind of makes me one like how do you have two managers special units this month right cuz I am I I know there's facilities that are crooked especially in my area which like I I don't go to this place ever because I feel they are crooked I've been to this place for years and there was rumors when I first started about this this is a this to me is like definitely a Tweaker probably empty cases that's what I'm gonna presume when I see you know like this and I see buckets and I see kitty litter boxes or whatever with words written on it and I see that I automatically presume Tweaker I automatically resume somebody who has taken apart their tools and stuff like that that's what I the way I look at a unit like this oh yeah shout out to Trevor Stewart from Ireland Trevor I have read your comments brother thank you so much for commenting on that that gold a gold video of mine he requested that I talked to you about that I've already sold the gold Trevor but he said that that you actually buy gold is that right do you buy gold storage auction fire oh do I do you buy gold I don't really buy gold I just sell it like I like gold that I wear but I'm not really like one to buy gold and hoard it or try to resell it because this is not something I generally do sure sure no no Trevor I guess Trevor was under the impression that you purchase gold to resell so he he suggested that I hit you up with it but the fortunate thing for me is it's I've already sold it so I don't have to worry about test a lot of gold buyers that um buy gold off me on a regular basis but like yeah I don't really save it myself but I generally the way I have to run my businesses I'm kind of a really quick seller because I'm trying to work that chunk of money I have to turn it over and over and over again Oh with the cost of living around here plus the cost of what it takes to buy a storage unit okay yeah he he corrected me he said he was saying that he has a guy who buys gold so yeah oh yeah I guess I got some I think I got 80% of spot so I felt decent online I mean it's not ninety or ninety five percent which is some people have that connection I just simply don't so I have a few people that will pay ninety percent all day long for gold that's good that's good 10% goes a long ways when you're dealing with volume I'm blown away by how many this place has on a manager special like I wouldn't buy this unit either no I could pay it was this one at seventy I definitely wouldn't pay that type of bid even though you see sellable stuff because I VCR tapes to me or one of the toughest cells yeah yeah cheap things I would I get frustrated with place like that you should not have that many lean sales there's no way should have that many I mean a manager specials now we now we have they actually have a regular one forty bucks 10 by 15 looks like a business right off the bat is it is anything pretty soon cuz this might actually be a unit you could snipe for a decent amount uh this is one I probably actually I'm sure let me see the photos because that this ends tomorrow and I'm out of stuff to sell so I'm hearing a great now that's funny storage auction pirates or seeing 101 live on the thrift trader YouTube channel tonight this it looks like a business to me you see all the banker box you see but there's a little X file cabinets and you've seen that you've seen the write-off to hear the home for sale you see some chairs you see this type of stuff that's got paperwork in it but then again you looks like there's a clock right there behind you the paper and a little bit like a tabletop radio you put the little tape player and it's made to look like a jukebox yeah then you get your dollar store aluminum foil things I could use those cooking around the house but some of this stuff looks kind of old you have the what's that thing called a total gym you can usually get 25 to 75 bucks for total gym on Craigslist yeah I think I'd say a wooden rocking chair there in the middle yeah you see a rockin feel don't you feel like the unit's no is not showing the right now oh there it is it's got a mattress on the middle of it oh right down the middle hmm so what I like about business units or something they have business and managers less half there's a Dewalt case right there for your skill saw the managers are less to have to go in a unit that is businesslike or you see some family foot this is like a probably half and half unit yeah then the average person in my area doesn't want to fuss with paperwork in business and they're probably turned off by this there is smacker a garbage can yeah there's books underneath it I don't have the best of luck with books I saw I'm not one of those people whose Google everything I find and it's not exactly the best strategy I should be looking up a lot of books that somebody one time tried to tell me they watch me throw away at $12,000 book in my video I know they were just being jerks but well I mean I don't think I've ever seen a $12,000 book but I have sold books for close to a couple hundred bucks before believe it or not oh I believe it there was a unit here last year somewhere around here that nobody wanted the guy that I know picked it up with 20 bucks and he did like 200 grand books at an auction house and that's a good come up from $20 to like 200 grand oh yeah I might actually it might possibly bid on that he'd have to double I'm gonna think about that one I can't tell that looks like all paperwork there's even see the word files on there yeah it says like left looks like it says left rugs but I can't quite read it I might actually have to buy this one and we could see a reveal about one day soon my auction is tomorrow but I'm definitely out of stuff in that's weird all these all these facilities I'm pretty sure last option run were not on storage treasured I think that the manager the guy who did these options is retiring so they're not putting the doing the auctions for these facilities in person anymore there's Marilyn Monroe could be wrong Marilyn's nice III collect Marilyn things I have like a picture of her my bedroom actually but this looks like a lot of furniture in here somebody was eating the side of their head board when they're hungry at night he's looking office chairs almost but then the part of them looks kind of weird there and this is the way I look like see what I'm talking about once they don't take care of this that's the other feet on the plastic of the treadmill is already like I don't know what they're doing they're chain-smoking and it's all full of ashes while they were running on their treadmill or their exercise bike with that that looks very you shouldn't see that on your bike that was the other type of things we trimming off of buying some because you're gonna presume that everything that they might have had is completely beaten up yeah I mean shoot for all we know they could have been gnawing on a bag of chips while they were running on the treadmill and that's just chip crumbs who knows yeah then you see the bottom drawer on the top right there there's two drawers on top of each other and the bottom ones missing that no that's not a good sign I would not buy that in a whistle ever that looks like I'm going to the dumps well there's a let's look at that one there this one looks more intriguing I sought out the corner of my eye this unit here looks intriguing almost I'm really weird about writing on boxes and I look at when people write on totes that kind of throws me off I don't think you should write them totes but I kind of what are those pumpkins I don't that make supposed to say pumpkins maybe I could be wrong huh well I like this I would see those little tables right there painting I see a nice little table there I see baskets this is a type of unit I'd definitely be all over yeah there's a longer that could be a longer burger basket that what's inside that basket you think that's a metal I mean you can get a matter metal canister inside that basket take that right there yeah it looks like a Pier one Imports replica of like a fancy trunk like a little chest that's what I see it and that doesn't mean that that's necessarily right that's like a couch under there a chair always expect to expect the worst and hope for the best it's the safest bet if you don't want to go throwing around money there Christmas stuff is okay led that's a good sign if they're having LED Christmas ornaments that means that they have newer items and they were at the store more recently because it led was not super big several years ago kitchen aides are okay brand I kind of like this unit I hope that competition is not watching this interview right now if in2 bid me up tonight so I might bid on this one too I like that I like the little I like the quality of things in a unit like this I just like the way things are taken care of like these right here that makes me think of a I automatically presume this is kind of older woman's unit the way that the motif is that's what my mind's gonna tell me you know older woman with 10 to 1 hat jewelry and I'm always looking for jewelry I like I like Christmas stuff and I like the cleanliness this unit I would definitely buy this what is it at 5:30 that is kind of uh I would definitely pay 530 for this the problem with units like this is I can't see back in that corner with the photos and I want to see better detail that's all boxes or if that's like a big entertainment center on the left and I'm not able to see down there it kind of looks like a dining chair right there under the tote upside down with this type that I would buy like these clean units where the boxes look clean you see a china hutch are there china hutch to Z or glass-front cabinets to me usually represent they've collected something who knows what it was it could have been Pez dispensers that could have been China like you don't know really what could be Arthur and what could be all sorts of things but they clicked it's something you see glass glass on all the boxes kitchen glass glass so there's ten to one there was but if you really think about it these all these pieces that look intriguing they're not expensive they're not like high-end house decor sofa chair type thing right there looks almost decent but yeah I would definitely bid on that unit for forever about that probably top out about $700 on something like that should maybe eight hundred with a period but it's be a pure gamble whether they had something extreme value to help circum than paying that much I noticed him I don't know how it isn't markets and other places around the country but it isn't the easiest thing to just sell things around here because there's so many people selling stuff so it's like you really got to watch what you pay for stuff too because I like to be the cheaper seller at the mark I like to be the person who's going to for sure sell their stuff at the market I can I hear that pan now too in Utah huh I don't know what Scott what's causing that [Music] all right let me see here well we're nearing we're nearing two hours here Mikey so I think we should probably get back to that that hot pink mohawk gears and and tell everybody goodbye pretty turning is it on the right screen now almost I think you're you're still screen sharing so you'll have to stop the screen share there we go this is all new to me brother you gotta start somewhere gotta start somewhere guys you have any last questions for Michael before we but we get back to this so honestly you guys seriously subscribe to Michael's YouTube channel storage auction pirate dudes got dudes got a lot of a lot of great content you have that you have that video of you cracking into that safe with $26,000 don't you I there is a safe a video on my channel with the safe that's why I think that from your video my channel not to mention I still have the safe in my keep the safe my bedroom it's my garbage can and I have lid for it hangs on my shelf in my living room with all my neat finds that I have that's really cool I mean I think I think the coolest thing about my storage units is yeah you never know what you're gonna get and and you get keepsakes left and right I mean it's I'm sure you probably keep things from almost every storage unit you buy don't you I keep random things that had like one of my favorite finds ever have as a human skull I keep that in my living room and hangs on my show and I found that in a unit that had the huge Nazi collection that I found one time there was a skull in there so it was a medical school it had the words on it and so I've always kept it I right now I'm seeming to be collecting cremate cremated remains because I'm having a problem with people every coming to pick them up so I have like a slew of what I now call my family which is all these cremated remains I keep weird things something that has some significance memory to me like I have a sign in my living room that is from the worst unit that I bought ever which is a reminder of how bad this business could be yeah I think I'm dealing with that too right now mike is the other day we were just going through a few things in the shop because like the first couple of storage units I bought like I just we just got all the stuff out of the storage unit and brought it into my shop building and we just set it aside and we we just finally got around to going through some of the stuff and my 80 year old grandfather was with me we I call him Papa so everybody on my channel calls in Papa he's he's easy good one of my absolute most favorite people in life and we were just digging through stuff and he said said Jason I found somebody I was like what do you mean what are you talking about like I was on the other end of the shop do it like sorting trash and and stuff like that and he said no I found some body I was like okay so there and it was it was an art and full of ashes and I'm dealing with that right now so I've actually called and left a voicemail with the district manager of the storage the storage facility I don't know if I'll hear back from them or not if I don't I'll probably end up taking it to a funeral home see if the nearest funeral home and see if there's anything that they can do if not I don't know we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there a lot of funeral homes where I am they won't take him cremation place if being on homes like I had in one place we see the lady tried to tell me throw him away there was sick a box with six of them I think a couple of animals and the couple were family more she told me throw them away the manager did like literally I was like ma'am I'm not throwing away that's why I have 16 of them right now that's like I'm collecting them but there's worse things I am i worst storage unit ever sometimes even hard to even talk about but I bought a unit one time or they was almost 30 baby fetuses and garbage cans before and this business have some really weird things that happen that unit was theirs I have a video on my channel about it actually where the worst storage unit I ever bought I had to turn it back over the public store to like I'm not I'm not touching this unit it was a video click oh and in California it's called medical waste so it's not even illegal it just classified as medical waste that's well my life basically I never seen nothing like that yeah I mean the thing is at the end of the day guys when you buy a storage unit the sky's the limit the good the bad the ugly anything can be found yeah anything I mean literally anything I mean I wouldn't put it past someone finding a murdered person in a storage unit at one point or another I'm sure it's probably happened so oh yes I've heard that happened a few times yeah I'm not looking forward to that day hopefully it never happens to me but you know it that there's always I wouldn't I wouldn't even call it an opportunity there's always that chance prepare yourself for the potential worst but you don't ever want to say you don't want to think that it's not gonna because that kind of brings it to life when you don't want just think of what you want oh yeah why do you focus more on gold coins and silver bars and paintings not the bad the good the bad the ugly part of us and the people got that yeah think about $26,000 in a safe yes that's that's what you think about and it that's what we're in it for guys so thank you guys so much for joining us before we lose a bunch of people I do have an announcement next Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. central so an hour later than the last two Thursday night shows we've got treasure hunting with Jebus coming on and we're gonna have an exclusive interview with those two kids and it's it's gonna be a lot of fun this has been an absolute blast thank you so much Michael for for being here with me I hope you had as much fun as I did it's it's been a pleasure was awesome I smile never done this before and I had a lot of fun and it was nice doing this oh for sure brother now do you have maybe any last words for our viewers should I um I just want to say thanks for watching this video and enjoying me being here talking with Rick trader I really appreciate it if you all are interested if you don't subscribe to my channel please go check it out we are we put out a lot of videos um I really enjoy doing what I do whether it's the toughest time of my life or the best time I like buy buy storage units like restored units it's it's what I love to do so you wanna check it out check it out absolutely absolutely guys the the lake to his YouTube channel I just threw it in chat a few times it's also going to be in the description of this video so guys please if you're not subscribed go and do it but I guess that's going to conclude the night guys thank you so much for being here and we'll see you next time and until next time keep on picking that trash and Megan that cache you guys have a good night

Channel: Thrift Trader

Views: 17,427

Rating: 4.8356166 out of 5

Keywords: buying storage units at auction, buying storage units, buying storage units for a living, buying storage units online, buying storage units show, buying and selling storage units, selling storage units, auction hunters, storage auction, storage auction finds, storage auction locker, storage auction pirate, storage locker, storage locker finds, storage unit, storage unit auctions, storage unit finds, storage unit wars, live storage auctions, real storage auction

Id: UEizUyAKD58

Length: 113min 39sec (6819 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2019