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The business of bidding
by Brian Egeston
be@brianwrites.com
There’s a secret subculture of business moguls making transactions in DeKalb. They’re a group of shrewd thinkers, wheelers and dealers who shun MBA programs, chambers of commerce, networking brunches and board room meetings. These entrepreneurs have honed their skills of profit and loss one sale at a time. But don’t dare ask them about their secrets to success. Their survival depends on the ability to acquire inventory without the rest of the world knowing.
 At MaxSpace Storage in Decatur, a group of approximately 25 people showed up for a public auction. MaxSpace Storage, like other storage facilities, sells the items contained in its units when tenants break their contract and stop paying rent. When a nosy writer announced he was doing a story on people buying items at storage facility auctions, most bidders ran for cover and asked that their faces or names not appear in a newspaper. A few however, were willing to talk about the business of buying and reselling.
One business owner (we’ll call him Bartow Benjamin) drives from Bartow County to DeKalb for public auctions. He attends sales all over the state. “[Writing an article] is bad news for me,” said Benjamin. “I don’t want people to know where I get my stuff.”
Benjamin was laid off from his job at a rental car facility at the airport. When employed, he drove 60 miles every day for work and logged 40,000 miles a year on his car. “There aren’t many jobs where I live. A Target opens up and 2,000 people show up for 70 jobs,” he said.
Benjamin operates a flea market and sells a few items on e-bay and Craigslist. Benjamin said there are rare cases where people make $100,000 a year on e-bay. Many people who find out about public auctions attend with the perception of getting great deals on items such as televisions for $10. Benjamin said that almost never happens. “You hear these stories about people paying $15 for a painting and it’s worth $10,000. I ain’t never seen it and it’s never happened to me.”
Before the auction’s 10 a.m. start, a group of bidders gathered out front. Many of them arrived in moving vans and trucks with trailers hitched on back in preparation to haul their bounty home. Most license plates were from counties other than DeKalb. A man driving a heavy duty truck (we’ll call him Newton Newberry) with his children in tow, approached the crowd and shared a space on another driver’s tailgate. “Don’t put my picture in the paper,” he said kissing his teething baby girl on the forehead.
The experienced moguls run in the same circles and see each other at auctions. In the back of Newberry’s truck was a haul from another sale. An acquaintance (we’ll call him Conyers Conway) eyed the items and struck up a deal. “How much for these bikes?”
Conway asked Newberry. “Give me $7.50 for each of them. And that’s a steal. You can take the Schwinn on Antiques Road Show and get $5,000 for it,” Newberry said, as he kept trying to close the deal. “Give me $20 and you can take that ladder and hand truck. Now you’re stealing from me. I’m giving that stuff away.”
Conway took the bikes to his truck as onlookers seemed to salivate, their internal calculators clicking. Before anything else is sold in the parking lot, a MaxSpace Storage manager (we’ll call him Frank Jacobson because that’s his real name) greets the anxious bidders.
The auction starts on the fifth floor where a storage unit is opened. The bidders walk past in caravan fashion and look inside the unit. “Do we have an opening bid?” Jacobson asked. Newberry bids $300. It’s a 10 x 10 unit packed with boxes, bags, furniture and who knows what else. The bidding quickly escalates and in less than three minutes the unit is sold. The winning bidder pulls a lock from his pocket and secures his winnings.
The public auctions take on various formats. Some are open bids and bidding can start as low as $1 and range as high as $3,000. Other auctions have sealed bids whereby a unit is opened and each bidder places one bid on a slip of paper and the highest bidder wins the item contained with the unit.
When the unit is locked, the herd moves to the next unit, a small unit barely large enough for five large suitcase. Nothing of value seems visible. There are only bags of clothes. Bidders are not allowed to enter a unit and inspect the items inside. Instead, those in the know bring flashlights to gander at what lies beneath. But bidders are careful not to look too long as it may pique the interest of another bidder. “There’s a lot of psychology that goes into this,” said Benjamin. “Some guys will run the price up and stop just so someone else won’t get it for too cheap.”
When Jacobson opened the bidding on another unit, there’s a stir among the bidders. Inside a large unit was a nice refrigerator, what appeared to a king size bed and nice headboard. “There’s your bed,” Conway said to a friend. A woman (we’ll call her Rhonda Rockdale) parked in front of the unit and next to Jacobson. The bidding started small hovering right around $500. Then a cantankerous older man turned it up. “One thousand dollars!” he yelled, throwing down a gauntlet. Rockdale hung tough and matched every single bid until she outlasted everyone at $1,250.
What appears as the mother load, sparks a debate among the bidders. “You’ll never make that money back. I guarantee you will never ever get the money back from that,” a bidder says. “What if I just want it?” asked Rockdale. “Well you just got it, ‘cause you sure ain’t gonna sell it.”
The post bidding war ended and the crowd moved on to the next lot.
“We’re buying this stuff to make money,” said Benjamin. “We’re not keeping this. You’ve got to look at it that way. I’m looking at it as how much money can I make if I sell it.”
Pamela Brown was not one of the experienced bidders. “I just saw the [auction] sign and my daughter asked me to come and get her a TV. I was shocked because I thought you could get just one item. I didn’t know you had to buy the whole unit.”
As the auction neared the end, larger units opened. A large space filled with computer monitors and office equipment didn’t get anyone excited and went for less than $500. The pros passed on the unit because many businesses are closing or downsizing and it’s tough to turn a profit on used office equipment.
Watching the bidders analyze merchandise is a lesson in business trends and the economic climate. Most are astutely aware of what’s selling and why, as well as the fair market price for almost any item. When a unit came up piled with medical equipment, boxes and computers, questions arose as to whether they can move the inventory or if it would be better suited for scrap metal. “I wanna see you bid on some medical equipment on e-bay. Go ahead–do it,” Newberry said baiting the other bidders. When the group passed, Newberry came back with a final bid and won the lot.
It’s a life and business that’s not for the faint of heart. There’s no indication of how important the items were to the individual losing their belonging or why they stopped paying rent. Jacobson said the auctions rarely account for the amount of money lost when tenants stop paying rent.
After the auction ended, the entrepreneurs who had traveled far and wide to make deals, head off for another auction. But first Benjamin was offered a deal by someone who’d won a unit during the auction. Between locking the unit and crossing the parking lot, the winning bidder had a bit of buyer’s remorse and asked Benjamin if he’d take it off his hands for a fair price. Newberry happily obliged.
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