auction

9 Unusual Stores Where You Can Find Great Bargains

Dr Penny Pincher — Tue, 16 May 2017 08:30:14 +0000

Sometimes it pays to go off the beaten path in search of bargains. Shopping in a specialized market with fewer buyers puts the law of supply and demand to work in your favor. When I talk about the nice mountain bike that I bought for $7.50, people want to know where I found a deal like that. Here's a hint — it wasn't at a bike shop where most people buy bikes!

Here are some unusual stores where you may be able to find some of the greatest bargains.

1. Military surplus store

Military surplus stores sell new and used military items, often at much lower prices than sporting goods stores or home improvement stores. Check the smell of fabric items, as some items may be musty from storage.

What to buy

Rope, camouflage netting and material for outdoor projects, footlockers, unique storage containers, and affordable gear for camping/hiking/outdoor adventuring.

2. Amish market

An Amish market is a store or open air market run by members of the Amish religion who are known for their simple lifestyle and high quality workmanship. These markets feature high quality products at very reasonable prices. Bring cash, as some Amish markets do not take credit cards. You may need to check out the market in person since some do not have websites.

What to buy

Cheese, meat, produce, hand crafted items, soup mixes in Mason jars, honey, and homemade candy.

3. Pawnshop

A pawnshop takes valuable items as collateral for loans, and sometimes the shop ends up selling these items when loans are not paid back. Check out items carefully before buying since returns may not be accepted. A photo ID may be required to make purchases. (See also: The 7 Best Objects to Pawn)

What to buy

Leather jackets, bicycles, tools, jewelry, musical instruments, and binoculars.

4. Auctions

Buyers bid on items for sale at an auction, and the highest bidder gets to buy the item. Auction houses are businesses that hold auctions on a regular basis — typically every week. Auctions are also held at estate sales and going-out-of-business sales to liquidate items quickly since everything gets sold during the auction. Use AuctionZip.com to find auctions in your area to attend.

Set a maximum price in your head before the bidding starts — it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of bidding and spend more than you planned. I bought the $7.50 mountain bike I mentioned at an auction in January.

What to buy

Almost any used items: furniture, collectibles, antiques, tools, appliances, and vehicles.

5. Unclaimed Baggage Center

Airlines sell unclaimed baggage to the Unclaimed Baggage Center where items are sold at a retail store in Scottsboro, Alabama. Don't miss a chance to check this out unique store if you are passing through the area.

What to buy

Luggage, books, clothing, jewelry, sporting goods, electronics, and cameras.

6. Sales for property seized by governments and the TSA

Surplus office equipment, weapons seized at airports, jewelry and vehicles confiscated by police departments, and many other treasures are up for auction in almost every state. You can find lists of auction sites on a handful of websites, including eyeflare.com and govsales.gov. While many sales let you to go and view the items in person, plenty hold online auctions, too, allowing you to bid for items without ever leaving home.

What to buy

Vehicles, office equipment and furniture, knives, electronics, and clothing

7. Consignment shop

Consignment shops sell items previously owned by customers, and share the sale price with the original owner. Learn the codes on price tags for markdown dates. Many consignment stores drop prices significantly after an item has been on the shelf for a certain period, such as 30 days. Consignment stores are also great places to sell your unwanted items to pick up some cash.

What to buy

Almost any used item: housewares, clothing, furniture, sporting goods, books, and CDs.

8. Habitat Restore

People and businesses donate building materials and home improvement items to Habitat Restore, which are sold at very reasonable prices to fund Habitat for Humanity charitable projects. The selection varies, so multiple trips may be needed to find what you need.

What to buy

Doors, mirrors, lighting fixtures, paint, building materials, and plumbing supplies.

9. Landfill salvage and recycling areas

Some landfills and junkyards set aside items that people may want and give them away (or sell them for a nominal fee). Check websites of local landfills and junkyards to see if they have salvaged materials.

What to buy

Bikes, building materials, mulch, and compost.

This article is from Dr Penny Pincher of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

7 Things You Should Know Before Buying a Foreclosed Home

Dan Rafter — Wed, 04 May 2016 09:00:11 +0000

You're ready to buy a home, but you're also looking for a bargain. A foreclosed home seems like the ideal solution: You know that foreclosed properties typically sell for less — sometimes much less — than homes listed and sold on the open market by real estate agents and owners.

But what you might not know is that buying a foreclosed property can also prove challenging to anyone who isn't a professional real estate investor. You might not know, either, that some foreclosed homes come with so much damage that the repairs needed to make them livable will quickly eat up any savings on their sales prices.

Then there's the matter of actually buying a foreclosure. Depending on how you buy such a property, you might find yourself competing with others who buy, repair, and sell foreclosures for a living. Trying to outbid these pros for your foreclosure is no easy task.

To sum up: Buying a foreclosure can be a challenge, one that could cost you plenty of time and money. Here are seven things you absolutely must know if you plan to buy a foreclosed property.

1. Foreclosure Inventory Is Falling

It's becoming more difficult to find a foreclosed property today. That's because fewer homeowners are falling into foreclosure. According to RealtyTrac, foreclosures were reported on 1.08 million U.S. properties last year. That's a drop of 3% from 2014, and a huge fall of 62% from 2010. Back in 2010, more than 2.87 million U.S. properties had foreclosure filings against them.

2. You Can Buy Foreclosures in One of Two Main Ways

There are two main ways to buy a foreclosed home. In the first, lenders auction off homes after the owners of these homes stop paying their mortgages. These properties are then sold at public auctions. The second main way to buy a foreclosure — the way that works better for most buyers who aren't professional real estate investors — is to buy a property after a bank takes ownership of it. These bank-owned properties are listed and sold by real estate agents. You can buy them just as you'd buy a home sold in the more traditional way.

3. Buying at Auction Is Not Easy

Buying a foreclosure at a real estate auction is not easy. First, you'll be trying to outbid professional real estate investors. Even more challenging, you'll need to pay for your foreclosed home with cash. It's not many consumers who have $200,000 or more in cash lying around.

4. Foreclosure Auctions Are Sight-Unseen

If you buy a foreclosure at an auction, you won't have the chance to tour its interiors. This means that you are buying the home sight unseen. You'll have no idea what repair jobs face you after you complete your purchase. The repairs could be extensive, and they could swallow any of the savings you expected to enjoy.

5. Buying Bank-Owned Foreclosures Is Far Easier

Buying a foreclosure owned by the bank is a far easier process. In this type of foreclosure, a bank — which has taken over ownership of a home after its former owners stop making mortgage payments — sells the house, hiring a real estate agent to close the sale. You can buy one of these bank-owned properties by making an offer, just as you would with any other type of home sale. The real estate agent representing the bank will take your offer, present it to the bank, and come back with a counteroffer if the bank doesn't like your original offer.

6. You Can Still Enjoy Significant Savings With Bank-Owned Foreclosures

RealtyTrac reported that the average bank-owned home sold for 38% less than comparable homes sold at market-rate figures. This means that buyers can save a significant amount of money buying a foreclosure even if they don't do it at the auction level.

7. You Absolutely Need a Home Inspection

Never buy a foreclosed home owned by a bank without first hiring a home inspector to come tour it. Unlike with a foreclosed home bought at auction, you do have the right to a home inspection before closing your sale. Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity. Many foreclosed homes need serious repairs. A home inspector can find these trouble spots. Once you are armed with this information, you can decide whether a particular foreclosure still qualifies as a bargain.

Have you ever bought a foreclosed home?

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This article is from Dan Rafter of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

What Happens at a Foreclosure Auction?

Xin Lu — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:36:46 +0000

Foreclosures have declined recently, but many houses are still being auctioned on courthouse steps across the country. Recently I attended one of these auctions; here is a run down of what happened and what I learned. (See also: The Process for Purchasing a House With Cash)

Finding a Foreclosure Auction Near You

Generally the list of houses up for auction are posted at an official building in each county, and many listings are also accessible online through listing services such as LPS Agency Sales and Posting. These auctions are also called trustee's sales because the trustee of the mortgage is making the property available.

The auction we attended was for Solano County in California, which covers about a dozen cities. We arrived at the Vallejo City Hall a few minutes before the scheduled auction. The auctions happen on the front steps of city hall twice a day. When we arrived, the auctioneer was sitting on the ground filling out forms. A few more people filed in and waited quietly.

The Auction Process

The auctioneer stood up and asked if everyone was ready, and then she started the auction by reading out all the listings that were canceled or postponed. Many houses get taken off the auction block because the banks have worked out a short sale or decided to modify the loan, and cancelations can happen as late as the date of the auction. After she rattled off a dozen numbers and addresses, she finally got to the actual houses for sale.

The first house was a 2,000 sq ft property in Vallejo, and the opening bid was $147,000.

Bidding Requirements

Before bidding, the qualified bidders stepped up to show the auctioneer their money. Basically, you can only bid if you can show that you have cashiers checks that can cover the amount of the bid. The bidders all have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cashiers checks in their pockets. A few people went up with their envelopes and then the bidding began.

The Bidding

The first bid was for a penny over the opening bid, then bids of $100 and $500 came in from two or three bidders. Finally the house was sold to a bidder for $158,000. After it was sold, the winner and the auctioneer stepped to the side to fill out forms, and the buyer gave the auctioneer a number of cashiers checks adding up to at least the bid amount. Any overage would be refunded later. The whole process took about 10 minutes.

For Buyers With Cash, Savings Are Substantial

During one of the breaks we talked to the winner of the first house. He told us that usually buyers can get 25% to 30% off the market price at auction. For example, the property he purchased for $158,000 was probably worth around $200,000. However, the risk is that buyers can't inspect the inside of the houses they buy, and they are responsible for any liens such as back taxes or unpaid utilities. Buyers also need cash to close the transaction right on the spot. For these reasons, buyers are mostly professional investors or work for bigger companies.

After they purchase these houses, they often have to deal with the unpleasant business of evicting the former owners and making any necessary repairs. Currently many investors are renting out houses after they buy them. They are planning to sell after the housing market recovers further. The bidder we spoke to works for a company, and he said that he buys one or two houses per day.

Too Many Houses, Too Few Buyers?

In the end only a few houses sold. Many listings went back to the bank because the starting bid was much higher than the current market price. The investors had all done their research, so they did not bid on those properties. The houses that go back to the lender eventually will end up on the open market or will be sold to other investors in batches.

It is definitely possible to make money on these properties if you do your research and a lot of legwork in attending auctions in your area. I felt like it was actually much more transparent than buying a house from a realtor because everyone knows the bids, and there isn't a lot of competition. The deal also closes right away, so it is a much more efficient process. However, it is definitely not the way to buy a house for those who need a loan or those unprepared to make substantial repairs on their new, formerly foreclosed property.

Have you thought about purchasing a house at a foreclosure auction?

This article is from Xin Lu of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Swoopo - great auction deals or great scam?

Xin Lu — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:57:51 +0000

Today I stumbled upon a site called Swoopo. It is touted as a new auction site that combines shopping with entertainment. I took a quick look and it seemed like many items were selling for very low prices. For example, an ounce of gold recently sold for only $187.96 when it is worth around $1000. How is this possible?

Apparently, users have to pay 75 cents for each bid, and each bid increases the auction price by a very small amount. In the case of the gold bar, each bid only increases the price by 1 cent since it is a penny auction. This means that there were a total of 18796 bids by all the users with a total value of $14097. If you subtract the value of the item from $14097, Swoopo still made a handsome profit of over $13000 on this single auction. The winner of the auction placed a total of 213 bids so he or she did get a good deal on the gold bar, but the rest of the bidders pretty much lost their money.

A rather fishy part of the site is that many of the winners who "win" these auctions use something called a BidButler. It is essentially a bid sniping bot that bids in the last few seconds of an auction. However, each auction's time left is supposed to go up by a few seconds so that others have a chance to bid. The BidButler allows people to basically schedule bids and get hundreds of paid bids for Swoopo in a short amount of time.

Finally, just as an experiment I sat down and watched a couple auctions. It was definitely exciting to watch the clock going down to less than ten seconds as a frenzy of bids poured in, but then suddenly the clock gets extended by 10 to 20 minutes and the waiting game starts all over again. There is a final end time on each item, but before that final date the clock is basically controlled by Swoopo and they could extend it as long as they are getting people willing to throw their money away. They know that every time they bring the clock close to 0 they will be raking in cash, and they can do that countless times before the final end time.

As the old adage goes, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". Swoopo basically lets people gamble that noone else will make another bid for a ridiculously cheap item, and in the process Swoopo profits. If you are into finding deals via auctions, I would definitely stick with sites like eBay
where you do not have to pay to bid.

This article is from Xin Lu of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Hoopde for sale. Starting price - $500. Winning bid - $226,521.

Paul Michael — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:25:25 +0000

I love stories like this. It gives me hope that one day, something “worthless” sitting in my garage will instantly fill up my daughters’ college funds. In this case, the seemingly worthless item was a rusty bucket of bolts called a 1963 Pontiac Le Mans Tempest. When I saw the pictures, I was surprised at the high starting bid of $500. Imagine how the owner felt when it netted him almost a quarter of a million dollars.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Urban Dictionary describes a hoopde (or hoopdie) as: A busted up car, usually very rusty, dented, with broken headlights, bumpers and/or doors; any junk car that can be obtained for less then $1000. And as you can see by the pictures below, this one certainly fulfills all of those criteria. It has no motor, the bodywork is mostly rust and the trunk doesn’t even open. What would you pay for it?

However, as Autoblog recently reported, this was no ordinary car.

The car's Plexiglas windows, unusual suspension setup and a dash plate bearing the name of a racetrack tipped the owner to its racing history. But what he didn't know is that the car is one of only six 1963 Pontiac LeMans Tempest Super Duty coupes ever made. Hemmings recently did a story on the rare cars in which they listed all ever built. This one looks to have been driven by Stan Antlocer and was the fastest drag car in 1963 before disappearing.

Over the nine days the car was up on eBay, things went from good to great to unbelievable. Clearly this was something way beyond the expectations of the owner. It’s reported that he was offered a buy-it-now offer of $160,000, but turned it down because of, get this, fears of negative feedback! Would you care for that kind of money?

With only seven minutes until the close of the auction, the tally stood at $95k. But when it was all over, the grand total was a whopping $226,521. That’s over $66k more than the firm offer he had turned down. In this economy, that kind of windfall is something of a dream come true.

Stories like this are rare, but they do happen. And that means we all need to be studious before we have a garage sale or sell something on eBay or Craigslist. Personally, if I had inherited that crappy looking car, I would have been overjoyed with $1000 for it. More fool me. But we may all have hidden treasures right under our noses.

Take that old, dusty painting stuck in the back of the closet or basement. Most of us have one, sometimes handed down by an aging relative that we took graciously so as not to hurt their feelings. It is most likely just an old painting. But it may be a masterpiece, as The Antiques Roadshow has so often highlighted .

And an old weaving...

Old watches, ornaments, papers, books, you name it, sometimes there really is a treasure in the trash. So look, think and maybe do a little research. If you’re not sure of an item’s value, check it out. A little of your time could turn into a whole lot of money.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

They're turning Paris Hilton's trash into cash.

Paul Michael — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:59:26 +0000

There's a new website in town folks, and this one is literally scraping the bottom of the barrel. HollywoodStarTrash.com has hit upon an idea that turns dumpster diving into something quite, well, distasteful. They rummage through the garbage cans of Hollywood biggest stars and sell what they find. And as always, the infamous Paris Hilton tops the list of star junk.

What's on sale, I hear you ask? The list is quite disturbing.

For $50 (starting price) you can get yourself this used Paris Hilton deodorant. Mmmm.

For $100 (starting price) you can buy some used Paris Hilton envelopes. Great deal.

For the same $100 (starting price) you could treat yourself to some grubby make-up puffs.

And for a whopping $250 (starting price) how about Paris Hilton's drug prescription? Yes, they're serious.

SO, is all this just harmless profit?
Personally, I don't think so. Believe me, I have no love for Paris Hilton. I think certain celebrities are asking for a little punishment based on the the way they behave, and Hilton is the classic example of the 'media whore.' But to encourage digging through garbage for a soiled make-up puff or old prescription is just a sad indication of the times we live in.

Are we so desperate for fame and celebrity that we'll do anything to get close to it? Even if that means buying trash? Well, the website lists many of the items it has already sold, including empty coke cans and used q-tips. If there's an audience, our Internet culture will guarantee a supplier.

So I throw this out to you, the Wisebread readers. Would you buy trash from your favorite celebrity, or do you think it's just trash? I know one thing for sure. I wouldn't.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: