Finding storage auction listings can be a daunting task. If you live near Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio or Austin, Texas, finding storage auctions is very easy because AuctionsTX.com provides the most comprehensive storage auction schedules available. If you don't live near one of these cities, the following article will help you locate storage auctions in your area.
Most smaller cities and towns don't have a centralized information source to find storage auction information. This being said, you will have to search multiple sources to find storage auction listings in your area. These sources include newspapers (large, local & business), websites for the newspapers, the storage facilities, storage auction websites (national, regional & local) and the auctioneer's websites. This guide is meant to help you save time and money on your quest for information. Let's take a look at your options.
Your number one source for storage auction information could be your local newspaper. Some newspapers even have websites where you can search for legal notices for free. Some newspapers do charge a fee, usually between $100-$200 for an annual subscription. Depending on the size of your city, you may only need to look in one source. Smaller towns typically have one newspaper in which every storage facility within the area must advertise their legal notice. Your search may become more difficult if you live in a medium to large city because there may be several or more newspapers which publish legal notices.
In large cities like Houston & Dallas / Fort Worth areas, there are over 40 smaller independent newspapers which publish these notices. In areas like these, newspapers may not be your best option because, the cost to subscribe to and the amount of time required to search this many sources can be overwhelming. Not only that, it can be a real hassle to organize all of the dates, times, locations, etc. Keep in mind, auctions that are advertised in large newspapers are usually swarmed with new buyers due to the popularity of the storage auction reality shows.
Storage auction listing services can be a good resource but, you have to be careful because some don't deliver what they promise. If you are lucky enough to have one of these services that covers your specific city, this will be the best resource you could find. Local storage auction listing services are extremely rare; at this time, I believe there are only a handful that focus on a specific city. Our service focuses on storage auctions Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio & Austin, Texas. There are several storage auction listing services that focus on individual states, some of these can be great resources as well but, they usually aren't as thorough as the local services. Last but not least, there are a multitude of national storage auction listing services. I don't recommend using one of these services because their coverage area is so large and they neglect a majority of the storage unit auctions in most areas. Also, most of them are basically reselling information you can get for free, with minimal effort.
Another great way to find storage auction listings in your area is to locate the auctioneers that handle the auctions for the major storage facilities. You can locate these auctioneers through the search engines by using the following phrases - (storage auctions auctioneer your city) or (U-Haul / Public Storage auctions your city) or (storage auctions your city). In most areas, these search queries will produce 2-10 results from local auctioneers, newspapers & storage auction listing services that conduct storage auction events. Most of these auctioneers will have a page on their website which lists their storage auction schedule. Keep in mind, their websites only list the auctions that they are conducting.
Some storage facilities do publish their upcoming auctions on their website. I recommend using the online yellow pages, Google Maps or Yahoo Local search for this information because you can limit the search to provide listings of storage facilities within your zip code. Most of these results will include links to the storage facility's websites.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, the last method can produce the best results. Calling the storage facilities in your area can be one of the best ways to get up to date information on local storage auctions. This method works best if you live in a smaller town or city. However, if you live in a medium to large city, I recommend focusing on your zip code or your specific community. One of the main advantages to calling storage facilities is that the facility may have advertised their auction in a smaller independent newspaper which may be difficult for the general public to find. This is especially true in suburban and rural areas. These auctions can be lucrative because a majority of the crowds will be attending the highly publicized auctions. When there is less competition at an auction, it greatly increases your odds of purchasing a storage unit at a lower cost.
I truly hope this article has been helpful. Good luck at the auctions!