[Yesterday: 7 miles with Boardtown Runners, Today: nothing]
I wrote back in April about buying things on the GSA auction website.
There are 4 government auction websites that I have used:
www.govliquidation.com is a private company that buys stuff in bulk from the Department of Defense and then sells it to individuals and companies from their website. Over the years their prices have edged up and most of the stuff I am interested in now has a $150 starting bid. In the past I purchased a few things from them. My main oscilloscope came from one of their sales. But I don’t go there very much any more. Just too expensive for me.
www.gsaauctions.gov is from the federal General Services Administration. I have purchased just a couple of things through this site. They don’t have a lot of volume so the selection is not as good as govliquidation. But the prices are more in line with my expectations. They do have some electronics and quite a bit of computer stuff. They have a lot of vehicles. If you ever wondered how they got rid of all of those FEMA trailers after hurricane Katrina? now you know.
A new one for me is www.govdeals.com They have a nice feature that will let me search for all auctions within a certain distance from one zip code. They appear to be more state and local government stuff, even less volume than GSA, and an eclectic mix. A lot of retired police cars. Probably a good place to find a tractor too.
Most of what I am looking for in these sites is radio and electronics stuff and test equipment like signal generators, oscilloscopes, etc. I purchased that big VHF duplexer/combiner last April on the GSA site and I frequently see VHF auto and handheld radios from public safety agencies. I have also been on the watch for computer equipment, but a lot of that I think goes over-priced.
One problem is shipping. None of these places will do anything about shipping. I have bought a few things in far-flung places after calling the local UPS-Store or Pack-n-Ship to see if they will pick up my stuff and send it to me. I have called family and friends to see if they would be willing to pick it up for me. And I have driven to pick things up myself. Generally you have just a week or 10 days to go get your stuff. They want you to pay quickly and get it gone. They are only open during regular hours on non-holidays. You may have to sign papers and you will have to show ID. Some items you may have to explain whether you want it for personal use or to resell; they don’t want them resold to just anybody.
There is the potential to pick up stuff relatively cheaply if you can figure out the shipping and don’t mind the quick auctions and limited information. (By listing all of these together I am probably putting some future items beyond my reach! But as a taxpayer I guess it is good to get the most for them.)
The final auction site that I have used is the federal HUD house sales system: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/homes_for_sale and other related sites. Our current house was a HUD house and I can’t complain. It was not particularly easy to buy, but not much harder than any other house purchase. I think the real estate agents are not extremely enthusiastic to sell HUD houses, or some of them anyway. But the lady that helped us got the job done. So here we are.
I’m sure that my list does not completely cover even the federal property auction opportunities. Check out Government Auctions and Sales by Agency for some more. Be aware that some online sales listed are only for intergovernmental transfers and such.