On 3/14/2012 4:07 PM, Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in :

I have never gotten as good as deals as I do in this day& age.

I needed a set of tires for my truck, told someone who was looking for
work. They got me 4 brand new tires on rims delivered to my garage for
$40.00

Mentioned I could use a newer zero turn mower. Got a slightly used Scag
delivered to my garage for $500. I priced one of these out, was over $8K.

I've gotten numerous expensive items, at a fraction of the cost.

And I bet it never occurred to you to ask if those were stolen...

Probably not. Ever since the real estate market imploded and
foreclosures skyrocketed, the second-hand market has been full of
cheap goods. Some are sold by folks trying to scrape up enough cash
for another mortgage payment. A lot of it is found abandoned inside
the foreclosed properties. The companies that the banks hire to clean
out the houses come across so much stuff, they make arrangements to
give a lot of it to local charities. The charities are getting so much
furniture this way that a lot of them have tightened up their
requirements for donated furniture. It has to be pristine or they
don't want it, and they can be this choosy because they're getting so
much good stuff out of the foreclosures.

Anyhow, a lot of these companies that clean out the foreclosed homes
also sell some of the stuff they find, and most of them let their
employees take what they want as well. Just about all of this stuff
ends up on Craigslist or in garage sales.

Many of us who were watching the real estate bubble were also
expecting this and planning for it by saving up cash to buy used stuff
on the cheap. So many people refinanced their homes so they could buy
themselves new things. A hell of a lot of those things ended up
selling real cheap, or getting re-poed, or abandoned with the house.