Show HN: GovAuctions lets you browse government auctions at once | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: GovAuctions lets you browse government auctions at once

govauctions.app

319 pointsplayer_piano91 comments

I've long been into finding deals on government auction sites (seizures, surplus sales etc.) - right now for example San Diego DHS is selling 26 tons of lead shot, with bidding starting at $1,000 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It has historically been extremely tedious though: scanning dozens of janky sites which have interminable page loading times; back buttons take you all the way back to the homepage etc.

The site I built - GovAuctions - lets you search every government surplus auction at once. You can filter by location, category, and price, save items to a watchlist, and get alerts when new auctions match what you're looking for.

Let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions, and if you find any deals in your area!

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Suggestions:

Put the parameters into the url so searches can be bookmarked, like zip codes, terms, filters, and other aspects can be shared easily as well.

Description search both include (like i7, 16GB) which is good for electronics and exclude for example exclude "repair" or "needs repair" which is helpful for many things.

Category specific filters, vehicle millage range, year

Keywords classification filters like pickup, delivery, payment methods, how many days you have to pay if known, etc.

You are probably already thinking along these lines for some of them, just an encouragement to implement. Yes categorization/filters can be fuzzy(commas, which word or plurals used, etc), so feel free to put the [beta] or [experimental] tag until a recipe that gets most of the stuff works.

Thanks for building this, I bookmarked it and already shared it with a few friends.

Very kind of you - sharing this has definitely highlighted some of the rough edges :) Search / Alert accuracy is one big thing I need to make better, and I will take note of these suggestions.

I second the search parameters in URL. RSS feed of search page would also be great.

RSS Feeds of searches would be great, I know alerts exist, but for this community being able to get data through alternative methods, especially RSS is very appreciated.

Noted. Crazy that as I was building this I was wondering whether I should be designing it as much for agent browsing as for humans.

Update: search params are now passed into the URL

Consider me a +1 for rss. That's one thing GovDeals is sorely missing.

it's not so much for agents as for getting fresh deals right in your browser sidebar (Zen Browser live folders, for example) or a dedicated RSS reader app (like Newsflash)

I only read HN through Zen Browser sidebar and, rarely, Telegram at this point. everything else - friends' blogs, Codeberg/Tangled/GitHub activity - only as new tabs on the left side of the screen.

The title claims to search every platform but I don't see any evidence of either https://www.govdeals.com/ or https://www.publicsurplus.com/ which are probably the biggest government auction sites.

Hi, yes, my apologies. One thing I'm currently fixing is the workflow for bringing in many of the listings that sites like GovDeals cover but are not part of the available APIs. Scraping sites like GovDeals is kind of shady and not something I want to do, so I am ingesting and cleaning a lot of data from state/government websites myself. While I fix that, I've removed those references from the site.

Indexing GovDeals is not shady. You are just providing links to their website via search. That's how Google works.

Just my two cents, but GovDeals is probably the best clearinghouse. If you don’t have data from GovDeals it’s a non-starter.

FWIW GovDeals does not care as long your scraping load is reasonable, at least they didn’t years ago when I asked them. They prefer personal scrapers (i.e. buyers looking for deals) stick to precise searches but they were okay with properly throttled site wide scraping if its a public site.

They make money not by optimizing per item profit or by exploiting information asymmetry, but by getting as many eyeballs on their site as possible to drive demand (and thus drive auction price up). They’re happy to be scraped as long as scrapers don’t bring them down because their core competency is giving municipal and state governments an aggregated platform and making the process easier from a bureaucratic point of view.

If you do the work of marketing for them (especially for free!) that’s a plus in their eyes. You’re not a competitor because they do the work of actually dealing with government departments like handling payments and paperwork.

This is a real public service. More people can find better deals, this increases the pool of bidders, taxpayers will get more money for the auction. Discoverability is hugely important to these auctions.

Thank you. Yes, you could definitely say that I'm undermining a personal arbitrage advantage on this corner of the Internet, but I couldn't resist trying to "fix" it and better surface all of these woefully inefficient mini-marketplaces.

Well, you are mostly increasing liquidity and cutting out the middleman that is the wholesale purchasers and bidders. Price discovery is more accurate now for personal users as many tend to be physically closer to the location.

Government auctions are interesting. Not a lot of information on pricing.

My dad bid on multiple LCVPs, guessing on a reasonable price for them based on what the engines were worth.

Fortunately he only won one of them. If all 4 had shown up at our house, my mom would have killed him.

Interesting aside, the casting date on the transmission housing was 1945 - but the hulls were built in 1967. Those Detroit Diesel 6-71s engines / transmissions last a long time!

this is a fascinating example of how I'm interested in what any of this meant, but not interested enough to look it up, bravo!

why did you feel the need to say this?

the substantive nature of the comment is regarding overuse of niche terms and acronyms without defining them, in a forum not related to those things

how it would be poorer signal and even less substantive to have a subthread of people asking about what it means, some respondents saying just look it up and more, all when the parent poster could say what they are

yeah makes sense to be honest

absolute beasts of engines for sure

Pretty cool. But a lot of it doesn't really work once you click into a particular state. For example, from this page, if you click on "All auctions in Georgia", it lists all auctions in the country. Or if you click on "electronics", it doesn't show just electronics in Georgia.

https://www.govauctions.app/auctions/georgia

Thanks for surfacing this. Not sure why this is breaking, but I am looking into it and will fix it as soon as I can.

Update: This should now be working the intended way (ie for Georgia, showing only GA results when you click out, and filtering for the category within GA).

It's still a bit wonky. When I visit https://www.govauctions.app/feed?zip=10003&distance=50 I see items in AL and AZ, which are many hundreds of miles away from 10003 (NYC).

Ok, I'll dig into this more.

I had no idea one could buy a Blackhawk for $1.5M

It's the fuel cost that gets you...

There are Chinooks with no bids as of yet....as well as a Bombardier Challenger

Someone's not watching HeavyDSparks ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3P3FWkBFU4

Very interesting project! Can anyone comment on what the buying process is like? Specifically if there are any weird hoops to jump through or if it's a normal account signup and payment process. Is delivery available or do these need to be picked up in person?

The ones I’ve looked at need to be picked up in person, sometimes with very short deadlines.

e.g. from one auction: Removal Responsibilities: The successful bidder is solely responsible for all aspects of removal, including packing, crating, banding, loading, and shipping. The agency will not provide assistance.

Authorized Third-Party Removal: The authorized third-party agent must present a Letter of Authorization from the high bidder (see terms and conditions for details), a copy of the purchaser's receipt, and a valid photo ID at the time of removal.

Special Pickup Requirements: You are required to provide your last and first name along with the specific date and time to Mimi.quach@noaa.gov for pickup. This information is required to grant you access to NOAA Building 33. Building hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

Loading Assistance: Staff will be available to help load the item onto your vehicle.

Pickup within 15 business days.

It varies by state and authority. The majority require in-person pickup; for properties there is often longer, sometimes multi-stage bidding process (where the auctioneer periodically reviews current bids, and decides whether any are acceptable before moving to the next stage).

There are deals to be found on these auction sites. However, unless you are prepared to visit the site where the auction items are physically stored, it is a bit of a "pig in a poke" situation. In my case, I estimate between 5% and 10% of the items I buy are defective (with no refunds) so bid accordingly.

Just keep in mind if you're providing value the scrapers will soon appear to claim it for themselves... look at what Craigslist does to protect their data though you want all traffic as you get off the ground.

Thanks, appreciate the advice.

Doesn't seem accurate considering GovDeals has auctions in NY, NJ and CT listed but your website has nothing.

Yes, there's an issue with some of the auctions that are on GovDeals - I've removed all the references to those while I try and fix them.

It would be good to mention which government in the title :)

If they don’t think about mentioning the country and write in English, we know where they are from.

If you want to see how quickly this can trap you in, watch the William Osman 2 channel on YouTube.

Will check it out once I fix a bunch the bugs people are surfacing :-)

What does this mean?

Feature request:

Let me filter and alert based on a distance, not just sort. e.g. "Lathe" within 100 miles of Baltimore. GovDeals lets you do this, but their distance filter is very inaccurate.

You should now see this option when you create an alert - within 50/100/500 miles of a given ZIP.

Not clear where to enter the ZIP code, though. The landing page lets you select a State, but no input field for anything more narrow than that. Cool site though, I could get into it, since I love estate sales and other places to get cheap junk.

I like the project! Echoing that I'm seeing issues with anything from GovDeals surfacing in my area, I know there's a couple hundred auctions and only GSA Auctions came up.

Additionally, there's definitely some funkiness when it comes to how it handles current price/bid, I don't know if I saw any that were actually reporting the correct price it was currently at, always was under reported.

Thanks for sharing though, going to keep an eye on this!

Appreciate it. Some of the bugs I have been able to fix today, but these listings actually come from diverse and in some cases hard and time-consuming to parse sources. I have no intention of scraping govdeals or anything like that, which means I have to do my own ingestion and cleaning of the data.

Thanks for building this!

Feature request: I'd love to be able to share a search results page with a friend. If you update the url to include the location or zip code I am searching for (ex: https://www.govauctions.app/feed/12345) this would be possible.

I believe this should now be working. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thank you! Just realized someone else recommended this a hour ago as well, oops.

The point about govdeals missing is real, but in practice most of these sites block scraping aggressively for good reason. The operational cost of maintaining scrapers against hostile targets is non-trivial. Curious what the OP's plan is when they start rate-limiting or serving honeypot data.

I'm not scraping sites like govdeals, so no need to worry about that thankfully.

That's the right call then. How are you pulling govdeals data without scraping?

[Some] data seems to be wrong/stale, eg your website says no bids here, but underlying gov auction site lists a bid:

https://www.govauctions.app/auction/gsa-4-1-QSC-I-26-240-001

Will look into this, I have seen some issues where the API data is not reflective of the current bid status.

The server pallet caught my attention. I wish it listed some of the basic specs, but current bid is $55.

https://www.govauctions.app/auction/gsa-1-1-QSC-I-26-148-031

A lot of auctions are like that. The party making the listing has no clue about the items, and exposes themself to liability if they guess wrong, so it's better to just put no information at all.

Unlike eBay, with traditional auctions, all the responsibility for "inspection" lies on the bidder -- you're expected to visit the item during the listed inspection times, if there are any, and make your own judgment of its worth. If there's no inspection period, then you're guessing blind with everyone else.

In this case, click through to the GSA Auctions listing, and scroll down to see the "property custodian", give them a call during the hours listed above on the page, and haul your butt out there to inspect the item.

The pickup-only thing varies more than people realize. We bought some decommissioned server hardware through a state surplus once, and they actually arranged freight. Depends heavily on the agency and what they're moving.

The GovDeals gap is real but honestly the core idea is solid. Bought a monitor arm through state surplus last year and the discoverability problem is brutal. Even half the sites aggregated saves hours.

I used to work for the company that owned and operated GovDeals. That was a really interesting experience. I remember one of their many companies host the listing for and processed the sale of an oil refinery (or something similar) just like something random on ebay, except this sale was many 10's of millions of dollars.

JSYK nearly all Wisconsin municipal auctions are operated by a private company, wisconsinsurplus.com. Doesn't seem like your site is pulling results from them. Very cool nonetheless.

Love this. I have the same affliction. https://www.publicsurplus.com/ if you're taking requests.

Thanks, definitely on my to-do list.

Good stuff,

Once an item clicked back button returns you to a reset listing, so you cannot click and item go back and retain the last position you were looking at (tested on iPhone)

Update: this should be working now.

The real estate up for auction is actually insane. My conception of a "HUD home" is completely shattered.

I'm getting only Wisconsin no matter what state I choose. I have not created an account yet, would that make it actually work?

I'm having a hard time replicating this bug - if there's any more detail you can share (you can also share via the about page on the site) I will take a look.

Tried again and it's showing my state. Thank you for looking.

What is the catch with these real estate auctions? Certainly a $60k house is a deal even if it had a bad roof full of asbestos.

Can't speak for every listing on here, but depending on the state and type of auction there can be lots of issues that you have to be aware of, like physical issues with the property itself, liens on the property, and even potentially people occupying the property who may have defaulted through things like not paying their property tax, but not yet left after the state has technically 'seized' it.

Where do you live? You can buy reasonably crappy houses all over the USA in rural areas for $5K, $10K all day.

Well, HUD wants to sell it to someone who intends to live in it, "owner occupied", and most of them are garbage. Some from the pictures are almost certainly condemned/require significant repair before it could be considered safe for occupancy. So you need someone willing to invest the time and money a flipper or real estate investor would, to live in a really cruddy house.

In short, the people who have the money to fix it want to live somewhere nicer.

That’s nice. Care to write technical write up? What’s the tech stack, expected load, are you planning to monetize it, etc.?

Happy to. This is a side-project, so I spun it up pretty quickly using Next.js and Tailwind, and it is hosted on Vercel right now.

I use a few free government APIs for the data (listed on the site, you can sign up for a key for free for all of them I think), plus a custom workflow I built that parses and ingests many other online auctions that states are mandated to make public, but which aren't part of any API or data pipeline I could find.

Expected load - about 1/10 of what it has seen today :) I had to scramble to make things more robust once this post became more popular, and am now looking at a few different options for hosting.

This was not really intended as a business - there is a very light "subscription" option right now, for users who want to create many alerts. I mainly wanted to try and fix this problem, share the solution, and get some feedback.

Seems to be missing stuff.

I searched "volkswagen" on govdeals and found a lot of vehicles listed but nothing on this site.

Thank you. Looks like other people are having an issue finding these - I'm going to take the reference to these listings down until I can fix it.

The guides mention govdeals. But I don't see them, for instance the UC davis bike auctions are not included.

Thanks. Looks like there is an issue with these listings right now - working on it.

Do you have a personal website or sm-handle or so to contact you?

> right now for example San Diego DHS is selling 26 tons of lead shot, with bidding starting at $1,000

If that's not enough for you then there's another auction too! https://www.govauctions.app/auction/gsa-4-1-QSC-I-26-226-002

It is truly a weird and wonderful world of things you can buy out there. Last year I contemplated buying a 100-tonne crane in New Jersey, which was going for about $5,000. The only issue was that you had to go pick it up yourself...

I am looking for a 60 ft+ steel ship if you come across one.

There is a 25ft one currently at $1,550 in Montana, made from steel and comes with its own trailer! - https://www.govauctions.app/auction/gsa-3-1-QSC-I-26-284-021

I saw someone in court getting a lengthy for stealing all the enormous counterweights from cranes and taking them for their scrap metal value. Apparently they are very expensive.

definitely getting updates on your searches would be cool.

[delayed]

Pet hate - websites that assume the whole internet|World starts and ends at the borders of USA.

If you're going to share a local website on a global site like HN at least mention the locality!?

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