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Show HN: GovAuctions lets you browse government auctions at once

https://www.govauctions.app/
59•player_piano•2h ago
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!

Comments

KomoD•2h ago
> 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

player_piano•2h ago
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...
toomuchtodo•1h ago
I am looking for a 60 ft+ steel ship if you come across one.
player_piano•48m ago
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
dlcarrier•1h ago
If you want to see how quickly this can trap you in, watch the William Osman 2 channel on YouTube.
player_piano•58m ago
Will check it out once I fix a bunch the bugs people are surfacing :-)
carefree-bob•1h ago
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.
player_piano•1h ago
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.
BloondAndDoom•1h ago
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)

player_piano•1h ago
Update: this should be working now.
SoftTalker•1h ago
Seems to be missing stuff.

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

player_piano•1h ago
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.
gnopgnip•1h ago
The guides mention govdeals. But I don't see them, for instance the UC davis bike auctions are not included.
player_piano•1h ago
Thanks. Looks like there is an issue with these listings right now - working on it.
rurp•42m ago
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?
lazyasciiart•40m ago
The ones I’ve looked at need to be picked up in person, sometimes with very short deadlines.
player_piano•35m ago
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).
showerst•28m ago
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.

player_piano•10m ago
You should now see this option when you create an alert - within 50/100/500 miles of a given ZIP.
RationPhantoms•20m ago
Doesn't seem accurate considering GovDeals has auctions in NY, NJ and CT listed but your website has nothing.
player_piano•15m ago
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.
venusenvy47•9m ago
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

player_piano•5m ago
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.
molticrystal•4m ago
Suggestions:

Put the parameters into the url so they can be bookmarked, like zip codes and such and shared easily.

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 like pickup, delivery, payment methods, etc.

You are probably already thinking along these lines for some of them, just an encouragement to implement. Yes categories 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 will already shared it with a few friends.

Show HN: GovAuctions lets you browse government auctions at once

https://www.govauctions.app/
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