If you're like me, you've run out of money once or twice and have taken to selling found items for cash to train.
Now that I've advanced a few levels in crafts and skill, I have a new way to make money, Auction House.
I've been lucky enough to advance from Linen Cloth to Wool Cloth for my first aid needs. However, some of the recent monsters I've been fighting have been dropping linen cloth. As always, I pick up everything. Money is money right?
Keep an eye on your items. If it's gray, chances are you wont make much money for it and should sell it at the vendor. If it's soulbound, it's also going to be sold at the vendor - soulbound items cannot be auctioned.
Where auction houses come into play are items that are hard to find... especially things people will be need to level a craft. There are many players who don't consider leveling cooking or first aid until they are well past the areas where they can naturally gather the items as they go. Linen is especially popular, it can be used for early level first air or tailoring.
If you've found your local bank, you can hold items here until you are ready to try and sell it. Each bank you visit will give you all of your items, in the same way that any bank teller of a live bank will give you access to your account.
Items sell best when they are in their largest stack. Linen, for example, stacks in piles of 20, while stringy wolf meat (for level one cooking) stacks in piles of 10.
Here is my formula for sale.
First, check your item. Is it possible or suggested to sell at the auction house? If it is, go back to a vendor and find out how much you could sell it for and make a mental note. Then go to the auction house and search for that item. Are they selling higher or lower for the item in question.
If it's lower, you might as well sell it at the vendor and make some extra cash.
If it's higher, make a note of what the auction rate range is and make an auction for that price or slightly lower/higher. It takes practice to know, but some items will sell even if the same item is already selling for lower. This is mostly true with crafting items because people trying to level will buy several stacks at once.
You are given the option to add a buy out rate. Often, this is what I'll go by when I set my price, especially for craft items. People who are buying craft items usually don't want to wait (hence the buy instead of farm for the items), so they will often use the buy out. Keep that price in mind as you create auctions.
A final note about auction items before I give a live example. If you try and auction it once and it doesn't sell, check the market before you try it again. Sometimes the prices have come down drastically, leaving your item too high for buyers to consider. Also look at the deposit amount. Is it worth putting up that deposit again, and possibly loosing it again, or would you be better to sell at the vendor and make your cash back.
Now, a few live example.
A stack of 20 linen cloth today would sell at 2 silver 60 bronze at a local vendor.
Checking the auction house, the lowest sell rate is a buy out of 55 silver, and as high as 20 gold (why someone thought they could sell for 20 gold when there are at least 15 auctions at a lower rate, I don't know)
In this case it is WELL worth my investment to sell at the auction house, as I could easily make 50 silver more than I would at a vendor. I think I'll make my auction for the lowest rate of 55 silver. The market seems a bit flooded and I don't want to be left at the high end of the market place.
An example of how things change quickly: Yesterday I created an auction for 20 linen and the market price was 1 gold. As I check my auction at the moment there are no bids for this stack, most likely because the market has dropped to half of that rate.
You can cancel an auction and reduce it's auction price, but you will loose your deposit. It's on a case by case bases if its worth it. In this case, it might have been OK to continue on the auction, hoping that someone would buy it, but I will make better money loosing the auction fee and starting again.
A second example are a pair of mystic slippers I found while hunting. The auction house will attempt to sell them for 2 silver, or buy out for 3, but I could sell them, guaranteed to the vendor for 3 silver. As there is already a set of these boots on the auction block, and the chances of two people wanting to buy the same boots are slim, I'll sell them at the vendor and make the guaranteed cash.
My third example is for legs in the monkey family. I mentioned families of armor in my attributes post. Knowing you get an attribute boost if you collect all of a families set, I wonder if someone is looking for these legs of monkey. When I check my vendor, they would buy them for 1 silver 19 bronze but there is no current auction house rate. When I created the auction, I was told the auction deposit (which is non refundable) is 30 bronze, so I figured that into my price, and put them up for auction at 1 silver 70, with a buy out at about 2 silver. If someone wants them, I'll still make a little money, if not, well, then I loose 30 bronze in the transaction.
Knowing your items is key. I had several other green armor items that I sold directly at vendor, knowing that if there is already an auction to compare them with, it is unlikely that two people are looking for the same item.
Bottom line, Auction house is a great place to sell items in demand (like jewels, rocks, minerals, herbs and skins for crafting) and items that are hard to find, but check your profit and loss before you post... sometimes its better just to sell to a vendor.
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