player_piano2d ago

Show HN: GovAuctions lets you browse government auctions at once

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!

https://www.govauctions.app/

GovAuctions — Government Surplus Auctions, Deals & More

Search government surplus auctions from GSA Auctions, HUD, and more. Find deals on vehicles, electronics, equipment, and seized property.

Show threadmolticrystal2d ago

Suggestions:

Put the parameters into the url so searches can be bookmarked, like zip codes, terms, filters, and other aspects can be 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 already shared it with a few friends.

Show threadxnx
I second the search parameters in URL. RSS feed of search page would also be great.
Apr 6 at 7:18pmWeb
Show threadmolticrystal2d ago
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.