Playing the Auction House

It’s sick how closely related WoW can be to so many things in real life.

For this example we will be talking about the Auction House.

This is not some high tech strategy guide, these are just some gathered thoughts that I have used to success when playing the auction house.

My biggest “aha” moment when it comes to playing the AH is when I realized that the money comes from when you buy.

This will make sense to you people in real estate, or the stock market – but for everyone else this may seem like a retarded statement.

So let me explain.

The WoW Market is constantly fluctuating. Daily, Hourly, Weekly.

Prices will go up and down as people undercut, as people stop farming, and even as people stop playing.

The prices in the auction house are a little more controlled then the real world economy so it’s a lot more safe to just jump in.

Here’s the deal.

When you are looking for buys in the auction house, you will want to make your money on the purchase.

This means your profit doesn’t come directly from your sales, your money comes from picking up the good deal.

An example to this would be my overloaded stock of Small Glimmering Shard’s right now.

I actually have 624 of them. Here’s a picture:

Why? – Because I picked them all up for 20 silver each. Following the market I know that they can sell all the way up to 1.5 gold a piece (on THIS specific server). That means on each purchased I made about 1.3g.. However it doesn’t show right now. Right now it just shows that I’m down 125 gold.

So this brings me to the next point.

Playing the Auction House takes patience.

The market takes swings, it goes up and down. Just because you can’t sell something immediately right now for a profit doesn’t mean you took a loss.

Save it for later. No one is forcing you to sell something for a loss. I will go out on a limb and claim that you will ALWAYS be able to sell something for a price of your choice. I have never been “stuck” with an item that I couldn’t sell off.. (besides a few items that got changed during patches, or phased out…etc etc)

So to be a good AH player it takes a lot of PATIENCE!

Make your money when you buy, wait for the market to give you a good chance to sell.. and take your profits.

Once you begin to understand this your swings in the market will be so much more controlled.

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Tags: AH, Auction House, Gold, Guide's, Market, WoW Gold