Tips and Tricks for making bank on the Auction House

[Ossifrage]

So I'm on the cusp of entering level 60 and inferno and all the pleasures that entails. Before I really get going there though I figured I'd like to make sure I know what I'm doing on the auction house since hey, it's a thing I enjoy. And so I thought I'd stop by the markets discussion forum and look at the FAQ or guide or whatever that's up for the eddification of all. And lo, I looked and seeing nothing decided, be the change you wish to see.

SO! I've already started scouring the forum and the Markets site even though Azzure said that's not what the site is about but I would certainly appreciate anyone posting in this thread with their own tips and tricks that they don't see listed in these first two posts yet. I'll do my best to turn this thread into a useful guide/compendium for both buying and selling things on the auction house. Thanks for your help!

Buying on the AH

There are only 50 pages of items, to find the cheapest you need to filter down by stats as close as possible to the item you want in order to see the max items for that item type and desired mods.
Just entering a max buyout cuts away all the troll 40 million listings, and entering a minimum stat value cuts away all the junk items people throw up there because they don't know the items are not worth anything. 50 pages of mostly junk or overpriced items becomes 50 pages of applicable items well worthy of thumbing through.
-StarEater

Buy for a dollar sell for two.
-Proposition Joe

A lot of people are putting items up not realizing their value. Particularly, many people undervalue anything that doesn't have main-stat + vit. Search for items that have 'time left' listed as '1d 11h' or the much-loved '2d' and about one in a hundred will be ridiculously underpriced. If you are quick enough to grab it before anyone else, it is not uncommon to buy 200K items you can resell for a million (+15%).
-Frostlion

A little bit of luck, and a little bit of smart selling and buying. Through my normal farming and leveling, i found 4 helion crossbows with over 1k dps and with crit chance or a socket. All of those sold for big cash. One of the helions i sold for 70 mil in the ah. Both of my bows i found by combing the forums and bought them (relatively) cheap in comparison to what they were worth. One of the bows i found and bought on the forums for 30 million. Since it had ias, i fliped it on the AH prior to the nerf for 85 million.

Quick advice for buying and trading big cash items: Find them and buy them by searching through the forums, and sell them through the ah. People who sell on the forums are often not patient enough to wait 36 hours. And since there is no transaction fee, you will often be able to negotiate items for a big discount. When selling on the ah, the starting bid should be reasonable, but you should always set the buyout at an extravagant price. You'll get a lot of exposure for your item on the AH and there's a chance someone with deep pockets will see your item and impulse buy it even at the inflated buyout price.

[Ossifrage]

Selling things on the AH.

Incgamers affix slots pay attention when these show up!
Life Steal %-Belts [Max 3%]
Life after hit-Rings and Amulets [Max 650]

Increased Attack Speed-Amulet/Gloves/Rings [Max 9%]
Bonus Minimum Physical Damage- Amulet/Rings [Max 27]
Critical Hit Damage -Amulet/Gloves/Rings [Max 65%]

Reduced Damage from Elites-Chest

Movement Speed-Boots [Max 12%]

Good search parameters (@level 60, top stats in bold):
Barbarian
All Resistance
Strength
Vitality
Life after hit
Armor

Demon Hunter
Dexterity
Increased Attack Speed
Increased Critical Damage
Vitality
+Discipline

Monk
Dexterity
Increased Attack Speed
Life on Hit
Vitality
Spirit Regeneration
At least one kind of resistance (assuming One with Everything)

Witch Doctor
Intelligence
Increased Attack Speed
Mana Regeneration
Increased Crit Damage
Increased Crit chance

Wizard
Intelligence
Vitality
All Resistance
Magic Find
Life Regeneration
Increased Attack Speed
Increased Movement Speed

Price Checking:

KTang has a great thread on how to price an item so run don't walk to read all about it

For non-weapons, in order for an item to sell on the AH, it needs to have at least two "valuble" stats. I consider the valuble stats as follows:

Core Stat (one of Int, Dex, Str) [Ideally this will be 100+]
Vitality
Increased Attack Speed
+Damage
+Resists

If an item has more than two, it's value goes up accordingly, and the growth can be exponential if it has all 5 stats.

Other useful (but not required) stats can also up the value:
Life Regen
+Gold Find
+Magic Find
+Movement Speed (although it could be argued this is required on boots)
Critcal Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage
Increase AP/Mana/Fury

The rest of the stats (again, from my perspective only) add minimal value to an item.
Now, to get an idea of what you can sell it for (which is not necessarily it's value), use the search function on the AH with the top three stats (from above) and enter values close to the values on your item. I'd suggest using round numbers (i.e. 25, 50, 75) rather than the exact numbers on the item. People are probably searching for items based on round numbers, you may have mis-price your item if your criteria are too specific.

Run the search and compare similar items and the prices. Although there is always a chance of outliers (this may be the time to snap-up that item that someone just posted at 25K when the rest at at 500k) you should be able to take a look at the simliar items and make the comparison between your item and the items on the AH to get a price that is it likely to sell at.
-Omelet

Here is my suggestion for pricing weapons for sale...

- If the weapon can only be used by a certain class, filter the weapon by that class. If it can be used by more than one class, filter by either 1h or 2h
- Enter the appropriate stats in the filter to match up with the stats on the item that you want to sell. This should only be done for significant stats (attributes > 100, IAS, Sockets, Life on Hit, Crit Damage). Ensure to use logical breakpoints (i.e. 100, 150, 200) as this matches what your buyers are likely looking for
- Enter maximum buyout that you feel is the ballpark amount for the value of this item
- Search and ensure the sort is by DPS. This is the main criteria people search by when looking at weapons... other than items with inherant IAS, more DPS = better weapon = higher price
- If your items DPS is lower than the top few items listed, reduce your maximum buyout below the lowest of the first few weapons and search again. If you original guess was *way* off, you may need to go even lower.
- Converserly, if your items DPS is higher, adjust the max buyout upwards
- Repeat the above until you find the approximate price for your item

Note: IAS on a weapon increases the DPS listed, but not the underlying "Damage" of the weapon. It will not make your abilities hit harder, only faster. A 1000 DPS weapon with 25% IAS hit as hard as the same weapon with 800 DPS and no IAS. If the ability is not affected by IAS at all, then you won't even see an overall damage increase.

[Ossifrage]

Specific advice for the RMAH

I am probably not the most qualified to talk on the subject since I've only sold one item on the RMAH. But one is better than none so why not! From my (limited) experience I can say that only expect things on the absolutely far right of the stat distribution curve to have any chance of selling.



But anything that is ridiculously incredibly overpoweringly awesome will most likely be purchased by the many people with more money than time who frequent the RMAH. The actual process of price checking your item is the same as in the gold auction house but remember, it pays to price carefully .

[Ossifrage]

FAQs

Does it make sense to socket items before listing them on the AH?
In a word, yes. For weapons if you socket a red gem, even though the DPS won't change when you hover over the item it WILL list higher in the search results when you sort by DPS, which means it's more likely to move. For non-helm armor a stat gem means your piece will be listed if someone is searching with a minimum stat cut-off, which again should improve the move-ability of your item.

How do I see what previous items have sold for?
Until Bliz finishes copying Ebay and gives us a previously sold search option just do a search for your item's stats and you should see that some are listed as sold. Sort by buyout and you can guesstimate how much each of those have sold for. NB: not sure how long an item listed as sold lasts in the search results.

[Odoakar]

I've been puting a lot of lvl 55-60 items on AH, but no one is buying them. I got so irritated waiting for the offers to expire, that I'm now selling them for 5,000 coins. And they still don't sell sometimes.

First day that I came back from work, started Diablo, stared a bit at AH, and exited the game. I have lvl 60 barb in middle of Act I inferno, but I just can't force myself to farm for gold. Currently have 300,000.

[Moik]

Other useful (but not required) stats can also up the value:
Life Regen
+Gold Find
+Magic Find
+Movement Speed (although it could be argued this is required on boots)
Critcal Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage
Increase AP/Mana/Fury

I find +Life% also tends to cause a measurable jump, on par with those.
Armor on a Ring or Amulet seems to also cause it to get snapped up quickly (those are always bought before I can decide if I want them, so I don't have a lot of hands-on experience).
I'm told Life on Hit and Life Steal are also supposed to be good (it seems to come up a lot in build suggestions I get), but I haven't experimented with them either.

[Omelet]

For my Wizard I value the following stats (generally... excluding stats that are only available on specific items)

Intelligence
Vitality
All Resistances
Magic Find
Life Regen

On items that have IAS (Increased Attack Speed) it is required for the top items. Same for movement speed on boots.

I tried some MF boots with +movement and it's like running around in mud.

[Catastrophe]

Sorting by time remaining seems not to work for me when I click on the column header. Is there some other way to do it? I'd love to be the person who finds a great deal 5 minutes after it was posted.

When I search for Wizard gear I'm looking for:
Int: minimum 100, preferably 150.
IAS: because IAS and FCR are the same mod in this game, and it affects everything.
Sockets: only if the item is rare
Vit: any amount

resist all = added armor = gf > life regen = mf >>> critical hit damage

I won't use any boots if they don't have +12% speed. Faster movement speed to a Wizard is everything. Not only do I die less, but I get more attacks off when I run faster.

[Azzure]

Awesome thread

[Mn_Swe2]

Great chart Ossifrage, but Block% is available on armor if I am not mistaken?