Wanna buy a trailer

All those trailers that FEMA provided after Katrina are now being auctioned off. From ABC News:

FEMA Is Selling Off Used Trailers
FEMA Is Selling Off Used Trailers; Mobile-Home Dealers Fear a Drop in Prices

A year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA is auctioning off at fire-sale prices thousands of trailers used by storm victims, raising fears among mobile-home dealers that the government will flood the market and depress prices.

Mobile home dealers are finding that some potential customers would rather wait to make a deal on a used FEMA trailer than drop $25,000 to $40,000 for a brand-new one.

"People think they're just going to get to buy them for nothing," said Gale Crews, owner of Diamond State Mobile Home Sales in Hope, where FEMA is storing 20,000 trailers at the city's airport. Some of the FEMA trailers will sell for less than half of what they cost new.

Some critics of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the sale of emblematic of the way FEMA botched its handling of Katrina: FEMA ordered more trailers than it needed, it let many of them sit out in the open, exposed to the elements, and now, some fear, it is about to double-cross the trailer dealers.

FEMA spokeswoman Debbie Wing defended the agency, saying it "wanted to be prepared to house as many victims as possible" when it bought the trailers. She said the agency is now trying to lower its storage costs by reducing the number it is holding in reserve for the next disaster.

"We're being cautious not to flood the market," she said. "We appreciate the fact that these manufacturers sold us these units during the height of it."

The dealers already made their money when they sold these units to FEMA in the first place and now they are griping about loosing money when FEMA puts them back on the market. I can see their point about poisoning potential sales but it doesn't sound like the gubbermint is going to flood the market.