Public Surplus Scraper

Scrape Public Surplus — an online marketplace where U.S. and Canadian government agencies (cities, counties, school districts, state agencies) sell surplus vehicles, equipment, real estate, and other property at public auction. Search by keyword, browse by category or region, filter by price range and closing window, or fetch full details for specific auctions by ID. HTTP-only, no login, no API key.

What this actor does

• Two modes: search (keyword / category / region / price / time-window browsing) and byAuctionIds (direct lookup of specific auctions)
• Full filter surface: 28 categories, 65 regions (US states/territories + Canadian provinces), price range, ending-window, starting-window, and server-side sorting
• Rich auction detail: agency, pickup location, current bid, bid count, auction close time, and a specifications map covering category-specific attributes (VIN, mileage, condition, year/make/model for vehicles; different attribute sets for other categories)
• Empty fields are omitted

Output per auction

Listing records (mode=search)

• auctionId, title, currentPrice, state
• endTime (ISO 8601), timeLeftLabel (human-readable, e.g. "2 mins")
• thumbnailUrl, sourceUrl
• recordType: "auctionListing", scrapedAt

Detail records (mode=byAuctionIds)

• auctionId, title, currentPrice, numberOfBids
• agencyName, agencyUrl — the selling government agency
• pickupLocationName, pickupLocationAddress
• auctionEndsAt (ISO 8601)
• condition, specifications — category-specific attribute map (e.g. VIN, Mileage, Year, Make, Model for vehicles)
• termsUrl — link to the auction's terms & conditions
• sourceUrl
• recordType: "auctionDetail", scrapedAt

Invalid or expired auction IDs (mode=byAuctionIds) are skipped entirely — no placeholder/error record is ever added to the dataset, so every row you get back is a real auction.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search / byAuctionIds
keyword	string	–	Free-text keyword (mode=search); leave blank to browse by filters only
category	select	Any	One of 28 categories (Computers, Electronics, Motor Pool, Real Estate, …)
region	select	Any	US state/territory or Canadian province
endingWithinHours	select	No limit	1 hour / 6 hours / 1 day / 5 days / 10 days
startedWithinHours	select	All	the last hour / day / 2 days / week
minPrice / maxPrice	int	–	Current-price range in USD
sortBy	select	Default	id / title / timeLeft / price
sortDescending	bool	false	Reverse the sort order
auctionIds	array	–	Numeric auction IDs (mode=byAuctionIds)
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap (1–2000)
proxyConfiguration	proxy	off	Optional — the site is reachable from Apify datacenter IPs without a proxy

Example: browse Real Estate auctions in Texas ending within 5 days

{
  "mode": "search",
  "category": "15",
  "region": "tx",
  "endingWithinHours": "120",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: fetch specific auctions by ID

{
  "mode": "byAuctionIds",
  "auctionIds": ["4057251", "4053912"]
}

Use cases

• Fleet & asset buyers — monitor government vehicle and heavy-equipment auctions across states
• Government-surplus resellers — track listings by category to source inventory
• Real estate investors — browse municipal real-estate surplus sales by region
• Market research — analyze government asset-disposal pricing trends over time
• Procurement/compliance teams — audit agency surplus-sale activity

FAQ

Do I need an account or cookies? No. All search, browse, and detail data is public. Bidding itself requires a Public Surplus login, but this actor only reads public listing data.

What's the specifications field? Public Surplus auctions span many categories (vehicles, electronics, furniture, real estate…) each with different attributes. Rather than hard-coding one schema, the actor captures every labeled attribute on the auction page (e.g. VIN, Mileage, Condition, Year, Make, Model for a vehicle) into a flat key-value map so no category-specific data is lost.

Why do listing records only have state, but detail records have full pickupLocationAddress? The search/browse results page shows a compact 2-letter state code per card; full pickup address and agency info require visiting the individual auction page (mode=byAuctionIds).

What happens if an auction ID is invalid or expired? The actor skips it and moves on to the next ID — it never adds a placeholder/error row to the dataset, so you can safely assume every returned record is a genuine, currently-listed auction.

How current is the price? currentPrice reflects the live current bid at scrape time — it will change as bidding continues.

Can I combine keyword search with category/region filters? Yes — all search-mode filters (keyword, category, region, price range, time windows, sort) combine via server-side query parameters.