In Australia it is common to sell or buy a home by auction. Brenda and I decided to spend an hour attending one in the West End. They were auctioning a unit where we are renting.
At 12 noon the auction began in the real estate offices of Ray White. In traditional form there was an auctioneer accepting bids. There was an opening bid and from there it escalated by $10k increments. We expected the bidding to stop after going 3 times but suddenly the bidding ceased with auctioneer indicating there is serious discussions going on with the bidders. We thought that was weird but turns out the bids did not reach the threshold of what the seller wanted.
Eventually there was some sort of agreement between the highest bidders and the seller and the unit sold for $1.2 million AUD or $816,000 USD by today’s exchange rate. All in all a strange process that seems to work. With over half the properties stopping the bidding like this tells me the marketplace for homes is softening.
