Hi, I'm not an agent yet but like to keep up with the market. It seems that in Winnipeg now, a common practice is for the listing agent to underprice the property for 10's of thousands and wait for bidding wars.
For instance, an agent and owner belive their homes value is 150K based on the market. The agent lists it for 120 on purpose to drive up the bids. Don't the buyers agents think it's just a waste of time to bid anywhere near list? Or what happens in the instance when there is several bids 'not enough' over list, say 130K? Doesn't the listing agent look silly when he tells his client to reject the bids 10K over list? Do the buyers agents get frusterated?
Thanks for your replies.

I think this is just sort of a start to an increasing number of home auctions.

In Australia home sale auctions are very popular. I went to one the last time I was there, and often they do get very good prices. They're also done with very few private visits, mainly open houses, which saves time for the Realtor.

I don't know how frustrating/difficult this must be, but what you're saying seems to show that Winnepeg at least is headed in the home auction direction.