In CA the payment has to go through the broker. I have to say I will be more than happy to do another auction for them. I think I received my check in record time, within hours of recording. The open houses are busy enough that sitting around was not too bad.

I just noticed a property in my area that was listed for the longest time for $225,000 that went for auction and sold for $287,000!!!! I don't know how they are going to get it apprased since it is only a two bedroom and most three bedrooms don't go for that much in the area.

I was truely shocked!!! I thought you could get a deal at a auction!?!

Williams and Williams gives a 2% referral to you if you register your buyer.

We just had the Chicgo/NW Indiana Auction this past weekend. I didn't attend but had 1 property (a former listing) which they asked me to manage for the auction. It sold on Saturday. I received an email with the selling price and contact to help cooridnate the closing issues. So far I'm pleased with their communication. Any experiences from others? The open houses were well advertised and attended.

Kathleen,

The issue is that the bidders usually think they know best and don't use a knowledgeable agent to advise on pricing. They then get carried way in the auction frenzy and overbid, often by a large factor. They can either over pay if a cash deal, get funding and hope to negotiate down to the appraised value or let it go and lose their deposit (unless they can't get funding and the seller has a clause in the contract to refund deposits).

I've seen several cases where this sort of thing has happened.

Nigel

I had listing pulled in August that went to auction in October. It just settled last week. Buyer paid about 75% list. I attended the auction to see if the property would sell and thought it was great. In the early bidding, prices seemed to stay low (I left after about 40 homes had been auctioned). Not sure how many made reserve but I'd say more than half of the properties were not subject to a reserve.
Thanks to the poster who recommended listing agents contact the title company about getting paid after the auction. Invaluable advice! I got paid within days of settlement.

Bumping this up because I have a question for listing agents.

I have a buyer who prepared an offer on a property. The property was abruptly pulled from MLS before we could submit it. I figured it was being repaired or it went to auction. After a month, my client had not found a better property, so I contacted the listing agent. She said that it had indeed gone to auction, but hadn't sold.

I told her we would be happy to make an offer if the property was still available to purchase. She said she was told that the seller was going to try an online auction and may have signed a contract.

"Ok I said, do they want our offer or would they rather we wait until after this auction"? She contacted her Asset Manager and was told to have us send the offer in. We did. One week later we hadn't heard a single word from them. I called up the listing agent and asked if they decided to pass on our offer. She came back and said they were reviewing it. After a few days, she said they didn't want to pay our concessions (buyer's closing costs). I told her we needed them or no deal. She came back with a lesser amount of concessions. We said all concessions or no deal. She came back "ok, they accept".

Several days after that, I get contacted by an escrow company. They are sending me the contract. Contract arrives and all the figures are wrong. No concessions. Different purchase amount. Five times the earnest money deposit we negotiated. I called back the listing agent. She said "let me check". That was two days ago. I called the escrow agent. She was surprised. "Was this just an REO purchase"? Yes, we didn't submit an auction bid.

The questions I have are this. If they received the offer outside the auction, will they try and make us abide by the auction terms? The MLS commission for my side was 3%. Will that be changed?

I've left messages for the escrow officer. I'm going to email her as well. I will attempt to contact the listing agent again tomorrow.