{"id":6396,"date":"2011-03-23T07:40:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T12:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/?p=6396"},"modified":"2011-03-23T07:40:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T12:40:59","slug":"going-once-going-twice-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/23\/going-once-going-twice-sold\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Once, Going Twice, Sold!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five bank owned properties were auctioned off yesterday afternoon in Hartford. <\/p>\n

We learned about the auction a couple weeks ago thanks to a tip from a loyal reader about one specific home (thanks, Michael!). The property had been on the market with a realtor for a couple months, and we had even shown it a few times. We knew the bank was trying to get rid of it, but switching over to the auction format was a dramatic change from their previous strategy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

On our initial drive-by, the signage at the home pointed us to the auction company\u2019s website and the listing for the home<\/a>. The opening bid was set at $50,000 for the approximately 7,000 sqft property. It would be quite a deal if it actually sold at that price, even considering all the repairs the home needed. The auction company held open houses each of the past two weekends so that potential bidders could inspect the home, and also opened it up a couple hours before the auction.<\/p>\n

We decided to swing by to check out the bidding action. About 50 people gathered to bid on the five properties. It was a diverse crowd with some attendees investors and others looking more like owner-occupants. There were not very many neighbors, and we were one of the few who did not register as a bidder.<\/p>\n

The event was very well organized, with a team of auctioneers overseeing the process and adding a bit of humor here and there. A small sound system made it easy to hear everything as it happened. And they rigged up a cell phone to also broadcast the action live over the internet for bidders who could not be there in person. <\/p>\n

The actual auction for each property took about 5 minutes. Furious initial action gradually transitioned to coaxing as the final two or three bidders thought long and hard about how much they wanted to win. Based on the descriptions of the properties, the auction seemed to get fair value for the sellers \u2013 there were multiple parties interested in each home. The one we were standing in front of, with the $50,000 opening bid, ended up selling for $360,000.<\/p>\n

Auctions have not played a significant role in the local real estate markets so far. We\u2019ve been fortunate to avoid the widespread foreclosure problems experienced by other areas of the country. Hopefully our relative stability will continue, and auctions will remain more of a curiosity than a primary way in which homes are sold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five bank owned properties were auctioned off yesterday afternoon in Hartford. We learned about the auction a couple weeks ago thanks to a tip from a loyal reader about one specific home (thanks, Michael!). The property had been on the market with a realtor for a couple months, and we had even shown it a few times. We knew the bank was trying to get rid of it, but switching over to the auction format<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1568,1578,1591],"tags":[3191,3192,1744,4017],"class_list":["post-6396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying","category-hartford","category-selling","tag-auction","tag-bank","tag-bank-owned","tag-hartford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6396"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6404,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions\/6404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amybergquist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}