Home sales for single family homes and condominiums in Central Ohio picked up while the homebuyer’s tax incentives were offered, but when those expired April 30th, home sales slipped in June, and fell hard in July, according to new figures from the Columbus Board of Realtors. Read More

The home was a bank owned, single family ranch listed for $75,000. This was an “absolute auction”, which means the house would be sold to the highest bidder regardless of the price in its AS-IS condition with no buyer contingencies and the buyer had to close within 30 days plus a 10% buyers premium that would be added to the final bid price. Bidders had to show up with a $5,000 deposit in form of a cashier’s check. The auction was to take place at the house at 5PM.

My client and I arrived at the house at 4:30. There were several people going in and out of the house looking around and scoping out the other bidders. (If you are a people watcher, you would love this event) The auctioneer was set up in the house where we went to register to bid. My client gave the auctioneer the $5,000 check with photo ID and we were assigned a number to bid along with the purchase contract that would be used for the highest bidder. We were told the auctioneer would go over the purchase contract line by line right before the bidding began.

Promptly at 5 the auction began. There was about 50 people standing in the house and there were 20 registered bidders. The auctioneer went over the purchase agreement and disclosed a few defects he knew about the house. Then the bidding began. It started at $50,000 and immediately was bid to $60K, then $70, then $80, then $90 where the bidding paused for a moment and the auctioneer was asking for $100. He looked and called a few times, then a shout of $92.5, followed by $95. Then the auctioneer made some comments to lighten the tension and remind people that this price is much lower than the average sales in the area. The a shout came out at $100K. Then $101K. A pause for a few moments and then $102K. The auctioneer called for $103K, but that is where it stopped. “$102,000 going, once, twice, SOLD”. The event was over at 5:23 and another house was Sold in Worthington, Ohio. Does anyone have an auction experience they would like to share? Please contact me if you are interested in learning more about auctions in Central Ohio.