Hey guys,

Just wanted to share my experience dealing with auction.com!

So, I had my doubts about this website, whether it could really be a good option for acquiring a good deal, as there were opinions on both sides of the fence. Anyways, I found a property that I very much liked, I went and checked it out and it was in really excellent conditions, really small cosmetic details to be fixed. 

So, I go to auction.com and it was listed as "Bank owned" and it did not show a reserve. The site asks for a credit card, from which they place a $2,500 hold (temporary) so they know you are not just playing around. I put the card on the system, and it then allows me to place bids on this property. I waited up untill the last 3 minutes of the auction to place my bid, which at that moment was $75K, and when the last minute was going, I placed a bid for $85,000, which then was countered for $95K. Once again I waited untill the last 30 seconds and I placed a bid for $95K, and then I countered again for $97.5K, which ended up being the HIGHEST bid, making me the winner! Woohoo!!! My heart was going 123144565465645 beats per second at that time.

I am going to rent this house, and then refinancing again to repeat the process (BRRRR), and the numbers of this property are like this;

Sales Price: $97,500

Buyers Premium: 5% of sales price = $4,875

Cash to Close: $102,375.00

Appraised Value: $135,000

Personally, I am more than pleased as I don't have to do practically any repairs, I bought at 75% of value, the area of this property is growing at an accelerated rate,  and it is in a great location making it an easy rental. Once I refinance, I will be able to have a little over 100K to repeat the process. 

Just wanted to share my experience with auction.com, as I know there are alot of people wondering it it really works and if you can get good deals.

PS: Auction.com customer service is really goood in my opinion, I don't know why they have such negative reviews. They literally called me the second the auction ended to congratulate me and give me instructions. 

2nd PS: The reserve was not met, and the seller still accepted my bid. :) 

Congratulations!  But, the time between your bid and the closing is usually where they become "lacking".  I'm guessing you opted for the "free" title insurance if you use their title co., which I always advise against.  They typically don't search for "unrecorded" liens like code violations, utilities, etc.  Reaad the section B Exclusions carefully....you will find these things, and perhaps others, excluded from the policy you receive.

Good advise @Wayne Brooks .  Any other things you need to look out for with Auction.com.  Most houses I have looked at are over bid and are sold for just too much money here in Colorado.   It has seemed to be a waist of time for me.

Thanks for sharing . I have been looking at properties on auction.com recently so was wondering if anyone here has been using it to buy.
It doesn't seem like you can see past sales on the site which would be helpful to see if deals can actually be had .. maybe there is a way to do this?

Also do you know if the deposit is per property or does paying the deposit allow you to bid on all the auctions for that day or time period? It seems most of their auctions run a few days .

I'm guessing you paid all cash and then will refinance out ?

@Wayne Brooks I guess I will find out in the next few weeks, I'll come back and share my updates as far as how the process goes untill closing. In this case, I opted to use my own tittle co., agree with you on that. Also, I just checked Scheduele B, and everything seems ok, nothing new. 

@Joseph M. Yes, I believe each property you want to bid on, you have to register your credit card for the temporary deposit of 2.5K. Also yes, I paid cash for this property, as soon as I close on it in a few weeks, I will refinance it and repeat the process. 

the negative reviews I read had nothing to do with the bidding process nor customer service but actually getting to closing

Best of luck 

Originally posted by @Javier Acosta :

@Wayne Brooks I guess I will find out in the next few weeks, I'll come back and share my updates as far as how the process goes untill closing. In this case, I opted to use my own tittle co., agree with you on that. Also, I just checked Scheduele B, and everything seems ok, nothing new. 

@Joseph M. Yes, I believe each property you want to bid on, you have to register your credit card for the temporary deposit of 2.5K. Also yes, I paid cash for this property, as soon as I close on it in a few weeks, I will refinance it and repeat the process. 

You said you paid cash

You already paid the entire price?

@Michael Plante my offer was cash, I will be closing on Oct 16th. I will post updates on my experience with auction.com 

@Javier Acosta , oh ok , I did notice it seems most of the auctions require cash. I do see some of the auction sites now saying they offer financing. 

I actually had bought my personal residence via an auction site (RealtyBid), during the crash though. It was a while back but I think my bid had been under the reserve price. Of course it was a much different market then...the house had been sitting as an REO for months and months. That never really happens these days.

Best of luck with the transaction