Auctions on Service Link

[April Bui]

Hi friends,

I have been paying close attention to a house that was on foreclosure and now bank owned. The lender's attorney was Brock and Scott, so they were pretty efficient (or aggressive, depending on the lens). The house was sold in 2017 for $1.7m and now appraised by Brock and Scott's appraiser for $1.15m. In my opinion, the $1.7m was too high for what it was worth in 2017 and $1.15m was a bit lower than today's market price (probably $1.3m)

Anyway, this house was listed for multiple auctions on Service Link since March and it has been a waste of time. Service Link lists out a bunch of "comparable properties", trying to imply that this house's value is 1.7m-2m. It has been listed for auction almost every single week since March, so about 8 auctions so far. It has starting price of $850K, then it keeps auto-bidding the price up with $250K, and flagging that it does not meet reserve requirement until the price are in around $1.6m. Obviously, there is no other bidder but Service Link putting in bids on behalf of the seller. So they just keep re-listing the property week after week.

I pretty much gave up after the second auction to save my own time, but I am still curious about how this kind of auction on service link works. Anyone has experience with auctions on Service Link? Do you know how many times a property listed before Service Link/owner change their strategy, or reserve requirement?

Thanks!