From
the list of residential or commercial properties,
Prospective buyers will bid on the property and Sellers will be notified of
bid. To insure interest and bidding on the property, buyer have to go for
higher bidding which ensure the probability of winning the bid.
I’ve only ever been to two house auctions.
At the second, I ?won’; I bought the house, well, it’s a unit. Let me tell you
how it happened; it was one of the most intense weeks of my life.
I was living overseas and I had to come
back to Australia to get some medical tests. I’d be back in Melbourne for one
month, and my partner told me it was a good time to buy a house. She had her
mind set on this one apartment in Hawthorn. It was to be auctioned on a
Saturday, a couple days after I arrived back in this English-speaking realm (In
rural Japan, English was rarely spoken and when it was, usually at quite a
basic level: Hello, how are you? I’m fine thank you. What’s your favourite
colour? Purple.). All of a sudden I found myself listening to an auctioneer
rattling off English so fast it was like a machine gun to the head. Why do they have to be such motor mouths?
I got to look at the place for fifteen
minutes before I had to make the decision whether or not to spend the next
thirty years of my human existence paying it off with my blood, sweat, and
tears. After having a bit of a look around the joint I realised I didn’t really
like it, but nonetheless my lady is often ?boss‘ and she wanted me to start
bidding. It was a hot summer day and people started rolling in like dogs around
a freshly slaughtered buffalo carcass. There must have been close to 150 of us
standing in front of the red brick complex, not including the owners of other
units, vultures and wide-eyed Tawny Frog-Mouths out on their balconies watching
the ?show’.
I stood right in front of the man barking
off rules and information about the property. I knew how much money we had, so
I had a limit in my head that no matter what I wouldn’t go over. The flat was advertised at $300,000, and
bidding was to begin at 280 grand. After the first bid, a woman yelled out 350
thousand! That took the crowd by surprise. However, that was the last we heard
of her once-confident voice. I made a couple of small bids afterwards, but two
other guys were in an all-out battle that culminated in the yuppie-looking
bloke wiping the floor with the tradesman. The ?tradie’ had looked so calm as
he rattled off bids; I thought he must have been one of those wealthy builder
types who dress like street bums, but have more money than some developing
nations. However, the wealthy yuppie couple wanted this apartment and the man
was going to stop at nothing to get it. It sold for $445,000; now that’s just a
little higher than the asking price isn’t it? It wasn’t looking good for our
dream of owning our own place (not that one really
owns anything but a lifelong mortgage-joke!). Was the market truly this
overblown?
Before I went out to the auctions on the
next Saturday I met up with a friend who gave me some advice/words of wisdom.
He’d recently bought a house down in the bay side area of Brighton East,
beating out a fellow driving a brand new high-class Mercedes. He said, “Bid
like your pockets are empty. Be so confident that people think you’re not going
to give up under any condition. Bid strongly and in large denominations right
up until you reach your limit. If you look tough, people who are only in it
half-heartedly will bail out early.?
That’s exactly what I did. Conditions
couldn’t have been better on the day. It was the weekend just before Christmas,
so most people were out shopping for presents, not houses. It was raining. Who
wants to trudge around looking at houses in the wet? We checked out a few places, but then we
found one unit we really liked. Half an hour later we were bidding on it. Out
of fifteen or so people only two other guys even opened their mouths, and in
the end it was just an Asian man versus myself. I have to admit; he wasn’t
looking too sure of himself right from the start.
As each time after lengths of nervous
deliberation his bids went up by $500 or a thousand dollars, I quickly shot
back with $2,000, $3,000, and $5,000 retorts. Wearing an Indonesian batik
shirt, I have a feeling I must have unwittingly expressed the identity of a guy
who’s so wealthy he isn’t concerned about what he looks like. To my great
surprise, after a short while the other fellow threw in the towel and we had
?won’ the right to live in the humble abode in which I currently sit as I write
this story. I actually got the ?cave’ for a fair bit less than I was
considering I’d have to shell out to be victor. (I won’t tell you how much we
paid, but let’s just say it’s going to take a helluvalot of writing to pay this
set of walls and roof off!)
The real estate
agent said that it was one of the most confident displays of auction bidding
that they’d ever witnessed in their whole career. I don’t know if they just
wanted to make me feel good, but if not, I have to say that it was one of the
best displays of acting that I’ve ever acted out. I’d only ever been to two
auctions, but bystanders might’ve thought I was a hungry buyer with a huge wad
of cash. However , my confidence must have come from somewhere real?this world
is made up of so many illusions and ingenuous images. My only concern is that
this house isn’t as inauthentic as the person I portrayed to buy it!
About the author
Jesse S. Somer
is a creative writer working at M6.Net: ?The web-hosting company for humans.’
M6.Net is working hard to help humanity experience the power and freedom to
develop their own part of the Internet, to share their information and connect
with anyone, anywhere, anytime. http://www.readmine.com/
is their next step towards fulfilling this goal.
Tags: auctioneer, balconies, blood sweat and tears, carcass, couple days, fifteen minutes, hawthorn, hea, hot summer day, human existence, intense weeks, japan english, machine gun, medical tests, mouths, next thirty years, property buyer, prospective buyers, red brick, sweat and tears
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