my observations below, and wanted to get some feedback about these clowns
fake bidding - it seemed that they were pretending to take bids but N O ONE was actually bidding… yet they would continue to do this until it bid up quite high, and at the end, mumble “back to beneficiary”
unknown auction results- a few sold to what appeared to be winning bidders, but on foreclosureradar, the results shows “back to beneficiary” for the opening bid price ( see fake bidding above)
all the opening bids were low to get you there but ended much higher than it should have
Yes, your observations are correct. They advertise a false opening bid to draw a crowd. They are hoping that the bidders in the audience will just keep going until the bids are over the bank’s actual opening bid.
In many cases, they might be bidding ‘on behalf’ of the beneficiary to keep going up to the bank’s opening bid, and then reverting back to the beneficiary. In rare cases, the beneficiary has actually authorized them to bid on their behalf and that is the same practice that happens sometimes at the regular auctions.
I think what is happening in your 2nd point above is that the winning bidders did not meet the ‘reserve’ price for the bank (which was probably the true legitimate opening bid because there is not supposed to be a ‘reserve’ in a foreclosure auction) and they mumbled very low (they make it very hard to hear), Back to Beneficiary. It is very hard to tell when that happens and I’m not sure the legitimate audience bidders even hear it or understand it when it happens.
Yes, agree. There are still plenty of legitimate bidders buying properties at the Auction.com sales. But I don’t think I have ever seen anyone pick one up at a ‘penny over’. Probably because they will not let audience bid, they call out the bids at increments of $5k or so, so you cannot just yell out ‘penny over’.
You can, believe it or not, bid less than the next higher $5K bid asked for by the auctioneer. Professionals have learned they can yell out any bid over what the last bid was. They don’t yell out “another penny” - usually another $1000.
They can usually figure out when the last bid was made by a shill as opposed by a real bidder.