Auctoin House Question

[Rich Klein]

This is a general question and not geared at anyone in particular

I was chatting with a friend of mine on Saturday who is getting active in many auctions and he was commenting how hard it was to figure out the best way to bid in specific auctions.

Some houses will close out a lot at the "closing time" if there is only one bid while others will open up every lot during extended bidding even if there has been only one bid during normal hours.

Now, as a customer do you prefer winning if your bid is the only one or moving money around if you get outbid during that extended period. There is also the scenarios as well such as the only people who can bid on a lot in extended time are the ones who bid on that lot during regular time.

I don't know how to make a poll but I think this makes for an interesting conversation

Rich

[Snapolit1]

I like the idea that if you are the only one to express interest in an item for 2 weeks or 10 days or whatever preceding an auction closing it's automatically yours once the auction ends. If you think you might want it put down a bid in regular hours. Seems fair.

[Stonepony]

I prefer the REA ( and others) model. If you're the only bidder at auction close, you win. You can only bid on items in extended bidding that you'd previously bid on. I personally hate lot by lot closing and ALWAYS leave money on table

[Edwolf1963]

Most of them, to my knowledge, have the "bid on a lot, you're open to extended bidding on that lot" set-up. A few have the "bid on one, extended bid on all" program. I'm generally fine with most rules the AH's set-up - if not, I don't bid/participate.

To your question about being the only one bidding - that cuts both ways IMO. On one hand you got a good price (presumably), didn't get bid up and the item is yours. On the other, why didn't anyone else bid? And did I overpay, did everyone else see something I missed or is demand waning for that item.

Overall and as others have noted in previous threads, I think there are too many AH's. I can't keep track of who's who, what, when, etc - even with tools like Auction Report. Some have jacked up their shipping charges in addition to a higher BP (20% +) One of them is up to 22% now in addition to some fat s/h fees. The s/h fees aren't a big deal in the broad spectrum, just the principle and nickle/diming greed digs at me to some extent.

Factor in tax considerations for those in your state or claim to be and it usually means you're buried somewhere in on under-bidder list .. unless you really want that card badly, then you may have some buyers remorse afterwards :) There have been threads on that - especially those with the huge sigh of relief when their "remorse after I hit the enter button" high bid made quickly and out of emotion was finally trumped by someone else :D