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Buying: Bidding Tips
Here are some tips to help you bid for property at an auction:
- If
you feel like the bidding process will be a bit too much for your blood
pressure to handle, why not take along a sensible, ice cool friend of yours to
do it on your behalf. You may be able to get your solicitor to go along and bid
for you, but you will of course have to pay him for his time, whilst a friend
will hopefully not charge you.
- Before
you start, or preferably before you turn up, set yourself a top limit, which you
absolutely under no circumstances positively will truly definitely not exceed.
If you break it once you might just keep on going as you get carried away, so it
is important to be disciplined about things.
- Don't
worry about the sitcom-scenes of inadvertently bidding by way of a nervous
twitch or yawn. Auctioneers will be looking for a clear hand signal from you,
and if they are in any doubt they will usually ask. If you do get a touch of the
Basil Fawlty and make a bid by mistake, tell the auctioneer immediately.
- Assuming
that a property gets some bids, the asking price usually rises in increments of
£5000. When this amount is too much to add to the value, the increment drops to
£1000 and so on until there are no more bids.
- You
can make a verbal bid for a different amount than the next increment just by
speaking when you make your hand signal, so there is usually nothing stopping
you from being childish and offering one hundred thousand and one pound, for
instance, though watch you don't get tongue tied and offer one hundred and one
thousand pounds instead.
- The
auctioneer will usually make some indication when the reserve price has been
met. This figure is not available to the public before the auction. He makes the
fact known by announcing that the "property is on the market" which you may feel
you knew already, or that "I am here to sell" which might not surprise you
knowing that he is an auctioneer.
- The
sale of a particular property will be brought to a close with something like the
well known "going once, going twice, going three time" then a minuscule pause
before the hammer raps down to signify that the lot has been sold.
- Don't
be disappointed if you don't get the property that you were after. You are not
likely to be the only one to spot a bargain and in any competitive bid, at least
one person has to lose out. There will be other days.
- If
you do miss out on the property you were intending to buy, don't make a rash bid
for another property. Getting carried away in the heat of the auction room
without doing your research properly could end up meaning you buy a real
bombshell of a property for a price that is unrealistically high.
Reproduced with the permission of TheMoveChannel.com. All rights remain with On The Move Limited.
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