Real Estate Auction

**fmike630** · 11-09-2008, 04:01 PM

Against my advice some Home owners upside on high end mortgages paid a one time auction fee of $10,000 to a well known International Brokerage Real Estate Company.

They promised 50 to 100 investors who gave deposits of 25k and were pre - approved for high end loans.

Turn out had 6 investors and 1 property sold out of 25. The brokerage made $250,000.00 the owners lost 10k each.

Can any Realtors share some good auction experiences?

**agentsranking** · 11-09-2008, 07:10 PM

I think I'm in the wrong business; $10k per seller and no guarantee of any results? What was the name of the auction company?

A lot of homes are being sold in Minnesota by Williams and Williams. Most of the homes have very low or no reserve and they almost always sell. Difference is most are bank owned and lower end homes.

**fmike630** · 11-09-2008, 07:20 PM

It was for high end million dollar homes. In my opinion the broker made all the money. It is a well know International Brokerage company.

I dont want any issues with them but I cant believe what i had seen.

**MrREO** · 11-16-2008, 07:07 PM

In my experience, the best auctioneers are actually the local, relatively small ones.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but they tend to have a better grasp on the intricacies of their own local markets, and have a network of investors on their mailing lists, etc.
And, they have to continue doing business in that area, so they can't afford to screw people left and right. If the real estate doesn't sell for what you need it to, they generally charge you their marketing fees, plus a fee for their time, and leave it at that.
Good luck,

**Neguletu Octavian** · 11-17-2008, 01:46 AM

I agree with fmike630 I mean if you pay such fee of 10k you expect something in return.If they knew they could not handle it, the least they could do was to return some of the money.I am also concern about many such wrong things happening in real estate business.There are many things to talk about.What I have discovered so far about real estate domain, can be seen at my real estate blog on this forum. I am looking forward to hearing your opinion and propose other interesting subjects about this matter.

**fmike630** · 11-17-2008, 04:03 AM

Mr Reo,

They are a local Brokerage with an International presence. They will be forever tarnished for not advertising like they promised. When the signed up the desperate sellers they put high numbers for what they expected properties to sell for.

They should have at least held a follow up auction at their expense to show good faith.

It appeared they were just trying to make money n this difficult time and again owners lose.

This just gives the hard working and honest Realtor more to fight against.